Fraser (1745)
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 RBRGRW.
Part of the Fraser tartan — the named design grouping this sett with its other cloths.
Sourced from register-of-tartans. It is a 6 stripe tartan.
Original link https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=1247
2 attestations — the source records this cloth was collapsed from (oldest owns this page)
- 01/01/1745 — Fraser (1745) (register-of-tartans, record)
The Vestiarium Scoticum sett is the most popular Fraser tartan. Scottish Tartans Society notes state: Early references include Wilson's of Bannockburn, but Wilson did not name the sett. D.W. Stewart contends that this is in fact an early Grant tartan which he traced to a portrait of Robert Grant of Lurg (1678-1771), hanging at Troup House before it was closed around 1894. It is undoubtedly the most popular Fraser pattern today. See Grant of Lurg at #527 (original Scottish Tartans Authority reference). An early Kilbarchan sample has the green and blue so dark as to appear black which produces a quite different tartan In their 1850 book 'The Clan and Family Tartans of Scotland' W and A Smith of Mauchline wrote: 'We addressed Lord Lovat on the subject of the Frazer Tartan, who writes, - 'I many years ago took a great deal of trouble to find out the old set, and I ascertained, beyond all doubt, from the evidence of old people and old plaids, that the Frazer Tartan, previous to the year 1745, was the same pattern I now send you.' Lochcarron swatch. - 1829 Cromarty Ms — Fraser - 1842 (Clan) (tartans-authority, record)
This sett has always been regarded as the clan tartan of the Frasers of Lovat long before the Sobieski Stuarts included it in their 1842 Vestiarium Scoticum. In their 1850 book "The Clan and Family Tartans of Scotland" William and Andrew Smith of Mauchline wrote: "We addressed Lord Lovat on the subject of the Frazer Tartan, who writes us, - 'I many years ago took a great deal of trouble to find out the old set, and I ascertained, beyond all doubt, from the evidence of old people and old plaids, that the Frazer Tartan, previous to the year 1745, was the same pattern I now send you." On May 1, 1984, by decree of the Court of the Lord Lyon, the 21st Lady Saltoun was made "Chief of the name and arms of the whole Clan Fraser". Lord Lovat, Simon Christopher Joseph Fraser, was reported to have not given any heed to the decision, dismissing the matter as being beneath him.[25] Since this decree, there has been much confusion as to who is the Chief of the Clan Fraser. Many believe that this decree made the Lady Saltoun the chief of the Clan. However, the Lord Lyon did not grant the chiefship of the Clan Fraser, just a description of "Chief of the name and arms." The Lord Lyon does not have power over the Chief of a Highland Clan. What the decree did was reinforce the Lady Saltoun's claim to being the head of the senior branch of the wider Fraser family, and granted her the use of the plain and undifferenced Fraser arms (three strawberry flowers on a field of blue).The current Lord Lovat, Simon Fraser retains the chiefship. STS notes state: Early references include Wilson's of Bannockburn, but Wilson did not name the sett. D W Stewart contends that this is in fact an early Grant tartan which he traced to a portrait of Robert Grant of Lurg (1678-1771), hanging at Troup House before it was closed around 1894. An early Kilbarchan sample has the green and blue so dark as to appear black which produces a quite different tartan. A claim by the Smiths is not the same as proof. There is no 'evidence' of this sett exisiting prior to the rough date of the Sobieskies' Cromarty Mss. PEM Dec 10.
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
- 1745 (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: 1247
- Scottish Tartans Authority (ITI): 1424
- Scottish Tartans World Register: 1424
Thread count
R/4 DB24 R4 G24 R48 W/2
One full sett is 206 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| DB | #082077 #082077 | oklch(30.0% 0.149 265.1) |
| G | #008B2A #008B2A | oklch(55.4% 0.170 145.9) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
| W | #F7F7F7 #F7F7F7 | oklch(97.6% 0.000 89.9) |
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.
ΔTartan
Threads
Variant
Sett
—
206
206
52
104
104
196
422
65
130
75
150
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/s6/r2db12r2g12r24w1~x2/