Since 1945 more than 200 of the most noted houses in Scotland have been lost, whether to fire, rot, or demolition. Fortunately, photographs were taken of many of these great structures both prior to and during their destruction. Collected here are images of 20 of the most important lost Scottish houses, among them Hamilton Palace, Rosneath, Balbardie, Amisfield, Gordon Castle, Guisachan, Dunglass, and Millearne. These images provide a fitting testimony to architectural masterpieces from a variety of eras and—in cases such as that or Murthly—offer a painstaking and heartbreaking record of their unfortunate demise.

Scotland lost more than 450 houses of "architectural pretension" between 1900 and 1980. This study is an attempt to document the losses of Scottish Country Houses by showing how much has been lost, especially since WWII, with the aim of underlining the importance of the efforts being made to preserve, maintain, and use those that remain.

Since 1945, it has been estimated, over 200 major houses have been lost in Scotland, through fire, dry rot, mining subsistence, or simply demolition resulting from the prohibitive cost of upkeep. Ian Gow features details of 20 of the country's most important lost houses.

Gardens are one of the most important elements in the cultural history of Scotland. Like any art form, they provide an insight into social, political and economic fashions, they intimately reflect the personalities and ideals of the individuals who created them, and they capture the changing fortunes of successive generations of monarchs and noblemen. Yet they remain fragile features of the landscape, easily changed, abandoned or destroyed, leaving little or no trace.In Scotland's Lost Gardens, author Marilyn Brown rediscovers the fascinating stories of the nation's vanished historic gardens. Drawing on varied, rare and newly available archive material, including the cartography of Timothy Pont, a spy map of Holyrood drawn for Henry VIII during the 'Rough Wooing', medieval charters, renaissance poetry, the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, and modern aerial photography, a remarkable picture emerges of centuries of lost landscapes.Starting with the monastic gardens of St Columba on the Isle of Iona in the sixth century, and encompassing the pleasure parks of James IV and James V, the royal and noble refuges of Mary Queen of Scots, and the 'King's Knot', the garden masterpiece which lies below Stirling Castle, the history of lost gardens is inextricably linked to the wider history of the nation, from the spread of Christianity to the Reformation and the Union of the Crowns.The product of over 30 years of research, Scotland's Lost Gardens demonstrates how our cultural heritage sits within a wider European movement of shared artistic values and literary influences. Providing a unique perspective on this common past, it is also a fascinating guide to Scotland's disappeared landscapes and sanctuaries - lost gardens laid out many hundreds of years ago 'for the honourable delight of body and soul'.

A unique and fascinating look at Victorian society through the remarkable lives of an enlightened and philanthropic aristocratic couple, the Marquess and Marchioness of Aberdeen, who tried to change the world for the better but paid a heavy price. This is a true tale of love and loss, fortune and misfortune. In the late 19th century, John and Ishbel Gordon, the Marquess and Marchioness of Aberdeen, were the couple who seemed to have it all: a fortune that ran into the tens of millions, a magnificent stately home in Scotland surrounded by one of Europe’s largest estates, a townhouse in London’s most fashionable square, cattle ranches in Texas and British Columbia, and the governorships of Ireland and Canada where they lived like royalty. Together they won praise for their work as social reformers and pioneers of women’s rights, and enjoyed friendships with many of the most prominent figures of the age, from Britain’s Prime Ministers to Oliver Wendell-Holmes and P.T. Barnum and Queen Victoria herself. Yet by the time they died in the 1930s, this gilded couple’s luck had long since run out: they had faced family tragedies, scandal through their unwitting involvement in one of the “crimes of the century” and, most catastrophically of all, they had lost both their fortune and their lands. This fascinating family quest for the reason for their dramatic downfall is also a moving and colorful exploration of society in Victorian Britain and North America and an inspirational feast for history lovers.

The history of Ayrshire's lost architectural heritage

Description to come.

For more than a century and a half the real story of Scotlands connections to transatlantic slavery has been lost to history and shrouded in myth. There was even denial that the Scots unlike the English had any significant involvement in slavery .Scotland saw itself as a pioneering abolitionist nation untainted by a slavery past.This book is the first detailed attempt to challenge these beliefs.Written by the foremost scholars in the field , with findings based on sustained archival research, the volume systematically peels away the mythology and radically revises the traditional picture.In doing so the contributors come to a number of surprising conclusions. Topics covered include national amnesia and slavery,the impact of profits from slavery on Scotland, Scots in the Caribbean sugar islands ,compensation paid to Scottish owners when slavery was abolished,domestic controversies on the slave trade,the role of Scots in slave trading from English ports and much else. The book is a major contribution to Scottish history,to studies of the Scots global diaspora and to the history of slavery within the British Empire.It will have wide appeal not only to scholars and students but to all readers interested in discovering an untold aspect of Scotlands past.

What happened to Edinburgh's once notorious but picturesque Tolbooth Prison? Where was the Black Turnpike, once a dominant building in the town? Why has one of the New Town designer's major layouts been all but obliterated? What else has been lost in Edinburgh? From Edinburgh's mean beginnings - 'wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds', visiting French knights complained in 1341 - it went on to attract some of the world's greatest architects to design and build and shape a unique city. But over the centuries many of those fine buildings have gone. Some were destroyed by invasion and civil strife, some simply collapsed with old age and neglect, and others were swept away in the 'improvements' of the nineteenth century. Yet more fell to the developers' swathe of destruction in the twentieth century.Much of the medieval architecture vanished in the Old Town, Georgian Squares were attacked, Princes Street ruined, old tenements razed in huge slum clearance drives, and once familiar and much loved buildings vanished. The changing pattern of industry, social habits, health service, housing and road systems all took their toll; not even the city wall was immune. The buildings which stood in the way of what was deemed progress are the heritage of Lost Edinburgh. In this informative and stimulating book. Hamish Coghill sets out to trace many of the lost buildings and find out why they were doomed. Lavishly illustrated, "Lost Edinburgh" is a fascinating insight into an ever-changing cityscape.

26 houses photographed in colour and accompanied by informative text about their history.