MacSporran
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 BRBRBRKGRGRKY.
Part of the MacSporran tartan — the named design grouping this sett with its other cloths.
Sourced from register-of-tartans. It is a 13 stripe tartan.
Original link https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=2764
2 attestations — the source records this cloth was collapsed from (oldest owns this page)
- 01/01/1975 — MacSporran (register-of-tartans, record)
It was reported by the Tartans Society in 1975: 'Last year, John MacSporran, the chieftain-elect of the newly formed Clan MacSporran, visited to discuss the selection of a tartan for his Clan. Legend states that the MacSporrans - undisputed purse-bearers to the Lordhsip of the Isles - bore a gold thread prominently upon their sett. It is understood that efforts are still being made by MacSporran to identify the correct MacDonald or Lord of the Isles sett in which to intrude the traditional gold thread' MacDonald variation. Sample in Scottish Tartans Authority Johnston Collection handwoven by Peter MacDonald. - 1975? — MacSporran (tartans-authority, record)
It was reported by the Tartans Society in 1975: "Last year, John MacSporran, the chieftain-elect of the newly formed Clan MacSporran, visited to discuss the selection of a tartan for his Clan. Legend states that the MacSporrans - undisputed purse-bearers to the Lordship of the Isles - bore a gold thread prominently upon their sett. It is understood that efforts are still being made by MacSporran to identify the correct MacDonald or Lord of the Isles sett in which to intrude the traditional gold thread" MacDonald variation. Sample in Johnston Collection handwoven by Peter MacDonald.
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
- 1975 (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: 2764
- Scottish Tartans Authority (ITI): 495
- Scottish Tartans World Register: 495
Thread count
DB/32 R4 DB6 R8 DB36 R4 K32 DG32 R8 DG6 R4 K4 LY/20
One full sett is 340 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| DB | #082077 #082077 | oklch(30.0% 0.149 265.1) |
| DG | #053819 #053819 | oklch(30.0% 0.075 151.3) |
| K | #000000 #000000 | oklch(0.0% 0.000 0.0) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
| LY | #DCBC32 #DCBC32 | oklch(80.0% 0.150 95.2) |
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.
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/s13/db16r2db3r4db18r2k16dg16r4dg3r2k2ly10~x2/