Conservation Advice

Conservation, repair and maintenance of the built heritage all requires appropriate knowledge, skills and materials whether you are a specialist practitioner, building professional or a homeowner. We seek to provide best practice advice and guidance to those who need it at a level of technicality which suits their need.

Technical Enquiries

Technical staff can give advice on most aspects of traditional construction and give a general overview of basic problems and solutions.  We are not able to make site visits, but can comment on photographs.


Historic Scotland’s Technical Conservation Group provides information on building craft training courses and other more specialist conservation disciplines. We are able to provide contact details of other organisations and partners who can provide additional information and advice.

We do our best to help enquirers but if unable to assist you ourselves, we will try to direct you to other relevant sources of information.

Education and Information

The Technical Conservation Group participates in a variety of outreach activities to promote a wider range of issues relevant to the care of the historic environment. Our staff regularly participate in conferences and seminars, giving talks relevant to their research and specialisms. These might include technical seminars for local authorities or homeowners maintenance seminars.

Staff also promote good practice at construction industry and trade fairs.


We produce a wide range of publications to help keep the industry, practitioners and the public informed about our latest research findings and raise awareness in a variety of areas.

Specific technical issues, such as laser stone cleaning and fire safety management in historic buildings, are covered in our Technical Advice Notes (TANs). More general practitioner guidance on the care and maintenance of property is contained in our free publications for building owners, which include our Short Guide series and INFORM Guides.


If you would like to be added to the publications mailing list, or would like to amend your details, please contact Elizabeth McGrath on 0131 668 8638 or email elizabeth.mcgrath@scotland.gsi.gov.uk with details of your name, address, postcode, telephone number and email address.

Science Unit

Within TCG, the Science Unit carries out original scientific research into all aspects of historic architectural materials. The focus is firmly on research with clear practical applications for homeowners and local government bodies.

We collaborate with partners in academia, the private sector, and other heritage bodies including National Museum of Scotland and English Heritage on a wide range of projects.

Current research topics include:

• Scientific investigation of the energy efficiency of historic buildings.
• Architectural ferrous metals: systematic determination of optimum cleaning, repair and coating techniques.
• Examining the potential effects of climate change on building stone.
• Architectural paint research.