Malcolm (1840)
This is one variant — a specific cloth: this exact thread count and colourway, with its own provenance below. It is one weaving of the sett (the scale-free proportion — the same cloth at any scale or shade), whose colour order is pattern BRBYBKGKGKWKGK.
Part of the Malcolm tartan — the named design grouping this sett with its other cloths.
Sourced from register-of-tartans. It is a 14 stripe tartan.
Original link https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=2793
2 attestations — the source records this cloth was collapsed from (oldest owns this page)
- 01/01/1840 — Malcolm (1840) (register-of-tartans, record)
Count (halved to fit screen) taken by Peter MacDonald from a sample book of Wilson patterns which, judging by the other samples, Peter MacDonald dates as c1840. The pattern is interesting because it utilises two shades of red: scarlet and rose. Given that the sample is the oldest example of the Malcolm tartan, one must ask whether this should in fact be the correct sett. - 1840 — Malcolm (1840) (tartans-authority, record)
Asymmetric. Count (halved to fit screen) taken by Peter MacDonald from a sample book of Wilson patterns which, judging by the other samples, P E MacD dates as c1840. The pattern is interesting because it utilises two shades of red: scarlet and rose. Given that the sample is the oldest example of the Malcolm tartan, one must ask whether this should in fact be the correct sett?
Dataset — provenance for this record, inherited from the source manifest
- source
- Scottish Register of Tartans
- data captured from
- https://github.com/thetartan/tartan-database/blob/master/data/register-of-tartans/data.csv
- data date
- 1840 (this record)
- licence
- Crown copyright
Capture chain — the hands this data passed through, oldest first; each capture carries its own licence
- Scottish Register of Tartans · Crown copyright
the living register — still published by National Records of Scotland - thetartan/tartan-database 2016-2017 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Levko Kravets's frozen compilation — the capture we vendored, and where its CC licence text came from - this dictionary captured 2026-06-10 · commit 5bf86c7566
each re-capture is a git commit to data/sources
Register references
External register numbers recorded for this tartan.
- Scottish Register of Tartans: 2793
- Scottish Tartans Authority (ITI): 6470
Thread count
K/21 DG21 K6 LB4 K6 Y4 K6 DG21 K21 DB25 LR4 DB6 R4 DB/21
One full sett is 298 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| DB | #082077 #082077 | oklch(30.0% 0.149 265.1) |
| DG | #053819 #053819 | oklch(30.0% 0.075 151.3) |
| K | #000000 #000000 | oklch(0.0% 0.000 0.0) |
| LB | #B5BBDE #B5BBDE | oklch(79.9% 0.050 277.6) |
| LR | #E08070 #E08070 | oklch(70.1% 0.122 30.4) |
| R | #C80000 #C80000 | oklch(52.3% 0.215 29.2) |
| Y | #8B6E00 #8B6E00 | oklch(55.1% 0.113 90.4) |
Sample pattern
Compared to the master
This cloth is one sett of its design; the master sett (the exemplar the design is anchored on) is below for comparison.
Its ΔTartan distance from the master is 0.55 — the same measure the nearest-tartans table ranks by (0 is identical; a re-scale of the same cloth is near 0, a recolour or a different proportion further).
this sett
master sett ★Nearest tartan variants
The nearest existing variants by ΔTartan distance, with this cloth at the top so the swatches line up against it.
Neighbour map
Every grey dot is one of 13621 variants placed by the first two principal components of the ΔTartan feature space (42% of its variance). Red is this tartan; blue dots are its nearest — click one to open its page.
ID: /variants/s14/k21dg21k6lb4k6y4k6dg21k21db25lr4db6r4db21~lr2805035-r2109032/