In a field near Glasgow during the summer of 2024, there was a corner of 1770s North Carolina. On the set of the final season of “Outlander,” men in tricorne hats and women in bonnets milled around outside a trading post hung with animal pelts in a pine forest that had been transformed into a colonial settlement called Fraser’s Ridge. To be there felt, fittingly, like traveling back in time.
“Outlander,” the popular television show based on Diana Gabaldon’s historical fantasy book series of the same name, follows Claire Randall, a married nurse from 1940s England who is transported back to 1744 Scotland, where she falls in love with a Scottish warrior named Jamie Fraser. From there, the new couple and their eventual descendants travel back and forth in time and from Scotland to France, Jamaica and colonial-era America.
The show’s eighth and final season airs on Starz from Friday. Between takes outside the Frasers Ridge meeting house, Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie, said that shooting the last episodes had been emotional for the cast and crew, many of whom have been working on the show for over a decade.
“They had a piper come in and play the theme tune of the show,” he said. “And then I couldn’t stop: I started crying.”
“Outlander” may be coming to an end, but its legacy will continue to be felt in Scotland. Over the 13 years since the production began, it has shot in over 60 locations around the country and has had a profound impact, sometimes called “the ‘Outlander’ effect,” on the local TV and the tourism industries.
North American fans are to thank for both. “They’re the ones that book the tours and spend their summers driving around,” said Matthew B. Roberts, the series’ showrunner and executive producer.
When Starz began making “Outlander,” the book series had sold 20 million copies and was beloved for its blending of genres including historical fiction, romance and sci-fi, as well as for its heroine-driven story. The production had a ready-made fandom poised to love the show.
Still, in interviews, many involved in the show recalled being surprised by the strength of the fan reaction.
Caitríona Balfe, who plays Claire, the heroine, said she remembered going with Heughan to the first fan event that Starz held for the new show in Los Angeles, while filming for Season 1 was still underway. “Nobody had seen anything,” she said, “and over 2,000 people showed up. And Sam and I were just like: What the hell is this?”
Starz released the first season for streaming in two batches, and Alison Hoffman, the network’s president, said she knew she had a hit on her hands when she heard that fans were referring to the break between the drops as “Droughtlander.” “That’s a real sign of passion and engagement,” she said.
When “Outlander” first set up shop in Scotland, the TV industry there was small and underfunded. The show’s studio, Wardpark, was based in a disused cellphone factory when the production began. “It was grim,” Heughan said: “rats and dust, and there was nothing else.”
Now, thanks to the show’s popularity, Wardpark employs hundreds of people out of a well-equipped studio with seven sound stages, production offices, and huge workshops and storerooms full of props and scenery.
On a tour around Wardpark, where the famous Craigh na Dun stones that the characters use to time travel were unceremoniously trussed up outside in the parking lot, Stuart Bryce from the set team said that the show had served as a training ground for Scotland’s TV industry throughout its long run.
“Because the show’s got bigger, it means the departments have got busier,” he said. “It’s a massive thing for the industry to have this here.” Over 3,500 crew members have come through “Outlander.” There are heads of department — for costuming, set design, props and camera — who came to the show via its trainee programs.
The show’s success has prompted other productions to choose Scotland as a base, Roberts said. “When we came to town, we were pretty much the only thing,” he added, “but there’s so many productions now that you do fight for crew a little bit.”
The gigantic Wardpark operation is now turning toward an “Outlander” spinoff. The first series of “Blood of My Blood,” a prequel following Jamie and Claire’s parents, aired last year and has been picked up for a second season.
The core “Outlander” fan base is in the United States, where it aired first, and the show has been watched in over 40 million households there, according to Starz. Visit Scotland, a government-funded tourism agency, reported last year that 22 percent of visitors to Scotland from outside Europe cited a TV show as a draw, with “Outlander” the most cited.
“Outlander” tours are available all over the country, but one site that many people want to visit, the exact location for Fraser’s Ridge, is a production secret. The landowners feared that if fans knew where it was, it would be overrun.
The fandom is not only responsible for a tourism boom. It often also contributes to preserving the history that it has come to admire.
Preston Mill, a former grist-house near Edinburgh that stands in for Jamie’s family home in the show, is a heritage-protected property that needed restoration in 2019. The Scottish heritage authorities set up a crowdfunding campaign, and “Outlander” fans helped the campaign exceeded its target in record time, according to Jenni Steele, a manager at Visit Scotland.
She added that “Outlander” had “really given people that depth of finding out a lot more about Scottish culture and heritage,” noting that American visitors were interested in learning more about their own family heritage. Some “Outlander” tours offer the opportunity for visitors with Scottish roots to trace their clan lineage.
Heughan said that his understanding of what draws American “Outlander” fans to Scotland had shifted over time. For years, he said, Scottish people had joked about American visitors coming over and claiming to be Scots. “And then I’ve realized — of course! Because if two or three generations ago their forefathers went to America, genetically, part of your makeup must be that you still have a sense of belonging.”
“There’s a Gaelic word ‘dùthchas,’ which means a sense of belonging, a sense of home,” Heughan added. “I think that’s what happens when Americans come here.”
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