Housing in Scotland includes all forms of built habitation in what is now Scotland, from the earliest period of human occupation to the present day. The oldest house in Scotland dates from the Mesolithic era. In the Neolithic era settled farming led to the construction of the first stone houses. There is also evidence from this period of large timber halls. In the Bronze Age there were cellular round crannogs (built on artificial islands) and hillforts that enclosed large settlements. In the Iron Age cellular houses begin to be replaced on the northern isles by simple Atlantic roundhouses, substantial circular buildings with a drystone construction. The largest constructions that date from this era are the circular brochs and duns and wheelhouses.
After the First World War, the government responded to urban deprivation with a massive programme of council house building. Many were on greenfield sites of semi-detached homes or terraced cottages. In the 1930s, schemes tended to be more cheaply built, but a survey of 1936 found that almost half of Scotland's houses were still inadequate. There was also extensive private building of sub-urban "bungalow belts", particularly around Edinburgh. From the mid-twentieth century, public architecture became more utilitarian, as part of the impulse to produce a comprehensive welfare state and the influence of modernism. As the post-war desire for urban regeneration gained momentum it would focus on the tower block.
Another solution adopted in Scotland was the building of new towns like Glenrothes and Cumbernauld. Initially praised, they were receiving heavy criticism by the twenty-first century. The creation of Scottish Homes in 1989 increased the stock of private housing and reducing the role of the state sector and the direction of planning by local authorities. The 1980s saw the growth of speculative house building by developers, many introducing English brick and half-timbered vernacular styles to Scotland. Sales of council houses were also popular. There have been increasing attempts to preserve much of what survives from Scotland's architectural heritage and programmes of urban regeneration resulting in a return of resident populations to major urban centres. By 2011, there were 2.37 million households, of which over sixty per cent were owner occupied. The number of single occupied households increased since 2001, largely accounting for an increase in the number of households. The devolved Scottish government took a distinct perspective on homelessness, making accommodation a right for the voluntarily homeless.
Prehistory
Stone Age
The oldest house for which there is evidence in Scotland is the oval structure of wooden posts found at South Queensferry near the Firth of Forth, dating from the Mesolithic period, about 8240 BCE.R. Gray, "Bridge works uncover nation's oldest house", Herald Scotland, 18 November 2012, retrieved 7 December 2012. The earliest stone structures are probably the three hearths found at Jura, dated to about 6000 BCE.A. Moffat, Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005), , pp. 90–1. With the development of agriculture, groups of settlers began building stone houses on what is now Scottish soil in the Neolithic era, around 6,000 years ago, and the first villages around 500 years later. Neolithic habitation sites are particularly common and well-preserved in the Northern and Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone.F. Pryor, Britain BC (London: HarperPerennial, 2003), , pp. 98–104 and 246–50. The stone building at Knap of Howar at Papa Westray, Orkney is one of the oldest surviving houses in north-west Europe, making use of locally gathered rubble in a dry stone construction, it was probably occupied for 900 years, between 3700 and 2800 BCE.I. Maxwell, "A History of Scotland’s Masonry Construction" in P. Wilson, ed., Building with Scottish Stone (Edinburgh: Arcamedia, 2005), , p. 19. Skara Brae on the Mainland of Orkney also dates from this era, occupied from about 3100 to 2500 BCE and is Europe's most complete Neolithic village. From the Neolithic era there is evidence of timber halls.G. Noble, Neolithic Scotland: Timber, Stone, Earth and Fire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), , p. 45. These are probably unique to Scotland and were massive roofed buildings made of oak, all of which seem to have been subsequently burnt down. There is debate as to the role of these buildings, which have been seen variously as regular farming homesteads of Neolithic families and as related to a series of monumental constructions such as barrows.Noble, Neolithic Scotland, p. 17. The hall at Balbridie, Aberdeenshire was long, wide and may have had a roof high, making it large enough to accommodate up to 50 people.Moffat, Before Scotland, pp. 109–13.
