Book review: Who Built Scotland: A History of the Nation in 25 Buildings

Historic Environment Scotland is a Quango, formed in 2015 by a merger of Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Board members are appointed by the Scottish Government. Its remit is wide and its work important. This book may be regarded as an advertisement for the new Quango. If so, it is a very good and engaging one, despite the awkwardness of the title. The 25 essays are all admirable appreciations of buildings – or of landscape and places from which the buildings have long disappeared. They are written with knowledge and enthusiasm, and the photographs are gorgeous. You can’t read it without getting a sense of the richness of our history, and at the same time each of the essays sounds a personal note, none more so than the most surprising one, Alistair Moffat’s memories of his childhood in a post-war pre-fab in Kelso.