Royal Commission On The Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland - Area Inventories

Area Inventories

Initially, RCAHMS recorded all buildings and monuments of note until the year 1707. This was later updated to 1805. The findings were published in a series of inventories. Changes in what constitutes a construction "of note", plus developments in how the public could access this information, led to the abandonment of the inventories after publication of the last Argyll volume in 1992. Consequently, only approximately one-half of Scotland was covered by this method.

The volumes are now all out-of-print but are available for consultation at RCAHMS in Edinburgh or at most large public libraries. Until the Dumfriesshire volume, the inventories were paper-bound and issued in octavo format.

• First Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the County of Berwick (HMSO, 1909)

• Second Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the County of Sutherland (HMSO, 1911)

This is available as an online pdf at http://www.archive.org/details/secondreportinve00scot

• Third Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the County of Caithness (HMSO, 1911)

• Fourth Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in Galloway, Volume I, County of Wigtown (HMSO, 1912)

• Fifth Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in Galloway, Volume II, County of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright (HMSO, 1914)

This is available as an online pdf at http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924015428661

• Sixth Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the County of Berwick (revised issue, HMSO, 1915)

• Seventh Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the County of Dumfries (HMSO, 1920)

This is available as an online pdf at http://www.archive.org/details/seventhreportwit00scotuoft

• Eighth Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the County of East Lothian (HMSO, 1924)

• Ninth Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles (HMSO, 1928)

• Tenth Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Midlothian and West Lothian (HMSO, 1929)

• Eleventh Report and Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan (HMSO, 1933)

• Twelfth Report with an Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Orkney and Shetland (HMSO, 1946)
  • Volume I, Report and Introduction
  • Volume II, Inventory of Orkney
  • Volume III, Inventory of Shetland

• An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of the City of Edinburgh (with the Thirteenth Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1951)

• An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Roxburghshire (with the Fourteenth Report of the Commission, 2 volumes, HMSO, 1956)

• An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Selkirkshire (with the Fifteenth Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1957)

• Stirlingshire. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments (with the Sixteenth Report of the Commission, 2 volumes, HMSO, 1963)

• Peeblesshire. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments (with the Seventeenth Report of the Commission, 2 volumes, HMSO, 1967)

• Argyll. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments, Volume 1, Kintyre (with the Eighteenth Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1971)

• Argyll. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments, Volume 2, Lorn (with the Nineteenth Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1975)

• Lanarkshire. An Inventory of the Prehistoric and Roman Monuments (with the Twentieth Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1978)

• Argyll. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments, Volume 3, Mull, Tiree, Coll and Northern Argyll (excluding the early medieval and later monuments of Iona) (with the Twenty-first Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1980)

• Argyll. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments, Volume 4, Iona (with the Twenty-second Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1982)

• Argyll. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments, Volume 5, Islay, Jura, Colonsay and Oronsay (with the Twenty-third Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1984)

• Argyll. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments, Volume 6, Mid Argyll and Cowal: Prehistoric and Early Medieval Monuments (with the Twenty-fourth Report of the Commission, HMSO, 1988)

• Argyll. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments, Volume 7, Mid Argyll and Cowal: Medieval and Later Monuments (HMSO, 1992)

Three further publications, North East Perth: An Archaeological Landscape (1990), South East Perth: An Archaeological Landscape (1994) and Eastern Dumfriesshire: An Archaeological Landscape (1997) were appended to the series. As the titles suggest these were concerned with archaeological remains rather than significant above-ground structures. Unlike all earlier volumes, these publications used the boundaries of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. Hence 'Perth' refers to an area within Perth and Kinross District rather than historic Perthshire. The Dumfriesshire volume related to both the eastern end of the historic county and the post-1973 district as the areas were identical. To date the Dumfriesshire volume is the only area to be revisited as part of a completely new inventory.

RCAHMS also published a series of lists covering archaeological sites and monuments which simply enumerated and identified, rather than interpreted, historic structures. As before, this series did not see completion. The series of 29 lists was begun in 1978 with the districts of Clackmannan and Falkirk within Central Region and concluded with the Easter Ross area of Ross and Cromarty District of Highland Region in 1989.