Braco 200: The complete history of Ardoch House

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that Ardoch House is a massive fascination of mine ! It began because I used to search for bones on the old Ardoch Estate, which is the nearest wood to my village, and I discovered the old ice houses there. After I blogged about that in 2011, Mr Forbes in Canada emailed me, because he had visited the old Ardoch estate in 1984 while researching his family history, found the derelict house, but when he came back in 1989 the house had completely vanished !

 I blogged about the mystery of where it had gone in 2012, and did some more research at RCHAMS shortly after. I also blogged about the old Roman Fort, which was next to the house, and how I found an ancient tunnel, as well as researching the Ardoch House murder. Every time I have done a new post I have had emails from people who have been researching their family history, and found a connection to Ardoch House.

Since then I have done a lot of research through newspaper archives, so I decided to put everything I found in one place, which I will update whenever I find something new. I know it's not bones or wildlife - but I'll be back to that with my next post !

Newsround, Radio 4 and the Hunterian

Since I was named as one of the most influential conservationists by BBC Wildlife Magazine I've been incredibly busy with media things. This last week is probably the last of the main appearances for a bit, but what a week it's been !

On Tuesday CBBC Newsround ran a piece about me that they filmed the week before, and yesterday morning I was live on  BBC Radio 4's on Saturday Live programme with Reginald D Hunter, Andre Anderson and Juliet Russell - after which I met up with my editor Jo and Paolo Viscardi, who was the scientific advisor on my book ! This is how it went....

Where you can find me this week....

I've got another busy week coming up this week, and this is where you can find me....

• I was filmed for Newsround last week, talking about BBC Wildlife Power List and showing the amazing Martin Dougan where to find bones. That is set to go out on Wednesday at 4.20pm on CBBC (but might change !)

• I'm on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live programme on Saturday at 9.00am. I'll be in the studio at Broadcasting House ( where I was last there for The One Show, just before Christmas).

• Next Monday A week on Monday I'll have a piece about exploring for bones for the Big Issue's "Pause" column - I think it's in all the UK editions, but will have to check to make sure.

• And I've got two big talks coming up; one in England in August and one in Scotland in October . I'll post about those nearer the time !

I'll probably do a quick behind the scenes blog post about Newsround and Radio 4 next week, as well as links to watch/listen to the programmes.

Finding the badgers

For a long time, whenever anyone asked what wildlife lived near me, I always used to say that there were no badgers nearby.  Even though I had often seen badgers dead by the motorway, about 15 miles south of here, I always assumed that there weren't any nearby.

I had asked the local gamekeepers, all of whom denied seeing anything nearby, and I had kept my eyes open but never saw anything even close.  Even after I found the dead badger about a mile from my house, I didn't get much further. It was only in the last few months that I decided to take a closer look...and this is what I found !

Two big BBC appearances

As you'll know from my last three posts, I had a pretty busy week with doing media things last week. It began with being included on the BBC Wildlife Magazine power list, and I was featured in all sorts of newspapers because of that, then my book was shortlisted for the Royal Society Young People's Book Award, which brought more publicity as well.

During the week I got two calls, one from BBC Radio Scotland in Glasgow, and one from the BBC Breakfast programme in Manchester. I was happy to agree to both, and this is week's post about what it was like to be behind the scenes there !

My brilliant news, part three....

Okay, this has been one of the busiest weeks I can remember...I'm even in The Times today (Scottish edition and website)....and to end it, tomorrow (Sunday) morning I'll be on the sofa at the BBC Breakfast studio in Manchester, talking about bone collecting, being on the BBC Wildlife Power List, and about how it feels to have my book shortlisted for the Royal Society Young Person's Book Award !

I'm pretty excited about that. I'll be tweeting while I am down in England (a small country to the south of Scotland) and next week I'll be blogging about what that was like as well as what it was like behind the scenes with my interview with Kaye Adams on BBC Radio Scotland earlier this week ! 

My brilliant news part two...

This seems to be the week where everything is happening. I've known about this news for a few weeks, but it had to be kept quiet until it was officially announced !

Anyway - I am SO proud that my book has been shortlisted as one of the six contenders in the running for the 2015 Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize, awarded annually to the best science book for children aged up to 14. (That is, books aimed at people up to 14, not written by them, although mine is both)

The winning book will be chosen by groups of young people from over 100 schools and youth groups across the UK, and will be announced at a dinner in London in November. It's a huge achievement just to be on the shortlist, and it shows how amazing my editor Jo Bourne and publisher Octopus are. Here's the full shortlist.... and I have one more bit of great news this week, and I will announce that in the next few days !

My brilliant news, part one....

Sooo....it's been a busy week !

I did say last week that I had some news to announce: I'm in the BBC Wildlife Magazine's "Power List" of the most influential conservationists. I'm ranked at #40, which is a bit of a surprise since I'm not even one of the top 40 most influential people even in my own house, but thank you to everyone at  BBC Wildlife Magazine for including me, and for the panel of experts for choosing me as well ! And a big congratulations to the other brilliant teenagers Findlay Wilde and Georgia Locock who are on the list - they are both amazing naturalists and bloggers.

I'm appearing tomorrow (Thursday) on BBC Radio Scotland to talk about this with Kaye Adams at 11.30am, which I'm really looking forward to. My second bit of news probably won't be announced until a bit later in the week, possibly even at the weekend. But here's some of the news coverage from this week !

One simple change that could save animals' lives

This is going to be a bit of a busy week for me blogging, because I've got an announcement tomorrow (some of you might know what it's going to be about) and more news on Thursday (bet you don't know that one, though).

Anyway - I thought I would take the opportunity of tomorrow's news to write about something that has been bothering me for a while - something that kills animals, and that could be easily fixed with one small change. And here it is....

The mystery of red/blue 57

I've written before about the odd things I find in the countryside when I'm searching for bones, like 150 year old pottery, old poison bottles or metal propellors and cow hooves.  This week's post is about finding something that will be obvious to some, but will need explaining to others.

These two tags were up on a part of the estate near my village, up close to the castle. It's partly woodland, partly scrub clearings and partly an old fishing lake, and it's petty much unexplored and deserted. More importantly, there are a few red deer down here, as well as roe deer. But when I found these numbered tags, there weren't any deer to be seen - but there was another mystery to be solved.