National Archives of Scotland

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The National Archives of Scotland hold all archive records relating to the Scottish Office, Scottish Executive and Scottish Government.

Authority Scottish Government
Location H M General Register House, 2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY. See map
Membership/ID Location-specific membership required
Photocopy policy Pay-per-copy
Camera policy Not allowed

What is held here

Scottish Trunk Roads records and relevant Scottish national records.

How to use it

Whilst the main building is pleasingly at the zone meeting point in Edinburgh (where the A1, A7, A8 and A900 meet), roads-related archive material can be found at their West Register House premises, on Charlotte Square at the opposite end of Princes Street. See the map.

The NAS demand two forms of identification for a Reader's Ticket, one must be a photo ID and the other contain your address. I required my passport and driving licence (as I only have a paper licence). According to their website, they now require two colour passport-sized photographs before new Reader's Tickets will be issued.

West Register House is surprisingly small, and the staff are very helpful. They have a duty archivist who is approachable within the search room, and documents can be ordered via six computer terminals. Be aware that the ordering system is slightly counter-intuitive and despite getting a message that the item has been ordered, you must still select a "confirm" button that's in an unusual place.

Retrieval time is very good, though the indexing is poor. A lot of apparently interesting-looking records turn out to be simply copies of SIs and the like, and some records are completely misindexed.

Items found here

See all files for this establishment.

Nearby facilities