HERITAGE projects in Scotland have been boosted by more than #770,000 in the latest National Lottery grants announced yesterday.

The 10 awards from the Heritage Lottery Fund include #300,000 towards the National Gallery of Scotland's purchase of a painting which once belonged to King Charles I, and nearly #165,000 to help the Burrell Collection in Glasgow to buy a sixteenth-century masterpiece.

The National Gallery's new acquisition is a small panel painting by early seventeenth-century Italian artist Giulio Procaccini, entitled The Madonna and Child with the Infant St John the Baptist and Attendant Angels.

It is first recorded in the collection of King Charles I. The collection was dispersed following his execution in 1649.

The painting belonged latterly to the British Rail Pension Fund and has been on loan to the Edinburgh-based gallery since 1979. The acquisition's cost of #600,000 has been met with the help of a #100,000 grant from the National Art Collections Fund (NACF) charity as well as the lottery cash.

Mr Michael Clarke, keeper of the National Gallery, said: ``It is widely recognised as one of the artist's most beautiful small-scale paintings and must surely have been the first work by him to reach Britain, where it has remained ever since.''

At the Burrell Collection, officials yesterday unpacked their latest acquisition, a painting by German master Lucas Cranach the Elder. The work - Judith with the Head of Holofernes - is dated 1530 and depicts the biblical heroine, dressed in the manner of Cranach's day, after she has beheaded her enemy with a sword.

The work is believed previously to have been in the collections of both the Duke of Hamilton and the Second Baron Aberconway of the Maclaren family, whose descendants put it up for auction last year.

It was saved from export to the US in March this year and has been bought for the Burrell at a cost of nearly #315,000, with the aid of #50,000 from the NACF as well as the lottery grant. The Burrell Collection Trustees provided #100,000.

Mr Stefan van Raay, senior curator of art for Glasgow Museums, said: ``This is a very good painting by a very good artist who is already represented in the collection. Looked at with the other paintings, this will give an overall view of what he did.''

In a further lottery grant, the Burrell gets #20,000 towards the #60,500 cost of buying a goblet, dating from 1688, engraved by Willem van Heemskerk, which it plans to add to its collection of Dutch glass.

The seven other Scottish projects receiving grants are:

q.#80,000 towards purchase of Bressay Lighthouse Buildings, Shetland, for conversion into maritime heritage centre. (Applicant - Shetland Amenity Trust. Overall cost of project - #100,000)

q.#59,150 towards repairs to Garnethill Synagogue, Glasgow, which houses Scottish Jewish Archives Centre. (Garnethill Hebrew Congregation, #485,000)

q.#35,000 towards restoration of the Athelstaneford Doo'cot, East Lothian, and its conversion into flag heritage centre. (Scottish Flag Fund, #83,650)

q.#33,962 towards restoration of Westerkirk Parish Library, Langholm, Dumfriesshire. (Westerkirk Parish Library Trust, #120,000)

q.#30,000 towards purchase of sixteenth-century merchant's house in High Street, Kirkcaldy, Fife. (Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, #31,000)

q.#27,710 towards restoration of library building at Wanlockhead Lead Mining Museum, near Biggar, Lanarkshire. (Wanlockhead Museum Trust, #226,500)

q.#19,720 towards Portmoak Moss, Scotlandwell, Kinross, woodland area being managed as a nature reserve. (Woodland Trust, #97,800).

Welcoming the grants, Scottish Arts Minister Lord Lindsay said: ``Once again, we have seen worthwhile projects the length and breadth of Scotland benefit from the lottery.''

The Scottish awards were among a total of 56 Heritage Lottery Fund grants, amounting to #13.7m, announced yesterday.

The director of the National Lottery Charities Board in Scotland yesterday stressed that playing the lottery was not a substitute for giving money to charity.

Mr John Rafferty, speaking at the annual meeting of the Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector, said that if people wanted to give money to charity, they should do just that.