Tartan cloth is of undoubted great antiquity, but, contrary to popular belief, there is little or no evidence of Clan Tartans before 1747 and the banning of the wearing of tartan. There are paintings of clan chiefs made in the 17th and 18th centuries, which show them wearing more than one tartan at a time, none of which match current clan tartans. The main means of indicating clan affiliation was the sprig of plant badge worn on the bonnet. After the repeal of the ban in 1782, there was more interest in tartan, but it was not until Sir Walter Scott’s romantic Waverley Novels, that interest surged about the highlands and their tartans. It was 1817, before the issuing of the Wilson’s pattern book, that our Chief, John Lamont, registered the Lamont tartan.