Regulating the Vernacular: The Impact of Building Regulations in the Eighteenth-century Highland Planned Village

Abstract

The planned villages founded by the British Fisheries Society in the late eighteenth century were among the earliest in the Highlands of Scotland. The Society's villages of Ullapool and Tobermory established a planning and architectural template for successive Highland planned villages, based upon classical architectural principles of regularity and order. Within each village, the quality and design of the settlers' self-built dwellings was checked by the introduction of building regulations, devised to eradicate vernacular materials and construction and establish ‘improved’ practices in terms of both materials and design. The extraordinary effectiveness of this regulation permanently altered the nature of Highland domestic architecture.