Timeline of Property Records in Scotland

7th century

Use of symbols in granting rights, such as a sod of earth for land, or oars for ferry privileges, nets for fishing rights etc. .

1094

Earliest surviving seal impression (the Great Seal of Duncan II). It is kept in the Treasury of Durham Cathedral.

1127

Oldest surviving private record is a charter by David I to the church of St Cuthbert in Edinburgh

1189

The Quitclaim of Canterbury. It is the earliest surviving Scottish public record.

1248

First record of a sasine ceremony. Sir Malcolm son of Earl of Lennox conferred full sasine to Sir David Graham of lands in Strathblane. The handing over ceremony is held unusually not on the land but in the Kings chamber at Stirling Castle

from C13th

Registers kept in Edinburgh Castle

1286

The first reference to a government official responsible for looking after the records: William of Dumfries is Clericus Rotulorum (Clerk of the Rolls) of the royal "chapel" or chancery. This office was later to develop into that of Lord Clerk Register

1296

Edward I of England invades Scotland. All the symbols of Scots nationhood - the regalia, the national archives and the Stone of Destiny are removed to London.

1329

The Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton ends the first War of Independence. It also provides for the return of the records to Scotland. But they remain in London, many disappear, and when their remnants were sent back to Scotland in 1948, only about 200 documents remained.

1306-1668

Records of charters under the Great Seal of Scotland published in the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland (Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum).

1315

First surviving records of the Great Seal.

1371-1390

Earliest complete Register of Great Seal under King Robert II. Later registers are incomplete again.

1385

Oldest instrument of sasine by a notary in his own register.

1424

Rolls replaced by books for keeping registers. Rolls were good for proving continuity but were too cumbersome to search through, and took up more space.

mid C15th

Books of Council and Session.

1469-1484

James Darrow's protocol book from Stirling is the oldest public notary's book to survive.

1540-1542

"Register house' set up in Edinburgh Castle.

1554

Register of Deeds starts as a separate book.

1561

Earliest surviving burgh register of deeds. It is for Edinburgh.

1563

Register of Notaries notes their signatures. Registration is for the first time based on assessment of competence.

from 1560s

Increased feuing of lands after the reformation got church lands into the commercial property market. Increasing practice of money being lent against land as security

1567

Scots parliament decrees that notaries notebooks should be deposited with the sheriffs.

1570

Oldest surviving sheriff register of deeds, for Perth.

1579

Particular registers of hornings, oldest surviving are Midlothian and Perth.

1581

Register of Inhibitions

1584

Subscription of Deeds Act dispenses with need for sealing if parties agree to registration.

1587

Scots Parliament decrees again that notaries’ notebooks should be deposited with the sheriffs.

1596

Register for redeemable and temporary grants under the great seal. This is the first register on paper not on parchment.

1597

Sheriff Clerk's Act. Particular registers hornings and inhibitions to be kept only on books marked and issued by the Clerk register.

1597

General Register of Hornings. Oldest surviving is of 1610.

1599-1609

The Secretary's Register, an early attempt at a general register of sasine. It is very incomplete.

1600

Hornings act leads to General Register of Inhibitions.

1610

Hornings and inhibitions kept in separate registers.

1617

National public register of deeds and sasine, is created by an Act of the Scots Parliament. Deceased Notaries notebooks should be given the Lord Clerk Register. Registration in sheriffdoms is regulated. Land registration now happens in General, Particular (county) and Burgh Registers.

19 Aug 1617

First volume of the General Register of Sasine. The first entry is an annual rent right to Robert Pitcairn tailor in the Cannongate secured on a property at Pitfirrane, Fife.

December 1650

Edinburgh Castle is captured by Cromwell's army. The Scots are allowed to remove the archives and they are deposited in Stirling Castle.

August 1651

Stirling Castle falls to the English. Some of the records are carried off by the garrison, some are rescued by the clerks, but most records are sent away to London.

1657

The removal of the records proved very inconvenient, so the legal registers are returned to Scotland.

1660

The remaining records captured in 1651 are sent back. One of the two ships carrying the archives, the Elizabeth, sinks in a storm off the Northumbrian coast with the loss of all the papers and parchments on board. Those records which had survived the voyage north were deposited again in Edinburgh Castle.

From 1660

The Register of Sasine is generally regarded as fully comprehensive from this time onwards.

1662

The legal registers were transferred from the Castle to the Laigh Parliament House on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. The move was partly designed to promote access to the records, but the accommodation was far from satisfactory and the archives would be damaged by damp and vermin.

1672

Act regulating local registers of deeds.

1677

Act regulating local registers.

1681

Registration of Sasine enforced in burghs into single burgh registers.

1681

Protests can be registered for execution.

1685

Entail Act.

