Scheduled Monuments are Scotland’s nationally important historic monuments and sites. They are:
“spread across the country and span around 8,000 years of human settlement.”
Scheduling is carried out by Historic Environment Scotland (HES), with its aim being:
“to preserve our most significant sites and monuments as far as possible in the form in which they have been passed down to us today.”
Information on Scotland’s 8109 Scheduled Monuments is made available via the Historic Environment Scotland Portal, a map search and GIS data download. Scheduled monuments are also represented in the National Record of the Historic Environment.
The following maps explore the distribution of scheduled monuments across Scotland.
Distribution of Scotland’s scheduled monuments
The map below shows that scheduled monuments do indeed spread across Scotland with one 10km2 square in particular having a high number of scheduled monuments. An area of East Lothian also stands out along with other clusters of 10km2 squares.
From an urban, small town and rural perspective:
– Scheduled monuments are predominately found in remote/accessible rural areas.
– The highest density of scheduled monuments is found in large urban areas.
The map below shows a distribution of scheduled monuments by Data Zone. The distribution is similar to that shown in the 10km2 map with the same area of Scotland standing out as having the highest number of scheduled monuments. Areas of the Scottish Borders and the north eastern Highlands also stand out. Data Zones without scheduled monuments are concentrated in the central belt area, along the east coast and Moray.
Looking at the scheduled monument density in Data Zones, the map below shows that at a country scale the majority of Scotland has Data Zones with less than one scheduled monument per square kilometer. Data Zones with a high density of scheduled monuments tend to be restricted to compact urban area/small town Data Zones.
Edinburgh and Glasgow exhibit strips of high scheduled monument density Data Zones and the Antonine Wall is visible across the central belt.
From a local authority perspective the number of scheduled monuments is highest outside of the central belt local authorities. Moray stands out as having a low number of scheduled monuments along with North, South and East Ayrshire.
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