‘The Boat in the Writing Room’ Film Screening

‘The Boat in the Writing Room: retracing the origins of Stonypath, Little Sparta’ Film Screening
6 – 8pm Thursday 20th November 2025
Reid Lecture Theatre
Free but ticketed – Book via Eventbrite

The Boat in the Writing Room: retracing the origins of Stonypath, Little Sparta is a new documentary film about the year Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925 – 2006) and his family spent at Gledfield Farmhouse, Sutherland, Scotland, 1965-66. This proved to be a transformational phase, now almost forgotten, in the early career of the Scottish poet, artist and landscape designer. This special screening has been programmed to coincide with the centenary exhibition , on show in the Garnethill Gallery until the 22nd November. Following the screening, there will be a short Q+A with Alistair Peebles.

Rarely discussed, the year Finlay and his family spent at Gledfield represented a crucial stage between his concrete poems on the page, and three-dimensional works. Successful in their own right, these showed the way towards later work at Stonypath/ Little Sparta, and also helped prompt his move towards classicism. It was at Gledfield too that he and his partner Sue Finlay (now Swan) first began gardening. Having left Edinburgh for Gledfield in May 1965, they stayed there until June 1966, arriving that October via rural East Fife at Stonypath: the rest, largely, is history. At Gledfield Finlay created his earliest large scale works in garden and architectural settings – including boats and ponds, a perennial theme and the heart of later garden developments. He began to realise ideas in other media, including glass, and continued to produce work through the Wild Hawthorn Press. His crucially important practice of collaborative working began to become established.

Featuring many photographs of life and work at the site, previously unseen, the film contains a now unique record of its appearance, and of Finlay’s physical interventions there. Removed by him when an argument arose with the landlords, what remained has now been permanently erased by redevelopment. In addition to other early landscapes, including Perthshire and Orkney, the film also includes photographs of the Stonypath farmstead as it was in 1966, and of Little Sparta as it looks now. The film features contributions from Sue Swan, early collaborators Michael Hamish Glen and Peter Lyle, and not least Professor Stephen Bann, Finlay’s friend and “preferred commentator” (Alec Finlay). The film evokes in detail the Gledfield era, and demonstrates its significance as a transitional phase in Finlay’s career.

The Boat in the Writing Room is an independent, not-for-profit production. Any proceeds from the screening of the film will be donated to the Little Sparta Trust. Written and presented by Finlay biographer Alistair Peebles and directed by Michael Lloyd, the film is an educational co-production between flytingfilms/ Creative Dialogue and Brae Editions.

Alistair Peebles has lived in Orkney with his family since 1985. Formerly a teacher of English, he retired from outside employment in 2005, founding Brae Editions in 2008. A co-production with flytingfilms, The Boat in the Writing Room is its first substantial film project (cf. The Gledfield Effect, Brae Editions, 2020). His biography of Ian Hamilton Finlay, which is expected to be in manuscript by spring 2028, will mainly concern the poet’s life to 1967. Rousay Mending, a centenary homage, is to appear in October 2025, and in spring 2026, responding to IHF’s Gods of the Earth/ Gods of the Sea (Pier Arts Centre, Rousay, 2005), and in association with the PAC, An Orcadian Arcadia.

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