People from the East Coast

George Granville Leveson-Gower became fabulously wealthy, helped finance Britain’s wars and supported a political reform that weakened his own aristocratic power. Six months before he died, the King rewarded him with the highest non-royal rank available. Yet in Sutherland, he is remembered for something very different.

The woman staring down from Dunrobin’s dining-room wall was no decorative duchess. Harriet stood beside Queen Victoria, became embroiled in a crisis that changed the government and mobilised many women against American slavery. Discover the formidable woman Dunrobin barely explains.

Andrew Carnegie left Scotland poor, returned fabulously wealthy and transformed Skibo Castle. When the first motorists struggled to find fuel on the road north, he appears to have offered them petrol at his own front door.

Edwyn Collins gave us one of Scottish pop’s most memorable instructions, then life forced him to follow it. His extraordinary recovery now continues in the hills above Helmsdale.