This book represents thirty years of research into the vernacular furniture traditions of Scotland from the end of the 17th century on into the 20th century. As in the rest of Britain and Europe, such furniture formed part of the distinctive culture of a place, in a similar way to local architecture, dialects and customs. If not often high art, the pieces in this book prove that limited resources and functional requirements need not exclude beauty and charm. The authors made it a priority to see pieces in their contexts, to meet the people who used them, and to understand how they were made. The story of their quest, which took them as far afield as New Zealand, is itself an adventure, and the objects they photographed represent the life and death of a community, the vital relics of a vanished culture.