Lost Scotland

Scotland's Lost Houses The lost houses of Scotland. One, Mavisbank, will be known to BBC viewers from the first series of the hugely successful Restoration. Other featured houses include Douglas Castle, Gordon Castle, Guisachan, Dunglass and Millearne among many others. The lavish photographic content derives primarily from the matchless archive of the National Monuments Record in Edinburgh, but will also draw on Country Life's photographs, local archives, and even the remarkable albums taken by a Perthshire demolition contractor in the fifties as he sought to memorialise his handiwork in dynamiting country houses. Lost Scotland.

Lost Edinburgh Edinburgh is a prosperous and expanding city, developed from a small community spawned on a narrow rock to become the Capital of Scotland. From its 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. Invasion and civil strife played their part. Some simply collapsed of old age and neglect, others were swept away in the 'improvements' of the nineteenth century. Yet more fell to the developers' swathe of destruction in the twentieth century. Few were immune as much of the medieval architectural history 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.

Lost Aberdeen The initial chapters are an odyssey through the early town, from the Green to the Gallowgate, charting the disappearance of the irreplaceable medieval townscape. Moving on to more modern times she traces the evolution and gradual erosion of the Granite City, whose stylish yet restrained architecture once brought visitors from all over the world to see an Aberdeen which they recognised and valued as a unique city. She writes of George Street, originally planned as 'an elegant entrance to the city' and of Union Street, a marvel of early nineteenth century engineering with stunning symmetry, elegant terracing and memorable shops. There is also a requiem for Archibald Simpson's splendid New Market and the sadly missed Northern Co-operative Society Arcade. The final part of Lost Aberdeen recalls vanished mansions, and lost clachans, victims of the city's march westwards. Long gone industrial archaeology is also revisited, the railway stations, mills, shipyards, seafront, tollhouses and boathouse, which slipped away as if they never had existed.

Lost Glasgow Carol Foreman traces the story of the development of a great city through the ages. Her work follows Glasgow's history primarily through buildings which have been demolished, but which played a central part in the city's story at one time or another. Lost Scotland.

Lost Argyll Poltalloch House, for example, built in the 1840s as a monument to commerce and investment lies ruinous, its owners having stripped it of its roof to avoid paying crippling rates; Campbeltown once bristled with distilleries until a cocktail of economic factors left it with only two whilst others have been subsumed into the modern townscape; little remains of even the jetties at Loch Awe and West Loch Tarbert, two of the busiest waterways in times past. This largely rural county has seen its fair share of forts, castles and mansions rise and fall. Some were destroyed in battle; others simply lost the financial battle to remain standing in the face of increasing taxation. Vernacular architecture has also disappeared: the houses of the fishermen and those in agricultural settlements crumbled in the wake of depredations, clearances, afforestation and government demands on landlords to house tenants in fitting conditions. Earlier marks of man were frequently cannibalised to build cottages, enclosure walls or castle extensions. Industries have come and gone in this area as transport methods changed or transport costs soared. The quays which were built to receive boats disappeared as modern roads removed the necessity for ferries. Industrial buildings have sometimes been converted, sometimes demolished. Armies, sheep and sitka spruce have changed the landscape of Argyll down the centuries and today the ruins of many of its treasures must be found in forests. The cradle of British Christianity today hides its crumbling cille in deep bracken on remote hillsides and schools which saw the foundation of a universal education system are no more than folk memories. Lost Scotland.

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