This volume, the fifth in the Buildings of Scotland series founded by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, aims to describe every building of importance from prehistory to the present in the Highland region, Western Islands, Orkney and Shetland. The vast area covered by the book contains buildings and monuments as varied as its landscape - brochs, cairns and ceremonial settings of standing stones; cathedrals and abbeys, both medieval and Victorian; churches of every period and denomination, their interiors and graveyards often shielding unexpected delights; castles and tower houses and a string of Hanoverian forts; prehistoric farmsteads and Georgian and Victorian farmhouses. Country houses range from a display of ducal splendour through Georgian elegance and Victorian baronial to expressions of the high ideals and simple life of the Arts and Crafts movement. Towns and villages are equally varied, some are of medieval origin, others new creations of the Georgians and Victorians. This is an illustrated guidebook for visitors, for specialists and, not least, for local inhabitants.