Historic Scotland Celebrates Its Centenary

Although it has only been known in its current form since 1991, Historic Scotland can trace its roots back to the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act which received the Royal Assent in August 1913.

Historic Scotland At Its Best

In keeping with its raison d’etre as an  organisation set up to safeguard Scotland's heritage, it is fitting that the first structures taken into "the care of the state" were prehistoric remains and early Christian architecture. This altered as time passed as castles and battle sites had been included in the portfolio which now extends to  include such luminaries as the Victorian town gas works in Biggar, Lanarkshire.

Adrian Cox, who is an archaeologist for Historic Scotland, said the real importance of the Act was that it allowed people to visit them. “It introduced the concept of public access really for the first time," he said.

"For the first time it made that a proper tenet of the legislation. It also introduced the idea of national importance, so that a site had to be shown to be nationally important before it could be taken into care as a justification."

Some of the background facts and figures are quite illuminating. Slightly over half the annual £80 million budget comes from the Scottish government, and Historic Scotland cares for 345 properties. In doing so, it attracted 3.4m visitors in 2012.

Admission charges apply to only 78 of the properties, which include Edinburgh Castle, Scotland's most popular paid-for attraction.

Not so well known is its involvement in preservation, because in 2011-12 it handled 137 listed building applications – deciding that and 20% should be successfully granted.
It is also working closely with the National Lottery heritage fund and local authorities on the question of the regeneration of town centres.

As an example, East Ayrshire Council is involved in an ongoing programme of renewal in Kilmarnock town centre, to bring old, derelict buildings back to life.  Councillor Jim Buchanan, the authority's spokesman for community regeneration, said the partnership was working well. "We have received £1m for Kilmarnock town centre alone. But the council committed £16m into the project," he said.

"Historic Scotland do a really worthwhile job, but it's not just about stately homes and castles.  It's about the wonderful buildings we have in the town centre."

The town's John Finnie Street, which has a reputation as the best example of Victorian town centre architecture, is currently a sea of  scaffolding as work progresses to renovate the old red sandstone buildings.

With 300 council workers are attached to the old Johnnie Walker whisky bond, council officials point out there is no canteen there, so staff spend their cash in local shops at lunchtimes.
The twin returns of historic buildings being preserved, and the wider economy benefiting were pointed out by Peter Drummonds, chairman of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland.

He said: "Scottish ministers have already announced seven rounds of conservation area regeneration funding. I'd like to think we could get another two or three out of it, because the bangs for buck that we get on town centre money arguably far outweighs many hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on a remote castle or country house."

He said preserving modest examples of architectural heritage in towns has a greater impact on the lives of ordinary people.

                                                     http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/