Scotland is often pictured as a land of castles. However, many of these castles are not the ancient ancestral homes we imagine: some are barely a century old. Even those much older have usually been rebuilt and adapted in the last few centuries. Why is this?

The Elizabethan lantern house was never popular north of the border. Scottish late sixteenth and seventeenth-century houses continued to be tall clusters of towers, with small windows, and busy skylines. There were, of course, attempts to experiment with Classical architecture, like Sir William Bruce’s Kinross (1686-93), but, these never really took root in Scottish soil, their balanced forms, perhaps, seemingly at odds with the wild landscape.

Instead, Scottish patrons and architects returned again and again to the castle. Their challenge was to reinvent the castle, to create traditional-looking houses that also offered suitable accommodation. No easy task, this engaged some of the most brilliant architects from the late seventeenth century onwards, the results varying considerably.