The Imprint of Former Occupations and the Improver Movement on House Types in Fife

Abstract

The Kingdom of Fife has a wide and all embracing bibliography but too little attention has been given to its lesser house types. Books devoted to the buildings and architecture of Fife have mostly been too concerned with the castles and ‘seats of nobility’ to examine the buildings which make up the majority of the towns, villages and steadings. Much of Fife's traditional domestic building has vanished, and is still vanishing, except where Preservation Trusts have been able to ensure survival of some examples. The aim of this paper is to show the relationship between many of these formerly more widespread traditional building types and the economic activities and agricultural improvements that occurred largely during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.