The Western Seaboard

Drawing on a lifetime's knowledge of this wild corner of Britain, Mary Miers takes us beyond the familiar sounds and scenery of the West Highlands and Islands to uncover an extraordinary record of human settlement, from the earliest 'terraced' houses on the machair of Bronze Age Uist to Scots Baronial piles set amid semi-tropical gardens. On the way she encounters the shrines and strongholds of medieval Gaeldom; planned fishing stations, canals and railways; houses ranging from the fashionable to the vernacular and the Highland urbanism of Portree, Fort William and Stornoway

This richly illustrated handbook reveals how the architecture of the Western Seaboard has transformed itself through at least four cultures - a compelling story of survival and revival. It is a story of holy men and holiday-makers, seafarers, warriors and crofters, and of the enduring influences of religion and clanship in the face of repeated waves of modernisation. This is the ideal accompaniment for anyone wishing to visit some of the most haunting landscapes in the world and learn something of those who in abit them.

Mary Miers is Architectural Writer for Country Life. An architectural historian and journalist, she has also worked in the field of historic building conservation and is the co-author of Scotland's Endangered Houses. In the 1990s she set up and ran Scotland's Buildings at Risk Register. Her family home is in South Uist.