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Edinburgh City Archives

Contact Edinburgh City Archives

Edinburgh City Archives will be closed to the public from 4.30pm on Thursday 19th of Dec 2024 until 10am Tuesday 21st January. This allows our small team to spend the first two weeks of the New Year doing some essential tasks to set up the service for the year ahead. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. 


We are the archive service for the Council and its predecessor authorities. In addition to Council records, we also collect records relating to the Edinburgh area and the people of Edinburgh.

The records we collect can be created by clubs, societies, individuals, businesses, and organisations, or by council employees and committees. Our records span from the 12th century through to the present day.

Our collections cover

  • education, for example, primary and secondary schools
  • commerce and trade, for example, businesses, associations and incorporations
  • defence, for example, militias, oaths of allegiance and volunteer regiments
  • law and order, for example, municipal courts and policing
  • leisure, for example, hobby and sports clubs
  • local government, for example, Council, finance, housing, personnel and taxation
  • religion, for example, Episcopalian
  • social welfare, for example, charities, poor law and social work
  • transport and Infrastructure, for example, busses, roads, trams and utilities.

Our aim is to collect, preserve and promote these records and to make them available to the public and other users.

If you have any enquiries about our records, please get in touch and we will do our best to help you.

 to keep you up to date with all that is happening in the Archives.

Edinburgh City Archives

Address: Level 1,
City Chambers,
253 High Street,
Edinburgh,
EH1 1YJ

Telephone: 0131 529 4616