OPEN LETTERS
During our campaign to have the bells and the site of Holywood recognised for what they are, we have, to date, written over two thousand letters and emails, and over a thousand more, if we include emails and letters supporting our ongoing research activity. Research never stops, because Digger and I’s learning and challenge of what we think we know is never completed, or ever satisfied.
We have cast a significant net over the globe to find help; expertise and information regarding both the areas of our study, and support to have our research fairly and prudently considered; important research because it fills a significant gap in Scottish medieval history, and more importantly fills a gap in understanding of both bell archaeology and the medieval secular clergy.
As well as expertise to help us understand the areas of our research, we needed to test our conclusions. We needed credentialed support to bolster any merit we presented, and reasoned argument to challenge our research, if it erred.
Whereas we can report mainly a positive response by those we contacted in matters of investigation and research, we cannot report the same willingness to assist when it came to objective third party authentication of our investigation, or support to help us overcome the obvious obstruction and blatant prejudice we were encountering.
Even those within the establishment, who had supported our investigation and even lauded our conclusions were reticent to help, most likely because they operated in a universal environment of academic and institutional elitism—prejudiced against anyone outside the institution—particularly when merit challenged conceit.
In our journey to have our work recognised for the merit it brings, we have generated a great deal of correspondence with, and to, politicians, heritage agencies, specialist archivists and archaeologists, the community, Scottish governance, the legal sector, academia, scholars, Christian institutions, celebrity historians, writers, journalists—even those in the public eye with only a tentative connection to our case. Some responded cordially, divorcing themselves from responsibly to help us, and that was fair enough—it was not their battle. But too many, far too many, have simply ignored us, and whereas we can forgive the individual, with a deficit of time at their disposal to respond, we cannot forgive the institution or organisation that exists to consider and safeguard what we have found—history.
We particularly condemn those organisations funded partly or wholly by the public, or through public-funded grants. These institutions and organisations only exist because they can justify that existence because of either public involvement, historical study, or heritage safeguarding—for the benefit of the public and society. They cannot divorce themselves from misbehaviour or excuse themes of ignorance, indolence, prejudice, unprofessionalism and indifference. Avoidance and refusal to answer repeated petitions does not commend an institution or an organisation in terms of public benefit, particularly when it is the public that largely funds its education and heritage safeguarding activities—and when the establishment’s misbehaviour directly harms the public and promotes public exclusion.
During our campaign, we have tried to include a publicly accessible record of any key correspondence within articles on our website, particularly correspondence concerning the public interest, so that the public can interrogate both the sincerity of our petitions, the value of what we are trying to achieve, and the quality of the establishment’s response. But with letters and emails going out every week, the articles designed to showcase them are backing up in draft. So, in a change of strategy; to give us more time to complete articles waiting in abeyance, we are going to publish our latest key correspondence on our website and broadcast them on our YouTube channel as a series of open letters.
Of course, after five years of trying to breach the establishment’s bureaucratic defences, we expect nothing but fudged responses, more evasion, more obfuscation, and non-replies, but we will keep communicating nonetheless, with replies, if we receive them, published on our website, alongside the original open letter.
The establishment may think indifference, ignorance, indolence, and evasion are sound strategies to keep them clear of an uncomfortable issue, but until someone offers up a supportable convincing argument why we may be wrong about the bells of Holywood, we will keep on corresponding—poking and prodding—because with every return, every excuse, every non-response, and every intentioned snub; further deceit and indifference is revealed; further contradiction and evidence that illustrate Scotland’s public services and its heritage gatekeepers are filled with malignancy not merit, and that Scottish history is in peril if it is left in the hands of Scottish heritage governance or academia, because the truth is and the evidence shows, they are not fit for purpose.
Copies of letters will be sent to twenty UK newspapers, who to date have largely overlooked a significant story in favour of trite reporting on aspects of our case. We will continue to copy in newspapers, making them part of the story, until we prick the attention of a journalist who is prepared to invest themselves in our extraordinary crusade and look deeper at the significant issues we illustrate, because it is in the public interest; not because it is history found—but because we add illustration that the prime societal institution is failing the public—education.
