Architecture of The United Kingdom - Scotland

Scotland

Prehistoric architecture is found throughout Scotland. Skara Brae is a large stone-built neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney. Nicknamed the "British Pompeii", Skara Brae is Europe's most complete neolithic village and the level of preservation is such that it has gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1999. Celtic tribes during the Bronze Age left few physical remnants of their dwellings, but stone Christian monuments and Celtic crosses have endured erosion. Protohistorical Scotland during the Roman Empire was, unlike the rest of Great Britain, broadly untouched by the Romans, but there are the remains of Roman forts at Trimontium and Inchtuthil.

Scotland is known for its "dramatically placed castles, fused onto defensive ridges and rocky islands". Many of these date from Scotland in the Middle Ages. In contrast to England, which embarked on Elizabethan houses, Scotland saw the building of castles and fortified houses continue well into the 17th century, and many were constructed in a building-boom following the Scottish Reformation. The most distinctive Scottish fortification at this time was the tower house. The grandest medieval Scottish castles are composed of a series of courtyards, with a keep at their centre, but the lone keep-towers were more common, particularly amongst Scottish feudal barons. Some of Scotland's most famous medieval fortifications include Castle Stalker and Stirling Castle. More recent, Jacobean era castles include Edinburgh Castle and Craigievar Castle. The arrival of the cannon made high-walled castles defensively impractical and obsolete, but the fortification genre evolved into a style in its own right; Scots Baronial Style architecture has an emphasis on turrets and strong vertical lines drawn from tower houses, and constitutes one of Scotland's "most distinctive contributions to British architecture".

The new political stability, made possible by the Act of Union, allowed for renewed prosperity in Scotland, which led to a spate of new building, both public and private, during the 18th century. Scotland produced "the most important British architects of this age": Colen Campbell, James Gibbs and Robert Adam were Scots interpreting the first phase of Classical forms of ancient Greece and Rome in Palladian architecture. Edinburgh's New Town was the focus of this classical building boom, resulting in the city being nicknamed "The Athens of the North" on account both of its intellectual output from the Scottish Enlightenment and the city's neo-classical architecture. Together with Edinburgh's Old Town, it constitutes one of the United Kingdom's World Heritage Sites.

Christian architecture in Scotland has a distinct style; The Royal Institute of British Architects have stated that "Scottish churches are peculiarly plain, low and often quite humble buildings". The Scottish Reformation revolutionised church architecture in Scotland, because the Scottish Calvinists rejected ornamental places of worship and few churches escaped their attention. This tradition of geometric purity became prominent in Scottish architecture thereafter, but never became popular in England. Similarly, Scotland has produced some of the most idiosyncratic of architects such as James, John and Robert Adam, Alexander Thomson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which all relate to popular trends in Scottish architecture; all however created Scottish stylistic interpretations and often deliberately injecting traditional Scottish forms into their work. The Adam brothers were leaders of the first phase of the classical revival in the Kingdom of Great Britain.