1689

Parliamentary, great seal and other records from the Castle are also sent down to Laigh Parliament House on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

end of C17th

Lord Clerk Register has the right to appoint over 40 clerks and keepers.

1694

Register of Probative Writs.

1700

During the great fire of 1700, which threatened the Parliament House, staff carry out a temporary removal of the records to St Giles' church for safety.

1707

The Treaty of Union provides for the preservation of public records. It is specified that the public records are to remain in Scotland for all time coming. There was however, no public money available to provide adequate accommodation and supervision for them.

1708

Section 12 of the Treason Act 1708, still in force today, makes it treason in Scotland to counterfeit the seal.

1748

Act regulating local registers.

1748

Private franchise courts lose right to keep registers of deeds.

1765

Plans are made to establish a building to house the registers. A grant of £12,000 was obtained from the estates of Jacobites, forfeited after the 1745 rising.

3 August 1769

Part of North-Bridge collapses killing five people.

1772

North-Bridge is reopened after a dramatic collapse a few years earlier, re-connecting the site of the planned register house to the old town.

1774

The eminent architect brothers Robert and James Adam are selected for the Register House project, and the foundation stone is laid. The building is to be built with compartments to reduce fire risk, heated to reduce damp, not inhabited to reduce vermin. It is anticipated to hold all existing records and those of some centuries to come.

1779

The money runs out, and the Adam building remains an empty shell until 1785. The derelict site, described as 'the most magnificent pigeon-house in Europe', was the haunt of thieves and pick-pockets. It also serves as Edinburgh's first airport, as hot-air balloons use the rotunda for assembly and take off.

1780s

Quills are swapped for steel nib pens for writing the registers.

1787

First staff and records move into the Adam Building on Princess Street.

1788

Complaints that many Register's clerks are too ignorant of Latin even to copy correctly.

1789

The Adam building officially finally opens to the public, 24 years after the start of planning. Yet still only half of Adam's plan is completed as it was too splendid to complete the whole.

1790

Litigation between Lord Clerk Register and the Keeper of the Register of Sasines proves that the Registers of Sasine have by now become fairly autonomous. Some other registers are fading away now, the Register of the Great Seal is an example.

1806

The new post of Deputy Clerk Register is created to take over much of the actual work of the Lord Clerk Register. Thomas Thomson is the first holder of the post and stays for 35 years till 1841.

1807

Marked and lined pages are introduced. Old registers in poor state and 6500 volumes are restored by Mrs Weir and heir specialist staff.

1807

Th. Thomson proposes a single register of deeds instead the three parallel registers which were kept till them (mainly to even out fee income for registers staff). His wish becomes true in 1812.

1808

Th. Thomson complains about the dispersal of records in 142 places all over Scotland.

1809

Public Records (Scotland) Act brings the Registers more power over the dispersed courts and their registers: “…. and it is of high Importance that the Whole of the Public Records within that Part of the United Kingdom should be placed under one general and effectual plan of management and Controul”.

1809

Commissionary courts have to hand in their old deed registers and not make new ones.

1809

Staff should undergo a certain discipline and approbation, but appointment is still a matter of patronage.

1809

Prepared books sent out. New book is not sent out until the old one is back. Limit on number of words per page. No cheap paper and cheap ink is used anymore.

1810

The Lord Clerk Register pays for improvements to the Adam building himself, just to get it done.

1811

Th. Thomson writes to all particular registers to make sure staff are competent. All books sent in would be rigorously checked and results published in annual reports.

1812

Register of Protests.

1815

Separate deeds office with its own keeper. 

1815

Th. Thomson demands indexing but unsuccessfully.

1817

The role of Lord Clerk Register is combined with the role of Keeper of the Signet.

1821

Concerns that the Adam building will soon be too small.

1820s

Robert Reid completes the Register building to Adam's plan, but with a much simplified north façade.

1830

Abstracts are from now on compiled as search aids.

1833

Register of Crown Grants previously managed by barons of Exchequer but spread out over many Registers of Scotland.

1842

1682 deeds per annum.

1845

Actual sasine ceremony on the land itself is made unnecessary. It had become a bit of a farce with blank names and random people chosen to perform it.

1847

The Antiquarian Room (now the Historical Search Room) opened to the public. It is designed by Robert Reid.

mid C19th

Register of Deeds are written on loose sheets to allow more people to work on one book. It is bound later for consistency.

1857

Record volume of deeds. One secretary in is own hand writes 741 pages between 2 and 19 January.

1852

Register of Crown Grants abandons full registration. Now just extracts are registered.

1855

General Register Office for Scotland is set up in taking over birth marriages and deaths from the Church of Scotland (which had been doing it consistently since 1616) and others like the Gretna Green blacksmiths.

1857

There are still 35 county or sheriff registers of deeds and 65 royal burghs registers.

1858

The "instrument of sasines" is superseded by the recording of the conveyance with a "warrant of registration".

