Looking after gravestones

Many of the places we care for include graveyards and burial grounds as part of their landscapes. We care for around 70 sites containing memorials, which are made up of thousands of individual stones.

These spaces hold an extraordinary range of memorials, including the resting places of Scotland's kings and queens and intricately carved stones commemorating medieval warriors. Our teams care for tributes to figures such as ‘Old Tom Morris’ (the father of modern golf), and Margaret Drummond (the mistress of King James IV of Scotland, who may have been poisoned in a plot).

Just like our castles and forts, these memorials need ongoing care. Conserving gravestones helps protect their historic significance, preserve their stories, and ensure visitors can explore these spaces safely. It is also our legal responsibility to inspect memorials under the Burial (Management) (Scotland) Regulations 2025 to make sure they are stable and secure.

In 2021, we launched our Memorial Safety Inspection programme. This built on existing conservation and maintenance work, helping us better understand the condition of gravestones across our sites and identify which ones may be unstable or in need of repair. The programme was developed in line with guidance from sector leaders including the Institute of Cemeteries and Crematoriums, the Scottish Government, and wider industry best practice.

So far, we’ve completed inspections at around half of the 70 sites that we care for which incorporate memorials. Where stones have been found to be unstable, they have been carefully recorded and secured behind barriers to keep everyone safe. This means some areas of graveyards may have temporary access restrictions while repairs are planned and carried out. Once inspected, gravestones are monitored regularly, typically every 1–3 years depending on their condition.

If you’d like to find out more about our Memorial Safety Inspection programme, please email amc@hes.scot.

Responsibility for maintaining memorials normally lies with lair owners or families. However, in historic burial grounds, ownership is not always easy to trace. To address this, we’ve been appealing for owners of affected memorials to come forward. In some cases, families have been able to arrange repairs themselves, with our guidance and support.

Where no owner can be identified, we allow the full notice period to pass before stepping in to arrange essential works. Repairs are then carried out on a rolling basis by our regional teams, alongside day-to-day conservation work across our sites.

Dunblane Cathedral and St Andrews Cathedral have been two of the largest and most complex inspections we've carried out so far. You can read more out about the work that has taken place below.

Find out more about conservation work at our sites

We carried out graveyard inspections at Dunblane Cathedral between 2021 and 2022, surveying around 600 gravestones. More than 130 were found to be unstable due to age, weathering and design issues. Fencing was installed around affected stones to keep visitors safe.

Before starting repairs, we contacted memorial owners and appealed for unknown owners to come forward. The local community supported this by helping identify owners and record memorials. A small number of owners arranged repairs with our guidance and consent.

We also secured Scheduled Monument Consent for the work, which was granted in summer 2022 and covered the entire graveyard.

Work was prioritised on stones posing the greatest risk, particularly those near paths and entrances. Repairs included new foundations, re-dowelling (replacing internal supports), re-pointing, and stone surface repairs. We also carried out resin repairs and reduced vegetation where needed.

Alongside this, every gravestone was identified, indexed and photographed to create a full record, helping preserve inscriptions that may be lost over time.

During excavation work for new foundations some new artefacts were unearthed, including a significant buried flat stone with detailed carving. This was assessed and recorded by our archaeological specialists before being reburied.

Seasonal protections have also been introduced to help protect vulnerable stones over the colder winter months. Our collaborative research will continue at the site, with the Friends of Dunblane Cathedral, the Dunblane Museum, Church of Scotland, Dunblane Community Council and other local stakeholders.

Between 2023 and 2025 we carried out inspections across the vast graveyard at St Andrews Cathedral. 1,734 stones were surveyed with over 190 of them needing repairs and 135 needing more frequent monitoring.

Following the public notification to lair owners, unstable stones were all recorded and documented by our conservation specialists. Scheduled Monument Consent was applied for and given for repairs, initially on small groups of headstones and later, for all impacted stones. 

Work to stabilise the stones was first prioritised in the area close to the graves of the Open Championship winners. This ensured the public could access these historic memorials during the 150th Open Championship in 2022, which was hosted in St Andrews.

Work to repair stones at the cathedral is progressing well. The next batch of stones needing work has already been identified and approved, with works currently being programmed by our teams. We’ll continue to review the safety fencing at the site during each stage of work to reduce restrictions where possible.