While there now exist an abundance of guidebooks to Dublin, almost none of them displays much interest in the city's architecture, beyond a few cursory references to Georgian heritage, Trinity College, the Bank of Ireland et al.

The Dublin Civic Trust's latest publication is therefore particularly welcome because it offers a detailed guide to the capital's buildings and, just as importantly, offers a sequence of specific routes which must be followed on foot. There is no doubt that the best way to explore any urban centre is as a pedestrian since so many design details will otherwise be lost and the specific relationship between one structure and its neighbours left unclear.

Given the number of tour buses which now guide visitors to Dublin through its streets, the merits of walking are evidently not widely appreciated; See Dublin on Foot ought to do something to rectify this situation.

A conveniently portable paperback, the book is divided into six sections to each of which author Julie Craig recommends a day is devoted. Each walk is preceded by a short section outlining the history of the area under consideration and "the factors that were influential in its development." There is also a map for each section and a list of the opening times for buildings.

One of the work's most important advantages over any potential rivals is that it features not just the familiar but also the unusual, making it of interest to native Dubliners as well as tourists. It is, for example, refreshing to find the opening section devoted to Oxmantown, a historically important district of the city but one which is too rarely visited. Oxmantown was the part of Dublin colonised by the Vikings after they had been forced out of the settlement on the southern side of the Liffey following the arrival in Ireland of the Normans.

Among the more fascinating, and probably less widely known, items of information included in this part of the book is that the area between the top of Green Street and Constitution Hill was once known as Little Ulster, a name still acknowledged by the likes of Lisburn and Coleraine Streets.

The explanation for this nomenclature is that during the 18th century, this district was the centre of Ireland's linen trade in which many merchants from the northern province were particularly active.

Their activities were based around the Linen Hall, built in 1728 with a central courtyard surrounded by an arcade with open galleries on the upper level. Following the 1800 Act of Union, the trade in linen declined and in 1828 the hall began to be used as a barracks; it was largely destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising.

A handful of buildings in Oxmantown are already well-known - Thomas Ivory's Palladian Blue Coat School (now occupied by the Incorporated Law Society), St Michan's Church, the Corporation fruit and vegetable market on Mary's Lane - but much else might be missed but for the guide. Among these are the handful of Georgian domestic dwellings still surviving on the north side of North King Street as a pathetic memory of how much this part of the city has suffered from neglect and abandonment.

Then there is Montpelier Hill, a fashionable residential district 250 years ago, but even now its merits too little appreciated despite occupying an elevated position above much of the rest of the city with southerly views towards the Dublin Mountains. One of the properties which has been spared destruction is Cambridge House, which, as its name implies, was once occupied by the Duke of Cambridge while he was commander-in-chief of the army in Ireland during the 19th century.

Oxmantown is particularly rich in barracks and hospitals, the former including Collins - much of it today given over to housing collections from the National Museum of Ireland - Arbour Hill and McKee.

The area almost directly opposite Oxmantown on the southern side of the Liffey is designated by the author as being Dublin's sector devoted to administration and commerce, as well as taking in the oldest part of the city, once surrounded by walls approximately five feet thick. Remnants of these are extant in a handful of places including the park adjacent to the 13th century Church of St Audoen's where a contemporaneous medieval arch into Dublin was restored in the mid-1970s.

Elsewhere the evidence of recent planners is less apparent, allowing for the survival of such obscure old sites as the Cabbage Garden, off Cathedral Lane, which in turn turns off Kevin Street, a name deriving from the now-roofless ruin of the 18th century Church of St Kevin on nearby Camden Row.

The Cabbage Garden dates back to the 17th century and was supposedly planted with vegetables to feed the troops of Oliver Cromwell. In 1685, part of the site was set aside for use as a Huguenot cemetery, continuing as such until the middle of the 19th century.

One of the particular delights of the book is precisely the possibility of discovering such hidden spots in the heart of the city. Sadly, a great many of them continue to suffer from dereliction, such as St Nicholas Without and St Luke's in the Coombe, built in 1707 reputedly by John Whimey to the designs of Thomas Burgh as the main place of worship for Dublin's Huguenot community.

Like so many other old churches, it has been long closed and was gutted by fire in 1983, the melancholy ruins remaining as a souvenir of how important this area of the city once was. Similarly, Craig draws attention to the condition of 10 Mill Street, a house dating from the late 1600s and the best surviving example of a "Dutch Billy" in the Liberties:

"It was acquired in the 1980s by Eircom, and today the building is in a perilous condition following years of neglect." This is perhaps the most unhappy feature of the latest tour guide to Dublin - that it makes plain to visitors how the capital's inhabitants continue to neglect their stock of fine old structures and allow houses which would be cherished in any other city to suffer unnecessary abuse.

See Dublin on Foot: an Architectural Walking Guide is published by the Dublin Civic Trust.