“The handsomest building in the nation”
When the foundation stone of Register House was laid on June 27th 1774, it was the culmination of a long struggle to create a home for Scotland’s national records.
2025 year marks the 250th anniversary year of the commencement of the building of Register House (today known as General Register House), an ever-present landmark in Edinburgh’s New Town on Princes Street.
However, despite the building’s prominence, many know nothing of the services it provides. Preserving and giving access to the records of the nation, Register House is the first purpose-built repository in Britain and Ireland - and has a good claim to being one of the oldest purpose- built repositories still in use for its original function, in the world.
Today, it holds and provides access to one of the most varied archive collections in Britain. However, before it existed, the records of Scotland had no permanent home.
The search for a suitable site
Despite two dispersals of Scotland’s records, at the hands of Edward I of England in 1296 and Oliver Cromwell in 1650, the surviving records and a large quantity of government and legal documents had accumulated by the early 18th century.
Over the centuries, these records had been housed in various locations across Edinburgh and, from 1540s until the 17th century, they were kept in a ‘register house’ at Edinburgh Castle.
In subsequent decades, efforts were made to make proper provision for the historic public records. However, they continued to languish in poor storage conditions, either in the Laigh Parliament Hall (where the walls ran with damp and the record officials had to pile up the latest documents on the floor) or in the offices or dwellings of the keepers and creators of the various public registers, that were scattered around the High Street and Lawnmarket, in order to be near the Court of Session.
The senior crown official responsible for the creation and upkeep of many of the public records was the Lord Clerk Register, and during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, successive holders of the office tried, and largely failed, to improve storage conditions.
Nevertheless, Article 24 of the 1707 Act of Union stated that these public records were to remain in Scotland permanently, and it was considered that some responsibility for the creation of suitable accommodation for the records rested with Edinburgh Town Council.
However, the opportunity was passed up to include space within the new Exchange building (which was completed around 1760) with remaining town council funds then earmarked for a new bridge across the valley of the Nor’ Loch.
Meanwhile, in 1760, a new and dynamic Lord Clerk Register was appointed. James,14th Earl of Morton, was a dedicated public servant and man of science, who tackled his new responsibility with unprecedented vigour and rigour. In 1762, he sent a ‘memorial’ or memorandum to government, making a convincing case for creating a proper repository for records which, it was argued, were at risk.
It suggested that income from the estates of Jacobites (which had been forfeited after the ‘Forty-Five rising) could be used to pay for the proposed building. In 1765 the Crown duly granted £12,000 from these funds, and commissioned several leading public officials and judges in Scotland to serve as Register House Trustees.
Morton had already begun his search for a suitable site in Edinburgh’s Old Town, and several places were investigated during 1763-1765: ground behind the Excise Office in the Cowgate; ruinous burgh buildings behind Parliament Close, and a corner of the garden of George Heriot’s Hospital. Nearness to the Courts was a key factor, but Morton was also determined to avoid the risks of fire inherent in a building of several storeys.
Morton envisaged a square building with four ranges of offices, about half of which were for the Court of Session clerks, with the rest allocated to the other public offices such as the Sasine Office (recording land and building ownership) and the Teinds Office (taxations to support the clergy).
At the centre was record storage and search space, lit by windows set in the drum of a dome. Although Morton’s design was only schematic, the more sophisticated building - subsequently designed by Robert Adam - essentially followed Morton’s arrangement, with a quadrangle of office ranges enclosing a central record storage space with a dome at its heart.
In April 1766, soon after work on the ‘North Bridge’ began, the town council launched a competition for a plan of the ‘New Town’. This was famously won by James Craig and after an amended version of his plan was approved in August 1766, feuing of plots in the New Town began…
Read the full article in the March/April 2025 issue of Edinburgh Life.
With thanks to Jocelyn Grant, Dr Tristram Clarke and Jessica Evershed for their contributions to this article