Bronze Age
As bronze working developed from about 2000 BCE, there was a decline in the building of large new structures, which, with a reduction of the total area under cultivation, suggests a fall in population.Moffat, Before Scotland, p. 154. From the Early and Middle Bronze Age there is evidence of cellular roundhouses of stone, as at Jarlshof and Sumburgh in Shetland.B. Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC until the Roman Conquest (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), , p. 60. At Jarlshof these are oval houses with thick stone walls, which may have been partly subterranean at the earliest period of inhabitation, a technique that provided both structural stability and insulation.I. Armit, Towers in the North: The Brochs of Scotland (Stroud: Tempus, 2003), , p. 28. There is also evidence of the occupation of crannogs, roundhouses partially or entirely built on artificial islands, usually in lakes, rivers and estuarine waters.N. Dixon The Crannogs of Scotland: An Underwater Archaeology (Stroud: Tempus, 2004), . They were often constructed of layers of brushwood and rubble. Sometimes they were revetted around the edges with vertical piles and sometimes surfaced with logs of oak. As elsewhere in Europe, hillforts were first introduced in this period, including the occupation of Eildon hill near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, from around 1000 BCE, which accommodated several hundred houses on a fortified hilltop,Moffat, Before Scotland, p. 182. and Traprain Law in East Lothian, which had a 20-acre enclosure, sectioned in two places west of the summit, made up of a coursed, stone wall with a rubble core.D. W. Harding, The Iron Age in Northern Britain: Celts and Romans, Natives and Invaders (New York: Routledge, 2004), , p. 190.
Iron Age
In the early Iron Age, from the seventh century BCE, cellular houses begin to be replaced on the northern isles by simple Atlantic roundhouses, substantial circular buildings with a dry stone construction. Important examples are at Quanterness, Bu, Pierowall, and Tofts Ness on Orkney, and at Clickimin in Shetland. From about 400 BCE more complex Atlantic roundhouses began to be built, as at Howe, Orkney and Crosskirk, Caithness.B. Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC until the Roman Conquest (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), , p. 325. The largest constructions that date from this era are the circular broch towers, probably dating from about 200 BCE. Most ruins only survive up to a few metres above ground level, although there are five extant examples of towers whose walls still exceed in height.Armit, Towers in the North, p. 55. There are at least 100 broch sites in Scotland.Armit, Towers in the North, p. 16. Despite extensive research, their purpose and the nature of the societies that created them are still a matter of debate.B. Smith and I. Banks, In the Shadow of the Brochs (Stroud: Tempus, 2002), , p. 218. Archaeologists since the 1960s have distinguished brochs from smaller structures of similar construction, usually called duns.B. Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC until the Roman Conquest (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), , p. 323. The heaviest evidence of the occupation of crannogs was in this era, but they would continue to be used until the Middle Ages.B. Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the seventh century BC until the Roman Conquest (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), , p. 340. This period also saw the beginnings of wheelhouses, a roundhouse with a characteristic outer wall, within which was a circle of stone piers (bearing a resemblance to the spokes of a wheel), but these would flourish most in the era of Roman occupation.V. Turner, Ancient Shetland (London: B. T. Batsford/Historic Scotland, 1999), , p. 81. There is evidence for about 1,000 Iron Age hillforts in Scotland, most located below the Clyde-Forth line. The majority are circular, with a single palisade around an enclosure.J-D. G. G. Lepage, British Fortifications Through the Reign of Richard III: An Illustrated History (McFarland, 2012), , pp. 25 and 31. They appear to have been largely abandoned in the Roman period, but some seem to have been reoccupied after their departure.A. Konstam, Strongholds of the Picts: The Fortifications of Dark Age Scotland (Botley: Osprey, 2010), , p. 12.
Middle Ages
Rural houses Very few rural houses have survived from the Medieval era in Scotland. As in England, cruck construction was used, employing pairs of curved timbers to support the roof, however, unlike in England, they were usually hidden from view.R. W. Brunskill, Houses and Cottages of Britain (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2nd edn., 2000), , pp. 235–40. The major timbers often belonged to the local laird and were known as "master's wood" or "master's timbers" and were often reused. The responsibility for infilling the walls usually belonged to the tenants.A. Fenton, "Housing: rural lowlands, before and after 1770s", in M. Lynch, ed., Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), , pp. 321–3. There was extensive use of turf to fill in the walls, sometimes on a stone base, but they 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. With a lack of long span structural timber, the most common building material was stone, employed in both mortared and dry stone construction. Different regions used broom, heather, straw, turfs 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. 55–6. Central to most houses was the hearth. The simplest were in the centre of the floor, with smoke exiting through a hole in the roof and this form tended to be used longer in the Highlands. More developed forms had a backstone of a single flagstone or walling. There is evidence of Lowland houses with canopies for smoke extraction.
Burghs