1859-1863

Building of New Register House next to Register house. The extra space is needed for registration of birth, marriages and deaths.

1868

Land Registration (Scotland) Act brings and end to particular (county) registers. To keep information available to the counties, abstracts are issued to the counties.

1868

Latin vanishes form the registers which are now kept completely in English.

1868

Again there are complaints about shortage of space, because of a booming property market, growing population and galloping legislation.

1868-1904

In stages, the Sasines Office building is built behind Register House.

1868

First experiment of photography of deeds, but it proves too expensive for the 1000 photos needed every week.

1869 onwards

The system is restructured to establish one general Register of Sasine arranged in county divisions. The 35 Sheriff (county) registers are all taken in, but the 66 royal burghs keep maintaining their own burgh registers of sasines.

1870

Individual Search Sheets are introduced for each property to allow easier searching of the register.

1879

The Lord Clerk Register (Scotland) Act 1879 provides that the Lord Clerk Register should continue as an Officer of State, but all his rights and duties with regard to the preservation of the public registers and records were transferred to the Deputy Clerk Register (now the Keeper of the Records/Registers of Scotland). The Deputy Clerk Register was, in terms of section 5 of the Lord Clerk Register (Scotland) Act 1879, required to be an Advocate of the Scottish Bar of not less than ten years standing.

1896

Another photocopying experiment for Fife, good quality but coloured plans cause problems

1899

Experiment with book typewriters. Work done by a nameless "young woman" - 13 folios daily of 540 words. But good engrossers writing by hand can also do 20-25 folios a day with 400 words per page.

1905

The revised (2nd Series) search sheet is introduced. Its much improved searchability is the breakthrough in sasines work.

1907

New regulations of registers.

1910

Royal commission investigation into registration of title.

1920

Registrar General (Scotland) Act, which provides for the appointment by the Secretary of State for Scotland for a whole-time Registrar General.

1 January 1921

Following the passing of the Registrar General (Scotland) Act 1920, Dr James Craufurd Dunlop, Medical Superintendent of Statistics was appointed Registrar General. Thus the General Registers break away from the Registers of Scotland.

1921

Typewriting of the registers sheets is standard now. Margaret Louisa Ellison, Margaret Hume Purdie, and Jessie Allan Stevenson are the first typists.

1924

General Register of Inhibitions is combined with abbreviates of adjudications.

1926

Burgh Register (Scotland) Act. Most Burgh registers are closed down over the next few years, but some stay open till the 1950s and 60s.

1928

The last duties of the Lord Clerk Register in administering the registers were discontinued and transferred to the Keeper of the Registers and Records of Scotland.

1928

Register of Deeds comes under the Keeper of Registers and Records.

1934

Photocopying is introduced.

1937

Public Record (Scotland) Act. Sheriff court records and previous local courts have to be handed to Edinburgh.

1948

The office is split into the Keeper of the Records of Scotland (preserving the records and registers (i.e. National Records of Scotland) and the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland (compiling and maintaining the registers).

1962

The last county, Roxburghshire, gives up its horning registers.

May 1963

The last burgh register of sasine, Dingwall, closes its books and hands them to the General Register of Sasine.

1974

Legislation begins a process of redeeming feu duties so that most of these payments are soon ended.

1976

The Keeper of the Registers of Scotland (compiling and maintaining the registers) and his staff move to Meadowbank House, after it was vacated by the athletes of the Commonwealth games.

1979

The Land Registration (Scotland) Act brings in a plans-based land registration system.

6 April 1981

Starting with the County of Renfrew, the Register of Sasine is being gradually replaced, county by county, by the new system of registration of title.

1982

Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982 implemented a European Convention for the enforcement of Judgments. The Act made provision for a Register of Judgments.

1987

The Debtor (Scotland) Act 1987 provides for the abolition of Letters of Horning.

1993

The Register of Sasines is computerised.

1997

Search Sheet records from 1875 to 1993 are digitally imaged to enable computerised access.

1998

The seal referred to in the Scotland Act 1998 as "the seal appointed by the Treaty of Union to be kept and made use of in place of the Great Seal of Scotland", commonly referred to as the Great Seal of Scotland comes back into more frequent use by the devolved Scottish government.

6 May 1999

In accordance to the terms of section 45(7) of the Scotland Act 1998, the First Minister becomes Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland.

since 1999

Resurgence in the importance of the Register of the Great Seal due to devolution.

1 April 2003

LR implementation is completed when the final tranche of registration counties went operational.

28 November 2004

The Abolition of Feudal Tenure, etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 come into effect.

2004

Register of Community Interests in Land.

1 April 2011

The General Register Office for Scotland and the National Archives of Scotland amalgamated to form the National Records of Scotland.

2012

Crofting Register is set up to record rights of crofters.