In the 1880s two Edinburgh architects began to survey, measure and
sketch the castles of Scotland, travelling the length and breadth of the
country on trains, bicycles and on foot. Together they produced the five
magnificent volumes of The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of
Scotland, an unrivalled work of research that surveys more than 700 of
Scotland's castellated buildings, ranging from great medieval fortresses
to small lairds' houses with pepper-pot turrets, and is illustrated with
thousands of sketches and plans.
The first part of A Passion for Castles tells the life stories of David
MacGibbon and Thomas Ross and their work as Edinburgh architects before
they embarked on their magisterial survey, revealing interesting and
previously unknown details about the two men. The second part of the
book sets their enormously ambitious castles project in its historical
context, and describes how MacGibbon and Ross managed to achieve their
pioneering, systematic and comprehensive survey.
The final part of the book provides a regional overview of the current
status of all the castles surveyed by MacGibbon and Ross, followed by a
thematic exploration of those that have been lost, those that have been
transformed and those at risk of collapse, before posing questions about
what the future holds for the castles of Scotland.
