The illustrated biography of a Scottish country house, set beside the River Clyde, and of the people who made it their home over the past 850 years Written by four brothers, their sister and the eldest member of the next generation, Finlaystone offers an insidersa view of the house, its beautiful gardens and the surrounding estate. They tell about the lives of its former owners, many of whom played prominent roles in Scottish military, political, religious and cultural affairs. As Scotland moved forward from centuries of feuds between large feudal landowners to the reformation, the age of enlightenment and the industrial revolution, the building evolved from a fortress to a modest but attractive family home in 1746. Its present form as an imposing late Victorian mansion dates from when it was modernised and extended in 1900 by George Jardine Kidston, the great-grandfather of the older authors, who had grown wealthy from running one of the worlda s earliest steamship companies. In its hey-day, Finlaystone was managed for the comfort and leisure of its owners by a bevy of household servants living in a wing of the house, and by an army of workers, including gardeners, foresters, game-keepers, joiners and a laundry-maid. The prosperity that had made such a lavish life possible, however, soon started to decline, with George Kidstona s death in 1909, followed just 5 years later by war, the economic depression in the 1930s, and then World War II. Unlike many other large country houses, Finlaystone remains a family home, kept afloat largely by the hard work and adaptability of the members of the family who reflect in this book on the joys and travails that this implied.

The Power of Permaculture Principles is both inspiring and practical, written from years of experience and testing the ideas. Full of stories and case studies, it will enable you to enrich your knowledge of permaculture and how to apply it to your own life.

What is permaculture design? How can you use it in your personal daily life, in your community or in land-based settings?

Permaculture has spread across the world since it was originated by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s as a response to the degradation of land and loss of species caused by industrial farming methods and the rising cost of fossil fuels. The problems of the world today are far more complex as technology advances at an accelerating pace, along with the ever-growing inequality caused by greed and the concentration of power. Viable solutions and emerging alternatives are commonplace but political will has been destroyed by the super-rich.

Permaculture offers principles that are part of a holistic framework and a set of thinking tools that allow us to creatively re-design our environment and our behaviour in an unravelling world, and like a living system, it has evolved and grown. We can demonstrate and develop that these alternatives work, bringing us back to a unity with nature and community.

In this collaborative book, Wilf Richards and a cohort of many of the most experienced permaculture teachers and elders from across Britain and beyond, explore Holmgren’s 12 permaculture principles, retrieve many of Mollison’s original ones, and include principles from many other worldwide permaculture designers. Together they share a history of each principle, its development since being formed and an analysis of how they are being used, understood and applied.

These principles have evolved from indigenous knowledge, observations of nature’s cycles, and the living, teaching and practice of permaculture, over the past 50 years, in many different climates and cultures. They can be applied to our personal, economic, social and political reorganisation. The ethical foundation of permaculture guides us to use these design tools in appropriate ways for the betterment of the land, our wild relatives, and human culture.