Clan Jardine
Jardine is a Norman-French name — from jardin, a garden — carried into the Scottish Borders with the Anglo-Norman settlement of the twelfth century. Wmfredus de Jardin, the spelling varies, appears as a witness in charters to Kelso Abbey and Arbroath Abbey before 1153. A witness list is the firmest kind of early record, and it means the family can be placed in Scotland with reasonable confidence nearly nine centuries ago. By the fourteenth century the Jardines were established at Applegirth on the River Annan in Dumfriesshire. Spedlins Tower was the first stronghold; it was abandoned in the late seventeenth century for Jardine Hall across the river.
In 1524 Sir Alexander Jardine joined Lord Maxwell in routing an English force near Carlisle and took around three hundred prisoners. In 1547, after Pinkie, Lord Wharton’s forces overran Annandale and ravaged the Jardine lands; the Jardines retaliated later the same year with French troops. The baronetcy of Jardine of Applegirth was created on 25 May 1672. The present chief, Sir William Murray Jardine of Applegirth, 13th Baronet, was born in 1984 and succeeded in 2008. Unlike many Border families, the Jardine line has no dormancy in its history.
The Jardine tartan
The Scottish Register of Tartans holds four Jardine entries, all in the Clan/Family category: Jardine (reference 1881), Jardine #2 (1882), Jardine Dress (1883) and Jardine of Castlemilk (1884). Four entries, but not four tartans. Jardine and Jardine of Castlemilk share an identical 280-thread structure and differ only in colour, which makes Castlemilk a recolour of the Jardine sett rather than an independent one. Jardine #2 is a smaller variant of the same design family. Jardine Dress, at 337 threads with a completely different stripe sequence, dates from 1991 and genuinely is a separate tartan.
A note on honesty: so the four entries amount to two distinct setts. No designer or weaver is named for any of them, and there is no Wilsons of Bannockburn connection. Jardine does not appear in the Vestiarium Scoticum. The earliest date attached to any Jardine sett is in the later twentieth century, so there is no ancient Jardine tartan, and Modern, Ancient and Weathered versions are dye shades of the base sett — colourways, not separate tartans.
Clan facts
| Chief | Sir William Murray Jardine of Applegirth, 13th Baronet, 24th Chief of the Name and Arms of Jardine |
|---|---|
| Gaelic patronymic | Not recorded — a Norman-French Border name |
| Motto | Cave Adsum — “Beware, I am here” |
| Plant badge | Apple blossom |
| Lands | Applegirth on the River Annan, Dumfriesshire; Spedlins Tower, later Jardine Hall |