The Romans brought the technique of squaring and building regular sized stone blocks – ashlar – to Scotland. The technique then fell into disuse but, with the coming of the great monastic orders from the 11th century onwards, building in ashlar was revived as revealed by the construction of their great Abbeys and associated building ranges. On the defensive front, the use of ashlar was relegated to the creation of dressed stone surrounds to doors, windows, corners and other structural features during the building of Scotland’s medieval castles. In more peaceful times, by the 17th and early 18th centuries it was being used more extensively to create fine dressed stone facades of the great country mansions such as Kinross, Duff and Hopetoun, and rich merchants’ houses in towns and cities. Although well-established by this pedigree it was only from the mid-nineteenth century, when stone quarrying and working techniques became more mechanized and economic, that it became possible to build domestic dwellings that incorporated ashlar facades. Found equally on city tenements, villas, and rural farmhouses this approach to building lasted into the early decades of the 20th century.