Scotland’s oldest scheduled monuments date from around 8,000 years ago, when people first settled here.
Among the most recent scheduled monuments are Second World War gun emplacements and anti-invasion defences.
In between is a huge range of monuments of all types, including prehistoric burial mounds, Roman forts, early Christian carved stones and industrial mills.
More than 8,000 scheduled monuments are spread across Scotland.
Some archaeological sites and monuments – like stone circles and ruined castles – are still obvious to the eye today. Others that leave little trace on the surface may be protected because important archaeological remains are buried beneath the ground.
Information leaflets
Our information leaflets each give a short introduction to a different archaeological period, theme or monument type.
Download leaflets on:
Ancient Farming [PDF, 2.18MB]
Archaeology in Towns [PDF, 1.94MB]
Carved Stones [PDF, 2.39MB]
Churches and Abbeys [PDF, 2.38MB]
Cropmark Archaeology [PDF, 2.4MB]
Early Historic Scotland [PDF, 2.83MB]
Farming Since Medieval Times [PDF, 2.77MB]
Industrial Scotland [PDF, 2.96MB]
Lords and Lairds [PDF, 1.98MB]
Prehistoric Burials [PDF, 1.9MB]
Prehistoric Defences [PDF, 2.98MB]
Prehistoric Religion [PDF, 3.5MB]
Prehistoric Settlement [PDF, 2.39MB]
Rivers, Lochs and Bogs [PDF, 2.49MB]
Roman Scotland [PDF, 1.76MB]
Wartime Defences [PDF, 2.11MB]
Contact
Designations
Historic Environment Scotland
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1SH
Telephone: 0131 668 8914
Email: designations@hes.scot