Unexpected closures
Check the Visit a Place section of our website for details of any current closures or restrictions. To check for unexpected, short notice closures, you can call our staffed sites or follow @welovehistory and #HSclosure on Twitter.
We sometimes need to close our sites due to reasons beyond our control, particularly adverse weather. High winds, storms, snow, and ice can all cause closures, especially at our remote sites and those accessed by boat or ferry.
We always advise checking for unplanned closures before you visit a site, especially if the weather forecast is poor or you are making a long journey.
How to check for unplanned closures
You can phone our staffed sites before you travel. You’ll find telephone numbers on our Visit a Place pages, or in our Member Handbook.
Alternatively, you can contact us on social media. Please note we’ll only be able to respond to social media messages from Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5pm GMT.
We post unplanned closures to the Historic Scotland Twitter account as they happen, using the #HSclosure hashtag. Please note that you'll need to login or sign up to see our tweets and follow the hashtag.
If you’ve already booked a ticket for a site that has closed unexpectedly or for an event that has been cancelled, we’ll email you as soon as possible. You will receive a full refund to the card used to purchase your tickets.
Planned closures
We will occasionally need to close or partially close our sites for events, functions or maintenance.
If a planned closure is coming up at one of our sites, we’ll put the details on the site’s pages in the Visit a Place section of our website and on the site’s listing on the Historic Scotland app.
Remember that several of our sites are working churches which regularly host private services.
Access restrictions are currently in place at some of our sites for conservation work. For more information, visit our page detailing our ongoing high-level masonry inspection programme. You can find out what sites have recently reopened on our History Awaits page.