Architecture in early modern Scotland

Architecture in early modern Scotland encompasses all building within the borders of the kingdom of Scotland, from the early sixteenth century to the mid-eighteenth century. The time period roughly corresponds to the early modern era in Europe, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the start of the Enlightenment and Industrialisation.

Vernacular architecture made use of local materials such as stone, turf and, where available, wood. Most of the population was housed in small hamlets and isolated dwellings. The most common form of dwelling throughout Scotland was the long house, shared by humans and animals. About ten percent of the population lived in the burghs, in a mixture of half-timbered and stone houses.

The impact of the Renaissance on Scottish architecture began in the reign of James III in the late fifteenth century with the rebuilding of royal palaces such as Linlithgow, and reached its peak under James V. The Reformation had a major impact on ecclesiastical architecture from the mid-sixteenth century onward, resulting in simple church buildings, devoid of ornamentation. From the 1560s great private houses were built in a distinctive style that became known as Scottish Baronial. Such houses combined Renaissance features with those of Scottish castles and tower houses, resulting in larger, more comfortable residences.

After the Restoration in 1660, there was a fashion for grand private houses in designs influenced by the Palladian style and associated with the architects Sir William Bruce (1630–1710) and James Smith (c. 1645–1731). After the Act of Union in 1707, the threat of Jacobite Rebellions led to the building of military defences such as Fort George near Inverness. Scotland produced some of the most significant architects of the eighteenth century, including Colen Campbell, James Gibbs and William Adam, who all had a major influence on Georgian architecture across Britain. The influence of Gibbs led to churches that employed classical elements, with a pedimented rectangular plan and often with a steeple.

Vernacular architecture

The vernacular architecture of Scotland, as elsewhere, made use of local materials and methods. The homes of the poor were usually of very simple construction, and were built by groups of family and friends. Stone is plentiful throughout Scotland and was a common building material, employed in both mortared and dry stone construction. As in English vernacular architecture, where wood was available, crucks (pairs of curved timbers) were often used to support the roof. With a lack of long span structural timber, the crucks were sometimes raised and supported on the walls.P. Dixon, "The medieval peasant building in Scotland: the beginning and end of crucks", Ruralia IV (2003), pp. 187–200, available at Academia.edu, retrieved 27 March 2013. Walls were often built of stone, and could have gaps filled with turf, or plastered with clay. In some regions wattled walls filled in with turf were employed, sometimes on a stone base. Turf-filled walls were not long-lasting, and had to be rebuilt perhaps as often as every two or three years. In some regions, including the south-west and around Dundee, solid clay walls were used, or combinations of clay, turf and straw, rendered with clay or lime to make them weatherproof.R. W. Brunskill, Houses and Cottages of Britain (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2nd edn., 2000), , pp. 235–40. Different regions used turfs, or thatch of broom, heather, straw or reeds for roofing.C. McKean, "Improvement and modernisation in everyday Enlightenment Scotland", in E. A. Foyster and C. A. Whatley, ed., A History of Everyday Life in Scotland, 1600 to 1800 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), , pp. 55–56.

Most of the early modern population, in both the Lowlands and Highlands, was housed in small hamlets and isolated dwellings.I. D. Whyte and K. A. Whyte, The Changing Scottish Landscape: 1500–1800 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1991), , p. 5. As the population expanded, some of these settlements were sub-divided to create new hamlets and more marginal land was settled, with shielings (clusters of huts occupied while summer pasture was being used for grazing), becoming permanent settlements.I. D. Whyte and K. A. Whyte, The Changing Scottish Landscape: 1500–1800 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1991), , pp. 18–19. The standard layout of a house throughout Scotland before agricultural improvement was a byre-dwelling or long house, with humans and livestock sharing a common roof, often separated by only a partition wall.I. Whyte and K. A. Whyte, The Changing Scottish Landscape: 1500–1800 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1991), , p. 35. Contemporaries noted that cottages in the Highlands and Islands tended to be cruder, with single rooms, slit windows and earthen floors, often shared by a large family. In contrast, many Lowland cottages had distinct rooms and chambers, were clad with plaster or paint and even had glazed windows.

