In the United Kingdom, northern regions are often marked by the associations of harsh climate and terrain, historic and contemporary social, cultural and economic marginalisation, low population and poor access to services. Typically perceived as remote and ‘peripheral’ in relation to what tend to be recognised as the central seats of power – London in England, and Edinburgh in Scotland – they have often been regarded as regressive and undeveloped places (Davidson Citation2005), epitomised by declining manufacturing industries and agriculture in the border regions of northern England; or fishing, crofting and ‘community’ in the Scottish islands. On the one hand these ‘at edge’ sites have been variously appropriated as territorial fringe in geo-political conflicts and contested in private and public ownership disputes. On the other, they have been locked into essentialising perceptions of insularity and ‘otherness’, often synonymous with the (primitive, mythical) past, in both past and present-day governance and cultural imaginaries. Conflicts and preconceptions such as these have historically played throughout diverse forms of media representation and cultural engagements and practices, and are still prevalent today.