What is historic rural settlement? [back to top]
Historic rural settlement refers to places where people who owned and farmed the countryside lived over the past 1500 or so years. Historic rural settlement sites include houses and townships, field systems and shielings, lime kilns and illicit whisky stills. This website deals particularly with the historic rural settlement of Scotland.

I’ve heard the term MoLRS – what does it mean?
MoLRS is an acronym for Medieval or Later Rural Settlement. The definition of MoLRS is the same as that for historic rural settlement. The term MoLRS was coined just over a decade ago to help provide a focus for the study, conservation, management, and promotion of the remains of Scotland’s historic rural past. This website used to be the MoLRS Working Group site, but we recently decided to change to the less unwieldy name of the Historic Rural Settlement Group

What subjects does the study of historic rural settlement involve?
Historic rural settlement studies involve the expertise of a wide variety of experts, no single one of whom is able to answer all the questions we want to ask. This is why the Historic Rural Settlement Group includes historians, ethnographers, soil scientists, palaeoenvironmentalists, and geophysicists as well as archaeologists and historic buildings experts.

How many historic rural settlement sites are there in Scotland?
Nobody has counted, but there are tens of thousands. A recent study by RCAHMS of ruined and unroofed structures on the first edition Ordnance Survey six inch maps located 25,000 sites. Although they are not rare they are still important. Every one of those places relates to the lives of our ancestors; each one was home to people whose successors may still live locally, may have moved to the towns, or may have been one of the hundreds of thousands of people of Scots origin who sought their fortune - or met their fate - around the world.

Are farm buildings considered to be historic rural settlement ?
Many historic rural settlement studies look at deserted or cleared settlements and landscapes dating to the period before modern farms were constructed. However, it is increasingly recognised that farms built during the time of agricultural improvement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also form an important part of Scotland’s historic rural settlement record as a whole.

Why are historic rural settlement sites important?
Historic rural settlement sites are our best connection with the ordinary people who once populated Scotland - perhaps 80% of the medieval and early post-medieval population. These places hold many clues about how people made a frugal living from the land, and how they often lived in harmony with their natural resources for hundreds of years. Because most of our documentary evidence for this way of life was written by or for the social elite, the evidence in our fields and in the soil is the most likely source of unbiased information about life in rural Scotland.

Are there regional differences in the types of sites classed as historic rural settlement ?
Yes, there are marked regional differences, though no-one has yet attempted to fully analyse them. Variations may be due to a variety of factors such as differences in locally-available building materials, the quality of farmland, as well as different cultural choices.

What types of buildings and structures are there and what were they used for?
As well as houses which were often shared by people and their cattle, historic rural settlements may include barns, cart sheds, corn-drying kilns, limekilns, mills, middens (rubbish tips or pits), kale yards, stackyards, gardens, illicit whisky stills, shielings, and many other specialised nuildings and enclosures.

What sort of date are these sites? [back to top]
The visible remains of most historic rural settlement sites date from the 18th and 19th centuries, but they can be much older or even younger. In most parts of Scotland we know there were medieval settlements but we can’t detect them because the natural materials that were used to build them have either rotted or been removed. These have recently been called ‘the invisible centuries’.

Where are the best sites? Can I visit them? [back to top]
There are many excellent historic rural settlement sites dotted around Scotland, but only a few of them have any interpretation. You can find details of ones to visit on the visiting historic rural settlement sites page.

How can I find out more about historic rural settlement sites near me?
You can do this by consulting either the National Monuments Record for Scotland or your local Sites and Monuments Record. You can visit the NMRS online through CANMORE, and there is a list of SMR contacts on this website.

Are there historic rural settlement sites in lowland Scotland?
Historic rural settlement sites were once common in lowland Scotland, but centuries of agricultural use have removed the visible traces of many of them. Only buried archaeological evidence remains for many of these sites. However, especially in the more upland areas of the Lowlands, visible traces can still be found.

Are MoLRS Scottish, British, European or Worldwide?
MoLRS is a term first coined in Scotland, where the nature of the evidence is often very different from that in England - where medieval settlement studies have been going for several decades. Technically, there are MoLRS sites around the world, but the term is only used in Scotland. ‘Medieval’ is itself a Western European term which has no meaning in many other countries or even continents.

How can I help record and look after these sites? [back to top]
Details of active local historical and archaeological societies are given on this site. If there is no local group in your area, consult your local SMR officer for ideas about how you could help. You can also take part in the Historic Rural Settlement Discussion Group, which meets around twice a year, visits sites, and provides occasional training opportunities. Also, why not consider getting involved in the Scotland’s Rural Past project? This is a five-year, nationwide project, which will support local communities across Scotland to investigate deserted rural settlements dating from the medieval and post-medieval periods. If you are interested in helping to conserve your local heritage you could also get involved in the Adopt a Monument scheme.

How can I research the historical background to these sites?
There are many useful books and articles on historic rural settlement sites in Scotland, which you can find in the further reading page of this site. We have highlighted some of the most useful and accessible publications in the recommended reading section.

What range of artefacts can be expected on these sites and is there more information on them?
In most areas of Scotland the vast majority of everyday objects were made from organic materials that have long-since rotted in the ground - except on crannog sites, where survival can be exceptional. Coarse pottery can often be found in and around historic rural settlement sites, and iron and stone implements are also common.

If you have any other questions which are not covered above or elsewhere on the site, you can contact info@molrs.org.uk. Our team of specialists will try to answer your queries, but please be patient: we do this on a voluntary basis.