Hong Kong Police Pipe Band
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 KWGWGRKRGWWKRGWGRKWWGRKRGWGWKR.
Sourced from register-of-tartans. It is a 30 stripe tartan.
Original link https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=1759
4 attestations — the source records this cloth was collapsed from (oldest owns this page)
- 01/01/1850 — Hong Kong Police Pipe Band (register-of-tartans, record)
Sindex notes state that this is the Mackintosh tartan and permission was granted by the Chief c.1979 for the band to wear this. Sample in Scottish Tartans Authority's Dalgety Collection. - 01/01/1850 — MacKintosh (Chief) (register-of-tartans, record)
Scarlett count used (261). Logan wrote 'The Chief also wears a particular taran of a very showy pattern' and the Smiths of Mauchline illustrated it in their 1850 book 'Authenticated Tartans of the Clans & Families of Scotland' commenting 'We have every reason to believe that this Tartan is the genuine set which has been worn by the Chiefs of this distinguished Clan, for many generations. Our reason for giving it, as well as some others which have similar claims to a place in our work, is that the Chief did, in some instances, wear a Tartan different from his Clan - which sets were also considered hereditary.' If the 'many generations' claim is correct and we assume three generations then that would place this tartan in the mid 1700s. Also known as Clan Chattan and with a white line on the red ground, as Clan Chattan Chief. Very close indeed to MacPherson tartan at #682 (original Scottish Tartans Authority reference). Sample in Scottish Tartans Authority's Dalgety Collection. - 1850 — Hong Kong Police Pipe Band (Corp) (tartans-authority, record)
Sindex notes state that this is the Mackintosh tartan and permission was granted by the Chief c.1979 for the band to wear this. Sample in STA Dalgety Collection. - c1800 — MacKintosh Chief - 1819 (Clan) (tartans-authority, record)
Scarlett count used.(261). Logan wrote "The Chief also wears a particular taran of a very showy pattern" and the Smiths of Mauchline illustrated it in their 1850 book "Authenticated Tartans of the Clans & Families of Scotland" commenting " We have every reason to believe that this Tartan is the genuine set which has been worn by the Chiefs of this distinguished Clan, for many generations. Our reason for giving it, as well as some others which have similar claims to a place in our work, is that the Chief did, in some instances, wear a Tartan different from his Clan - which sets were also considered hereditary." If the 'many generations' claim is correct and we assume three generations then that would place this tartan in the mid 1700s. Also known as Clan Chattan and with a white line on the red ground, as Clan Chattan Chief. Very close indeed to MacPherson tartan @ #682. Sample in STA Dalgety Collection.
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
- 1850 (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: 2569
- Scottish Tartans Authority (ITI): 6131
- Scottish Tartans World Register: 1622
Thread count
R/48 K2 W2 DG12 W2 Y4 R4 K2 R4 Y4 W2 LB12 K4 R6 Y6 W2 Y6 R6 K4 LB12 W2 Y4 R4 K2 R4 Y4 W2 DG12 W2 K/2
One full sett is 314 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| LB | #B5BBDE #B5BBDE | oklch(79.9% 0.050 277.6) |
| DG | #053819 #053819 | oklch(30.0% 0.075 151.3) |
| K | #000000 #000000 | oklch(0.0% 0.000 0.0) |
| W | #F7F7F7 #F7F7F7 | oklch(97.6% 0.000 89.9) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
| Y | #8B6E00 #8B6E00 | oklch(55.1% 0.113 90.4) |
Sample pattern
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/s16/r24k1w1dg6w1y2r2k1r2y2w1lb6k2r3y3w1~x2/