Image: 71st MacLeod's Highlanders drummers' plaid tartan, offset

Description: This is probably the drummers' plaid tartan of MacLeod's Highlanders (73rd, later 71st, Regiment of Foot, raised 1777–78), and possibly also of two closely associated units that used the same main tartan as MacLeod's: the original Seaforth Highland Regiment (78th, later 72nd, raised 1778), and the 78th (Highlanders) also known as the Ross-shire Buffs, raised 1793, before they amalgamated into Seaforth's. This tartan was recorded in records of main military tartan weaver Wilsons of Bannockburn c. 1790s as simply "MacLeod's Highlanders", but we know from other sources that MacLeod's, along with the original Seaforth's and Ross-shire used as their main tartan the "the Mackenzie–MacLeod sett"; and this tartan is just a variant of the 42nd (Black Watch) Regiment's drummers' plaid sett. So, it is probably the drummers' plaid of the 71st MacLeod's (not to be confused with 71st Fraser's). If it was not used as their drummers' plaid, it is unclear whether it ever saw any actual deployment, and may simply have been a design that Wilsons came up with for them but which they did not end up using. This image is not exactly full-sett, and cannot tile horizontally and vertically; this offset and slightly zoomed-out version was created for tabular comparison to other regimental tartans. Scottish Register of Tartans notes on this design (with typos fixed): "Threadcount taken from a Wilsons of Bannockburn pattern book. William Wilsons was a weaving firm founded c1770 at Bannockburn near Stirling. The pattern books are held by National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh. Copies of the pattern books and correspondence are in the Scottish Tartans Society archive. See also 42nd Drummers' Plaid at SRT #283." This is a normal, mirroring tartan. SRT-provided threadcount, in slash notation: /B24 R4 W4 R4 W4 K24 G22 K4 W4 K4 G22 K24 B22 K4 R4/ or in bold notation: B24 R4 W4 R4 W4 K24 G22 K4 W4 K4 G22 K24 B22 K4 R4
Title: 71st MacLeod's Highlanders drummers' plaid tartan, offset
Credit: Own work
Author: SMcCandlish, using the old Windows software Textile32
Permission: Public domain
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication
License: CC0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en
Attribution Required?: No