Plate No. 037 · tartan

Rob Roy

Rob Roy is the simplest tartan there is: equal blocks of red and black, crossing in a balanced check with no overcheck at all. It is the basic check of tartan design taken to its limit, and it carries the name of Rob Roy MacGregor, the early eighteenth century cattleman and outlaw romanticized by Walter Scott. In North America the same equal red and black check, scaled up and woven in heavy wool, became lumberjack cloth, the direct ancestor of buffalo check.