Red Lichtie
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 GBGBGBBWBBRBRBRWBRW.
Part of the Red Lichtie tartan — the named design grouping this sett with its other cloths.
Sourced from register-of-tartans. It is a 19 stripe tartan.
Original link https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=10662
Provenance
Earliest known date: 29/07/2012 Arbroath’s official district tartan was adopted by the Royal Burgh of Arbroath Community Council, 5th Oct 2012. For all, far and near, who have associations with Arbroath. ‘Red Lichtie’ is Scottish north east coast dialect for ‘red light’. Residents of Arbroath, a fishing town on the Scottish north east coast, are affectionately known as ‘Red Lichties’, an ancient nickname that local Arbroathians, as well as those abroad, adopt with a sense of pride. Shrouded in folklore, with different stories being told through the ages, one notable tale is of the ‘Round O’ window of Arbroath Abbey being lit at night with a flame guiding seamen returning from sea. Such a light would certainly have shown mariners where Arbroath was but any ship using it would find itself running aground somewhere east of the actual harbour entrance. More likely the name originates from Arbroath’s original Parish Church, known as the Lady Chapel. Founded some time before 1455, and located at the north east corner of the marina where the Harbour Master’s office stands today, the chapel fell out of use around 1590. Inside the chapel there burned a red lamp. It is suggested that the folk of Arbroath were familiar with this red lamp or ‘licht’, which is the likely source of the ‘Red Lichtie’ name which they are today all so proud of.
2 attestations — the source records this cloth was collapsed from (oldest owns this page)
- 29/07/2012 — Red Lichtie (register-of-tartans, record)
Arbroath’s official district tartan was adopted by the Royal Burgh of Arbroath Community Council, 5th Oct 2012. For all, far and near, who have associations with Arbroath. ‘Red Lichtie’ is Scottish north east coast dialect for ‘red light’. Residents of Arbroath, a fishing town on the Scottish north east coast, are affectionately known as ‘Red Lichties’, an ancient nickname that local Arbroathians, as well as those abroad, adopt with a sense of pride. Shrouded in folklore, with different stories being told through the ages, one notable tale is of the ‘Round O’ window of Arbroath Abbey being lit at night with a flame guiding seamen returning from sea. Such a light would certainly have shown mariners where Arbroath was but any ship using it would find itself running aground somewhere east of the actual harbour entrance. More likely the name originates from Arbroath’s original Parish Church, known as the Lady Chapel. Founded some time before 1455, and located at the north east corner of the marina where the Harbour Master’s office stands today, the chapel fell out of use around 1590. Inside the chapel there burned a red lamp. It is suggested that the folk of Arbroath were familiar with this red lamp or ‘licht’, which is the likely source of the ‘Red Lichtie’ name which they are today all so proud of. Colours: the white, scarlet and red depict the ‘Red Licht’ and the blues represent the maritime and fishing histories of Arbroath; dark blue representing deep water, the boat building and shipping industries; light blue representing shallow water and the fishing industry; red represents the red sandstone of Arbroath Abbey, and other buildings of the town; the five gold lines (converging on a red background) represent the iconic portcullis (the primary element in the Arbroath Coat of Arms), which used to be located at the entrance of Arbroath Abbey; the maroon shade represents the Arbroath FC, historically also known as ‘The Red Lichties’. Founded in 1878 the club adopted a plain maroon jersey, inspired by the prominent local red sandstone. This remaining their colour ever since. Visit the registrant's website for historical references on the nickname. - 29/07/2012 — Red Lichtie District Tartan (house-of-tartan, record)
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
- 29/07/2012 (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: 10662
Thread count
W/6 R4 DR2 W2 R18 DR2 R4 DR4 R2 DR54 DB2 LB4 DR2 DB22 DY2 DR4 DY2 DR4 DY/2
One full sett is 276 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| LB | #B5BBDE #B5BBDE | oklch(79.9% 0.050 277.6) |
| DB | #082077 #082077 | oklch(30.0% 0.149 265.1) |
| DR | #55120C #55120C | oklch(30.0% 0.099 29.3) |
| DY | #3A2B0D #3A2B0D | oklch(30.0% 0.049 82.0) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
| W | #F7F7F7 #F7F7F7 | oklch(97.6% 0.000 89.9) |
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/s19/w3r2dr1w1r9dr1r2dr2r1dr27db1lb2dr1db11dy1dr2dy1dr2dy1~x2/