The National Book Town Of Scotland

Wigtown, Galloway, which has no fewer than twenty bookshops, has been designated the National Book Town of Scotland. We like books, and anticipated rummaging inside these shops for rare finds or cheeky mementoes. Unfortunately for us, we arrived in Wigtown late on a Thursday afternoon and all the shops were closed. So, apparently, was everything else. Things livened up a little about five o'clock, when a bunch of the local gents began a game of bowls on the town green. Wigtown is not a place for anyone with big city tastes. The scene below shows some of the shops and other buildings along the main street of the town. There are no people in the scene because there were almost no people around. But notice the architecture - the preference for stone and stucco, and the individualized chimney pots nesting in the chimneys. This is the national style. You see shops and houses just like these in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Jedburgh, Inverness, Langholm and everywhere else. No wooden houses anywhere - it's all stone now. Either the Scots have favored stone from the time of the Pictish brochs, or they used to build in timber and gave up in frustration when all their wooden houses kept burning down.