Small landholdings: landownership and registration - research summary

An insight and narrative into how small landholdings (SLHs) were established and how their ownership has changed over time, as recommended by the Review of Legislation Governing Small Landholdings in Scotland.


1. Introduction

1.1 The aim of this research project was to provide an insight and narrative into how small landholdings [SLHs] were established and how their ownership has changed over time, as recommended by the 2017 Review.[1] Specifically, the study aimed to:

  • Show how landownership relating to small landholdings has changed over the last 100 or so years (1911 to the present).
  • Identify the potential to (re)establish a register for small landholdings.[2]

1.2. As such, the research objectives for this project were:

  • To identify how landownership relating to small landholdings has changed over the last 100 or so years, recording changes to status or tenure type, particularly where no record has been made.
  • To identify what (and how much) compensation, in its various forms, was originally paid to landlords and large estates.
  • To identify the potential to (re)establish a new administrative register for small landholdings.

1.3. The research team constituted an academic historian with expertise in landownership in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a land law academic, who worked on a consultative basis and a research assistant who undertook most of the archival work which underpins this report.

Contact

Email: Emma Glen

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