Letters and responses will form part of testimony in future legal battles, demonstrating the absence of support for two members of the public attempting to meet the government’s aim of heritage sustainability and education’s aim to improve knowledge through understanding via evidence and research, rather than reliance on unevidenced and conceited opinion and speculation.
Letter, dated 21 September 2026, to Scotland’s First Minister
What is Scotland without its history?
Scotland evidences a substantial environment of public and political indifference with regards to any dynamic safeguarding of its heritage; as headlined by its lead heritage agency, Historic Environment Scotland’s catastrophic failure, orchestrated over decades of weak governance, leadership and outcome, and presented in the poor condition of heritage lining Scottish streets and standing within sites of historic interest. Our letter highlights two people’s efforts to prevent Holywood, an important spiritual site, five thousand years in the making becoming lost in the acres of rotting heritage, through a persistent lack of merit exhibited both locally and institutionally.
(Response from First Minster still pending: last updated 12 October 2026)
Letter, dated 28 September 2026, to the Director of Heritage; Historic Environment Scotland
What real value does Historic Environment Scotland bring to Scottish heritage?
In 2021, Historic Environment Scotland visited Holywood, with the intention to evaluate the archaeology found during development of the church.
However, for five years the agency has avoided sharing its evaluation with the developers. Instead, the agency has employed excuse after excuse why it will not share its appraisal of the archaeology found. Its latest excuse claims the appraisal of the archaeology is purely an academic institutional matter, thus rendering its own qualified, in-house archaeological and historical expertise incompetent, as well as any, and all, specialist academic contribution to the developers’ investigation and specialist academic review of that investigation.
Our open letter asks, in response to the agency’s avoidance, how Historic Environment Scotland can claim to be in the forefront of researching, promoting and safeguarding Scotland’s heritage environment, when its actions and ability appear to be in direct conflict with its published mission statement, and in direct conflict with the Scottish public’s trust and benefit.
Response from Historical Environment Scotland, dated 7 October 2026
The response from HES was helpful, only in that provided further testimony that the agency was determined to renege on its duty and its responsibilities to investigate, promote and safeguard the Scottish heritage environment, again refusing to discuss the issues raised; instead hiding behind a planning dispute which was neither raised nor relevant to the points laid out in our letter, but merely a consequence of the agency's scandalous refusal to carry out its responsibility.
Letter to the Chief executive of Dumfries and Galloway Council, dated 5 October 2026
Abdication of responsibility, dereliction of duty, and institutional evasion; terms to describe the local authority’s behaviour concerning the development of Holywood Church. But what is the root of its misbehaviour?
We asked the chief executive of Dumfries and Galloway Council, in an open letter, why the council has not carried out appraisal of the archaeology uncovered during development works, despite it being national policy and practice.
The council are fully aware no development work, in law, is allowed to continue until the council decides whether and how any development as planned can progress, weighing the nature of archaeology uncovered as a material consideration under any policy framework. Yet the council insists we, as developers, carry out invasive work, despite the archaeology, and without the council's appraisal, all to make safe the bell tower and hearse house, so any archaeology temporarily removed can be returned to the undeveloped property. If we did, we would be breaking the law (again).
The council has no reputation for failure in its responsibility to attend development projects regarding archaeological maters, so why is Holywood different? Can we assume the council, like Historic Environment Scotland, is avoiding the archaeology found, and its responsibilities, because it accepts the archaeology’s remarkable provenance, and simply does not want to get involved—particularly as its archaeological officer, like the leading academic and museum specialists, will not be able to fabricate any supportable opinion, to denigrate the evidence, discovery and competence of the developers?
Actions often speak louder than words, and the council’s behaviour, like Historic Envirornment Scotland implies they likely consider the discovery genuine, and simply do not want to be the institution that authenticates it. In fact, another gross breach of public trust, and a purposed dereliction of duty.
