The two photographs show the construction of the map c.1976-77

General Maczek’s Great Polish Map of Scotland stands in the grounds of Barony Castle, Eddleston, once the home of the Murrays of Elibank, later known as the Black Barony Hotel.

In the war years the house and grounds were used by the Polish Army as a Staff College for officer training.

Some say a much smaller outdoor outline map was one of the features used to help plan the defence of the Scottish coastline which was under threat of invasion after the fall of Norway.

Set in the open air in the Peeblesshire landscape at Eddleston, The Great Polish Map of Scotland as a permanent three-dimensional reminder of Scotland’s hospitality to the Polish Forces. It was also a powerful symbol of their role in protecting Scotland from invasion in wartime.

Construction began in 1974 with most of the coastline and relief of Scotland being precisely laid out in 1975 by Kazimierz Trafas, a young Polish student geographer-planner from the Jagiellonian University at Cracow, with a few of his Polish colleagues.

Engineering infrastructure was put in place to surround it with a sea of water and some of the main rivers were even arranged to flow from headwaters pumped into the mountains.

The Map can be found in the grounds of the Barony Castle Hotel near Eddleston

Contact Details :
Barony Castle Hotel
Eddleston, Peebles, Tweeddale,
Web : www.mapascotland.org