Lothian boasts some of Scotland's most picturesque villages and fine Georgian towns, but its architectural history goes back to the twelfth century. The introduction of monastic orders and the establishment of the parish churches has left examples at Dalmeny and Tyninghame. Lothian also has fine church buildings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries while schisms within the Reformed religion are reflected in a variety of lesser churches. Tower-houses are reminders of war and conflict and of the power struggles of the nobility, poignantly expressed in the ruins of Linlithgow Palace. More peaceful and prosperous years, both before and after the Act of Union, produced large estates and a series of fine classical mansion houses - Newhailes, Yester House, Dalkeith - while the grandiloquent Hopetoun, Newliston and Gosford House testify to the genius of the Adams, father and sons. Where Tantallon, Dirleton and other early castles were defensive, their successors of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as Dalmeny and Dalhousie, are unashamedly romantic. Lothian's achievements of the Industrial Revolution range form the simplicity of Telford's Lothian Bridge to the dramatic and celebrated spans of the Forth Rail Bridge.

Previously unpublished images of the popular operator - Lothian Buses. With examples of the current fleet and comparison photos to show the changes that have happened since deregulation.

Denys Hay is one of the best known British historians of the Renaissance. His work is marked by a judicious and readable style, an equal interest in the affairs of England and Italy, and an ability to hold in balance the claims of political and cultural history. This collection brings together the important part of Professor Hay's work that has appeared as essays and represents all his major interests.

Despite seven out of ten people in Scotland choosing cremation, in many ways crematoria are 'invisible' buildings, visited only by necessity, and they have not received the attention they deserve. Crematoria present a real challenge for architects. They are paradoxical buildings: religious and secular, functional and symbolic, required to satisfy the practical and emotional needs of all faiths and none. This book provides architectural 'biographies' of Scotland's thirty-one crematoria, explaining their increasing relevance in contemporary Scottish society and pointing to Scotland's distinctive contribution to the progress of cremation and the architecture of crematoria. Many leading architects and craftsmen, including Sir Robert Lorimer and Sir Basil Spence, produced designs of great architectural merit, and Scottish local authorities led the way in designing some of the most progressive crematoria in the UK. These singular, often contested buildings, many in magnificent natural landscape settings, reveal a great deal about the complex, changing and distinctive attitudes to death and funeral rituals in Scotland.