Angus and Kincardine, an area rich in resources, has been of strategic importance for many centuries. The diversity of sights to be found north of the Tay mirrors the variety of historical sites to be found in this part of the country: White Caterhun, north-west of Brechin, dates from the Celtic Iron Age and is a hill-fort, with the largest dry stone wall in Britain; Pictish stones, dating from AD400 on, these ancient monumnets measure up to 14-feet high and bear pagan symbols; Brechin Round Tower, one of only two surviving Irish towers and the site of a monastry in the 11th century; the ruins of Arbroath Abbey, founded by William the Lion; and Claypotts and Edzell, with its walled garden, two of the 16th-century castles in Scotland.
Professor Richard D. Oram F.S.A. (Scot.) is a Scottish historian. He is a professor of medieval and environmental history at the University of Stirling and an honorary lecturer in history at the University of Aberdeen. He is also the director of the Centre for Environmental History and Policy at the University of Stirling.
He received his undergraduate training at the University of St. Andrews, where he also carried out his doctoral research, on medieval Galloway. In 2000 he published The Lordship of Galloway (Birlinn). He has since written a biography of King David I of Scotland (Tempus, 2004), and the High Medieval volume, volume 3, in the New Edinburgh History of Scotland series, entitled Domination and Lordship: Scotland, 1070-1230 (2011).