Was there a B ritish G eorgian town? A comparison between selected S cottish burghs and E nglish towns

This article examines the nature of S cottish urban ambition during the Enlightenment period, through assessing the pattern of public building construction in selected burghs against the general historiography of G eorgian towns. Using principally S cottish burgh council minutes and contemporary publications, it studies the improvement agenda as the context for civic building, and questions whether it provided a discernible process and chronology for the construction activity. In reviewing the symbolic role of public buildings in particular, the article ponders whether there was indeed a B ritish urban experience toward the end of the first century of parliamentary union. [1] It concludes that both in the historically different S cottish urbanism and the distinctive manner in which S cots burghs responded to improvement, the urban experience north and south of the border was significantly different.