About Us

CELTIC ART LIMITED originated in Glasgow in 1945 and then relocated to East Kilbride in the late 1960's, making us a very well established Manufacturing Company with over 50 years of accumulated experience and expertise. This has enabled us to increase our portfolio and strengthen our position as one of the foremost jewellery Manufacturing Companies in Scotland.

Celtic Art Ltd is a family Business run by Managing Director Andy Hynd, his wife Margaret and their daughter, Jennifer Robson.

Our design inspiration and influences are drawn from the rich heritage, left to us by our Celtic ancestors. They indulged their love of ornamenting everyday items, magnificently carved stones, tombs and crosses with representations of beasts, swirls and delicately intertwining patterns. The intricate interlacing appearing in most Celtic designs, with their unbroken ribbons has come to be accepted as a symbolic representation of eternal spiritual life. The Celts created an influential artform, which has survived the Centuries and become widespread throughout the world.

With these influences in mind, here in our modern premises, using both traditional methods and state-of-the-art equipment, our skilled workforce produce high quality, hand made, Sterling Silver and Electroplated Base Metal Jewellery.

The aim of Celtic Art Ltd is the endeavour to maintain the excellence of design and craftsmanship for which we are world-renowned.

8,000 Years of Scottish History in less Than 5 Minutes Reading

Throughout the 8,000 years of Scottish history since the retreat of the glaciers and the appearance of the first nomadic hunters, Scotland has had many peoples from a variety of cultures influencing what it has become today.

On abandoning Scotland in AD165 the Romans left behind the earliest Christian teachings, which were to be further spread in the 5th century by St.Ninian who converted the southern Picts, and later by St.Columba who spread the word among northern tribes.

The Anglo Saxons made progress into Scotland to be halted on the line of the Forth and Clyde by the Scots (who had arrived from Ireland in around AD800) and the northern picts. In AD841 these two peoples united to withstand the ever-increasing threat from the Vikings who had arrived in the late 8thcentury, colonising Orkney, Shetland, northern Scotland and the Western Isles. This Viking threat reinforced links with southwest Scotland effectively driving a wedge between Scotland and England and allowing both to develop independently.

Soon after a united effort in 1018 between two Scottish Kingdoms of Strathclyde and Alba in defeating an English army in Northumberland, Owen, King of Strathclyde died leaving no heir. Malcolm II, King of Alba annexed Strathclyde effectively uniting Scotland and establishing the border on the Tweed.

The Vikings were defeated at the battle of Largs and the north and the Western Isles were sold to the Scots in 1266 with Orkney and Shetland following in 1472.

Malcolm III helped by an English army defeated MacBeth in 1057 transferring kingship from the Celtic majority to the Anglo-Saxon minority, therefore increasing reliance on support from England to retain power.

At this time great artistic achievements were being made throughout Scotland in the construction of ecclesiastical buildings, for example, in Central Scotland, Paisley Abbey and Glasgow Cathedral were being built. A previously unknown feeling of Nationhood began to emerge in the late 13th century following the brutal attempts of King Edward I of England to govern Scotland.

When King Alexander III of Scotland died in a riding accident in 1286 leaving as his heir his fragile infant granddaughter who died soon afterwards, it fell upon King Edward of England to choose between the two most eligible contenders for the throne, John Balliol and Robert Bruce. Having chosen John Balliol, Edward then claimed his feudal rights of him which Balliol refused, Edward then invaded beating the Scottish army at Dunbar and stripped John Balliol of his Kingship and brutishly ruled Scotland through a Governor, John de Warrene.

Then started the struggle to rid Scotland of the hated oppressor Edward Longshanks, as he was known. The first torch in this long and bloody struggle was lit by William Wallace, son of a Knight from Elderslie near Paisley. In 1297 he killed the Sheriff of Lanark William Hesilrig which effectively started the wars of independence, which culminated in the defeat of the English army at Bannockburn in 1314 by Robert the Bruce, crowned King of Scotland in 1306.

In 1561 Mary Queen of Scots arrived in Scotland, in 1568 she witnessed the defeat of her army at Langside now in Glasgow and fled to England where she was held imprisoned by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I until she was finally beheaded at Fotheringay in 1587.

For 300 years after Bannockburn there was intermittent warfare and general lawlessness along the border with England which ended by the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

The attempt to put a Stewart King of the throne was finally ended in 25 minutes in April 1746 at Culloden when Prince Charles Edward Stewart's Clansmen were slaughtered by Government forces led by the Duke of Cumberland, son of King George II. The last battle fought on British soil.