To round off July’s Explore Your Archive theme of ‘Nature’, Fiona from the National Trust for Scotland is giving an insight into the organisation’s collections and its connections to nature and preservation.

The National Trust for Scotland is a charity that cares for, shares, and speaks up for Scotland’s magnificent heritage. The Trust’s archives hold a special position of being both part of this heritage and also a way in which it is protected. Currently, the Archive Service are in the middle of delivering a large survey and move project, so we’re offering a peek behind the scenes of just how we support the Trust in protecting Scotland’s nature, beauty, and heritage for everyone.

What’s in the collections?

Since 1931, the National Trust for Scotland has ensured public access to a wealth of Scottish heritage. As well as caring for the buildings, gardens, landscapes, nature, and over 300,000 objects spread across over 100 places, the National Trust for Scotland preserves hundreds of thousands of important records within its archives. The Trust’s archives are divided into two main collections: the Corporate Archive and the Historic Property Archives.

The Historic Property Archives relate to Trust properties and the families or individuals associated with them. They contain the history of these places and are part of their heritage. Some collections are stored onsite or are held in local repositories to keep records within the community.

The Corporate Archive reflects the Trust’s institutional memory and preserves the history of the organisation, its functions, and activities. Both parts of the Archive support staff across the Trust in their day-to-day work. That could include conducting research for a new exhibition or checking historic garden plans to inform planting for seasons ahead.

What’s the Archives Review Project?

To better support this work, we launched the Archives Review Project in 2022 to assess the content, service delivery, and storage of the Trust’s archives. Over the past three years, the Archive team have moved over 7,000 boxes whilst working across 12 locations, consulted with over 200 colleagues, and reviewed close to 10 TB of digital files. With a lot of the Trust’s records stored at properties, from castles to Rangers’ lodges, this work included travelling hundreds of miles to deliver support right in the middle of the heritage we are protecting. One highlight of this work was meeting our deer colleagues up in the impressive landscape of Torridon!

What are the benefits?

All of this work brought over 700 boxes of new material into the Archive, whilst also making some existing collections more accessible. But just relocating or bringing new material into the Archive does not immediately make it available for use. To reach this end point, the Archive team ensured that all material was surveyed, condition checked for pests (or viruses if digital!), rehoused into the most appropriate storage boxes, described, catalogued, and many other steps that would require a separate blog post to detail! As well as improving the condition of the Archive, this work is supporting the Trust’s climate targets, as more efficient storage of physical records and the application of digital preservation practises to digital records has reduced the space and therefore energy required to store them.

Through this work, the Archive Service directly supports the National Trust for Scotland in protecting the nature it cares for, whether that’s enabling our Rangers to look back at past deer management practises or facilitating external researchers investigating historic land management and its impact on the environment at a national level. But beyond this, the Archives themselves contain a wealth of nature, from the seabird colonies of St Kilda to wildflowers by Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall.

By preserving these records and making them available for future generations, the Archive Service supports the National Trust for Scotland in caring and advocating for nature and the rest of Scottish heritage under its care. As both a part of this heritage and a tool for protecting it, the Archives will support this work for generations to come.

Further information

Written by Fiona Doran, Archive Programme Manager, National Trust for Scotland.

Edited by Isabel Lauterjung, Blog Coordinator at Explore Your Archive.

Find out more about NTS collections here: Collections | National Trust for Scotland

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