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This article makes a case for both recognizing and understanding the unique Scottish contribution to the history of architecture in the British colonial world. It argues that the disaggregation of ‘Britishness’ vis-à-vis empire has been a fundamental part of the historiography of British imperial studies for quite some time, but has yet to affect the history of British architecture in any significant way. It is suggested that architectural historians can learn much from the methods and techniques employed by New Imperial and Four Nations historians in understanding what it means to talk of a ‘British’ empire and therefore a ‘British imperial architecture’. In so doing the article considers the place of Scotland in the general history of British architecture, identifying the problems and opportunities, before providing several examples in practice that demonstrate how and why the Scottish dimension in British colonial architecture can be rethought in historiographic terms.