C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 39 on foundations followed by chapters on brickwork and stone masonry. From this point the book’s structure becomes fragmented and its detail variable. Carpentry is well covered but joinery less so with, for example, little detail on windows. Information on roof coverings focuses on slating and roof glazing. Next iron, steel and proprietary fireproof construction are covered. A short section on stairs and staircases is followed, a little surprisingly, by a chapter on bridges. Building services and painting are covered in scant detail, with little else on finishes. This emphasis on the building shell probably reflects Adams’ background as an engineer and not an architect. It also perhaps explains the seemingly random inclusion of the chapter on bridges and almost 100 pages devoted to structural analysis. The penultimate chapter on the history of architectural styles is patchy and perfunctory, appearing to borrow extracts from other sources and coming across as an afterthought. The book includes over 2,300 drawings and diagrams. Many of these are both interesting and informative, but some are of a poor graphic standard. Similarly the page layout, while being a product of its time, is rather dense and unattractive. In these and other respects the book is not as appealing as, say, McKay or Mitchell. However, important aspects of early 20th century building construction are covered in greater detail than in some comparable construction textbooks and there is much of interest to be gleaned from the pages. Adams’ Building Construction will appeal to those having an interest in the history of building construction as practised at the turn of the 20th century and could be a useful addition to the bookshelves of conservation architects and surveyors. Ken Moth is an accredited conservation architect. Social fabric Scotland’s Shops Lindsay Lennie, Historic Scotland, 2010, softcover, 200pp, ISBN 978 1 84917 037 6, £15 Lindsay Lennie was awarded her PhD by Heriot-Watt University in 2006 for her thesis ‘The Conservation of Historic Shopfronts in Perth and Perthshire’. Scotland’s Shops was funded through a three-year research fellowship, 2006 to 2009, with Historic Scotland’s technical conservation group. Its aim was to investigate the development of traditional shops the length and breadth of Scotland and to raise awareness of the importance of their conservation. Since 2009, Lennie has established herself as a freelance specialist on the conservation of historic shops. Scotland’s Shops is both a treasury of information and a feast for the eyes. Its opening chapter provides a history, from medieval burghs to the present day, intermingling the development of architectural forms and expressions with changing social fashions and trading patterns. Lennie concludes: ‘There is no doubt that the post-war period in Scotland is a disappointing period in terms of shopfront design’. She takes us through the diverse typologies of retail buildings, from domestic (rural) and urban (integral with tenements), through purpose-built rows, to shopping arcades and chain stores. The chapter on technical background is one of the most directly informative for practising IHBC members for its clear and comprehensive exposé of the elements and materials that characterise traditional shops: everything from blinds, awnings and security, through windows, doors and provisions for natural ventilation, to the shopfittings and tiling that distinguished a butcher (for example) from a draper. A survey of extant historic shops focuses on the distinctive characteristics of seven towns. They include the use of cast iron for shopfronts in St Andrews, curved glass in Kingussie, two storey shopfronts in Dunfermline, and mosaic tiled stallrisers in Rothesay. My own nearby town of Kelso ‘probably has the greatest concentration of pilastered shopfronts in Scotland’, with materials that include timber, stone and cast iron. Described by Lennie as fashionably ‘polite’, they date from the late 18th and 19th centuries. Their high survival rate is due largely to the continuity of small-scale independent retailers, many through several generations of the same families. Scotland’s Shops continues with six case studies. These include examples of a shopfront restoration to a category A listed building in Edinburgh’s Lawnmarket, and the retention of the traditional interior of a C(S) listed shop in Stonehaven. They embrace issues such as historic paint schemes, inter-war decorative tiling, and a shopfront extension. The book concludes with a useful gazetteer and glossary of terms, and a comprehensive bibliography of references and sources. To complement the theme, Historic Scotland has additionally published Traditional Shopfronts: a short guide for shop owners. This 16-page booklet paraphrases key messages from Lennie’s book. It is available free of charge from the Historic Scotland website (www. historic-scotland.gov.uk/). Historic Scotland is to be commended for this focus on a building type that is an essential part of the social fabric of our towns, tends to be taken for granted and therefore overlooked, and can be highly vulnerable to pressures, whatever the economic climate. Dennis Rodwell, architect-planner, consultant in cultural heritage and sustainable urban development Procedures and precision Maintenance of Historic buildings: a practical handbook Jurgen Klemisch, Donhead Publishing and Fraunhofer IRBVerlag, 2011, ISBN 978 1 873394 92 2, £35 First published in Germany by Fraunhofer IRB Verlag in 2006, the UK publication is translated from the German by David Wade. The author Jurgen Klemisch is an architect and project manager operating in Germany and specialising in historic buildings. Klemisch works for a subsidiary of Deautsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, the German foundation for monument protection. The book, a prescriptive guide to maintenance regimes for historic buildings, appears to be predominantly aimed at managers of larger historic buildings or sites. Having said this, the
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