The lead public body for Scotland's historic environment, advising Scottish Ministers and supporting those who care for historic buildings and places.
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the lead public body established to investigate, care for, and promote Scotland's historic environment. It is an executive agency of the Scottish Government and was created in 2015 through the merger of Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS).
HES designates and maintains statutory lists and registers of protected buildings, scheduled monuments, gardens and designed landscapes, and battlefields in Scotland. It operates the Canmore database — Scotland's national record of the historic environment, containing over 320,000 records — and manages 336 properties in the care of Scottish Ministers, ranging from Edinburgh Castle and Skara Brae to Stirling Castle and Caerlaverock.
Its Technical Conservation group is internationally respected for expertise in lime, masonry, and the conservation of historic fabric, and produces technical guidance widely used by practitioners across the UK.
HES designates and maintains statutory lists and registers of protected buildings, scheduled monuments, gardens and designed landscapes, and battlefields in Scotland. It operates the Canmore database — Scotland's national record of the historic environment, containing over 320,000 records — and manages 336 properties in the care of Scottish Ministers, ranging from Edinburgh Castle and Skara Brae to Stirling Castle and Caerlaverock.
Its Technical Conservation group is internationally respected for expertise in lime, masonry, and the conservation of historic fabric, and produces technical guidance widely used by practitioners across the UK.
History
The management of Scotland's historic environment has been administered under distinct legislation from England and Wales since the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, and Scotland has long maintained its own separate designation systems and policy framework.Historic Scotland, created in 1991 as an executive agency of the then Scottish Office, was the primary delivery body for over two decades. RCAHMS, a non-departmental public body with origins in a Royal Commission established in 1908, maintained the national record and archive. The merger of the two in April 2015 to form HES brought together advisory, operational, and archive functions under a single organisation for the first time.
Scotland's historic environment is cherished, understood, shared and enjoyed.