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Historic Towns of Scotland

From the time of the 12th-cenury King David I onwards, towns in Scotland were given ‘burgh’ status. Some early burghs include Aberdeen, Elgin, Edinburgh, Peebles, Lanark and Inverness. These ‘royal burghs’ were decreed by the monarch and were given many commercial privileges by way of trading and markets. This, naturally, was in the interests of the Crown, as a source of revenue. In addition, later feudal lords were given the right to nominate their communities as ‘Burghs of Barony’ and keep some of the fees levied.

Some of Scotland’s towns still show key features of the old burghs, by way of street layouts, as in Elgin, St Andrews or Perth, and street names such as ‘Kirk Wynd’ (church lane) or in surviving words such as ‘pend’ meaning a vaulted passage.

Other symbols of the old burghs are the Mercat Cross (where Mercat is Scots for market) and the Tolbooth. The Mercat Cross was the commercial heart of the burgh - where markets were held and also where important civic announcements were made, as in Edinburgh to this day. The Tolbooth was usually part administrative centre, part prison. See interesting examples at, for example, Stirling and – especially picturesque – Crail in Fife.

Look out for Scottish towns with a different origin. Generally called ‘planned towns’ their street layout often shows a symmetry or grid pattern. Some were part of a (mostly) 18th-century trend by landowners to improve their estates – and ‘tidy up’ their tenants! Fochabers, Cullen, Aberlour and Inveraray are good examples. Other towns came about for specific economic reasons – for example, Ullapool and Tobermory were founded by the British Fisheries Society in order to exploit local fish stocks.