Perhaps ten percent of the population lived in one of many burghs that had grown up in the later Medieval period, mainly in the east and south of the country.E. Gemmill and N. J. Mayhew, Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: a Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and Measures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), , pp. 8–10. A characteristic of Scottish burghs was a long main street of tall buildings, with vennels, wynds and alleys leading off it, many of which survive today.R. Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage, Scotland 1603–1745 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1983), , pp. 99–100. In towns, traditional thatched half-timbered houses were interspersed with the larger stone and slate-roofed town houses of merchants and the urban gentry. Most wooden thatched houses have not survived, but stone houses of the period can be seen in Edinburgh at Lady Stair's House, Acheson House and the six-storey Gladstone's Land, an early example of the tendency to build upward in the increasingly crowded towns, producing horizontally divided tenements.T. W. West, Discovering Scottish Architecture (Botley: Osprey, 1985), , pp. 75–76. Many burghs acquired tollbooths in this period, which acted as town halls, courts and prisons. They often had peels of bells or clock towers and the aspect of a fortress. The Old Tolbooth, Edinburgh was rebuilt on the orders of Mary Queen of Scots from 1561 and housed the parliament until the end of the 1630s.R. A. Mason, Scots and Britons: Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), , p. 82. Other examples can be seen at Tain, Culross and Stonehaven, often showing influences from the Low Countries in their crow-stepped gables and steeples.T. W. West, Discovering Scottish Architecture (Botley: Osprey, 1985), , pp. 73–74.

Renaissance

The extensive building and rebuilding of royal palaces probably began under James III (r. 1460–88), accelerated under James IV (r. 1488–1513) and reached its peak under James V (r. 1513–42). The influence of Renaissance architecture is reflected in these buildings. Linlithgow was first constructed under James I (r. 1406–27), under the direction of master of work John de Waltoun and was referred to as a palace from 1429, apparently the first use of this term in the country. It was extended under James III and resembled a quadrangular, corner-towered Italian signorial palace or palatium ad moden castri (a castle-style palace), combining classical symmetry with neo-chivalric imagery. There is evidence that Italian masons were employed by James IV, in whose reign Linlithgow was completed and other palaces were rebuilt with Italianate proportions.M. Glendinning, R. MacInnes and A. MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture: From the Renaissance to the Present Day (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), , p. 9.

In 1536 James V visited France for his marriage to Madeleine of Valois and would have come in contact with French Renaissance architecture. His second marriage to Mary of Guise two years later may have resulted in longer-term connections and influences.A. Thomas, The Renaissance, in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), , p. 195. Architecture from his reign largely disregarded the insular style of England under Henry VIII and adopted forms that were recognisably European.J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), , p. 5. Rather than slavishly copying continental forms, most Scottish architecture incorporated elements of these styles into traditional local patterns,A. Thomas, "The Renaissance", in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), , p. 189. adapting them to Scottish idioms and materials (particularly stone and harl).D. M. Palliser, The Cambridge Urban History of Britain: 600–1540, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), , pp. 391–2. Some decorative wood carvings were made by French craftsmen, who like Andrew Mansioun, settled in Scotland.Michael Pearce, 'A French Furniture Maker and the 'Courtly Style' in Sixteenth-Century Scotland', Regional Furniture vol. XXXII (2018), pp. 127-36. The building at Linlithgow was followed by rebuilding at Holyrood Palace, Falkland Palace, Stirling Castle and Edinburgh Castle, described by Roger Mason as "some of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Britain".R. Mason, "Renaissance and Reformation: the sixteenth century", in J. Wormald, ed., Scotland: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), , p. 102.

Many of the building programs were planned and financed by James Hamilton of Finnart, Steward of the Royal Household and Master of Works to James V. He was also responsible for the architectural works at Blackness Castle, Rothesay Castle, the house at Crawfordjohn, the New Inn in the St Andrews Cathedral Priory and the lodging at Balmerino Abbey for the ailing Queen Madeleine.J. E. A. Dawson, Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), , p. 120. For the six years of her regency Mary of Guise employed an Italian military architect, Lorenzo Pomarelli.Amadio Ronchini, 'Lorenzo Pomarelli' in Atti e memorie delle RR. Deputazioni di storia patria per le provincie Modenesi e Parmensi (Modena, 1868), pp. 264-5, 271. Work undertaken for James VI demonstrated continued Renaissance influences; the Chapel Royal at Stirling has a classical entrance built in 1594 and the North Wing of Linlithgow, built in 1618, uses classical pediments. Similar themes can be seen in the private houses of aristocrats, as in Mar's Wark, Stirling (c. 1570) and Crichton Castle, built for the Earl of Bothwell in 1580s.A. Thomas, "The Renaissance", in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), , pp. 201–2.

Reformation