Council for Scottish Archaeology - Scotland's Historic Graveyards Questionnaire

We are interested in your views and priorities for graveyard conservation, management and recording, as well as your experiences of visiting sites. We aim to use this information to help design a new national graveyard project to continue and enhance the work of the Carved Stones Adviser Project. An application for funding will be submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund in the summer of 2005 and we hope to launch the new Scotland’s Historic Graveyards Project in April 2006. We have developed this questionnaire to help identify the key areas for us to tackle in this expanded project and to enable us to deliver the best package we can.

By taking a few moments to answer these questions you will ensure that your views are heard along with those from conservation professionals, cemetery managers, archaeologists, family history societies, local history societies and other heritage groups. The results of this survey will be published online at www.scottishgraveyards.org.uk. This is a real opportunity to highlight any issues that you feel may be beneficial for those involved with graveyard management and conservation to take on board; as the results will be fed to statutory bodies such as Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) as well as to local authority cemetery managers.

Q1: How often do you visit graveyards?:

Local Graveyards:
Graveyards in my region:
Graveyards further afield:

Q2: Please tell us about what interests you about graveyards (select as many as apply):

Historical importance:


Family history:
Conservation:
Natural environment:
Educational Resource:
Tourist attraction:
Other amenity/leisure:
Gravestone owner:
Professional:

Q3: Please tell us who you share your interests with (select as many as apply):

 Own Friends Family Society/club Professional
Historical importance:
Conservation:
Natural environment:
Educational resource:
Tourist attraction:
Other amenity/leisure:
Gravestone owner:
Professonal:

Q4: How do you involve yourself with graveyards?:

Actively (i.e. graveyard recording, research, tourist, somewhere to walk the dog):
From an armchair (i.e. like to read about graveyard history, symbolism):
Armchair, but would like to do work in the future (i.e. research, recording, conservation work):
Professional (i.e. conservation specialist, cemetery manager, gravestone owner):

Please use this space if you wish to give more details about your graveyard interests and use:

Q5: The Carved Stone Adviser Project provides many services - which have you found useful?:

 Please select answer: Will use (again) in the future:
Website: www.scottishgraveyards.org.uk
Came along to a seminar or conference:
Heard a local society talk:
Visited our display stand at a public event or fair:
Contacted the Carved Stones Adviser for advise:
Obtained one of our booklets (published in conjunction with Historic Scotland):
An Introduction to Graveyards Recording:
Funding Sources for Graveyard Conservation:
Researching Your Graveyard:
Obtained guidance sheets:
Obtained project leaflet:
Volunteer gravestone recorder:
Volunteer graveyard recorder:

Q6: We are applying to the Heritage Lottery Fund to secure resources to expand our work with historic graveyards, so that we can continue supporting the efforts of others in this area. Please tell us which services and interest areas are of particular importance to you, noting any areas that do not appear on the list but you think should be covered by future work:

Hands on training:
Conservation support:
Education packs:
Equipment loan:
Conferences and seminars:
A graveyard inventory:
A directory of graveyard projects:
Contact point for advice and information:
Recording programme to find out more about history of graveyards:
Recording programme to find out more about threats facing graveyards:
Free publications:

Please use this space if you wish to give more details about graveyard resources and tell us if there are any further interests you would like to see promoted:

Q7: Have any factors restricted your own or others involvement with graveyards? Please tick as many as apply and add in others that you have experienced or heard about:

 Has restricted my involvement Could restrict other people's involvement
No local group:
Lack of training:
Lack of information available:
No disabled facilities:
Fear of personal safety:
Unsafe gravestones:
Cost implications (i.e. travel):
Access issues (i.e. locked gates, private land):
Age (too old):
Age (too young):

If possible, please give further details on how the factors you have ticked above cause problems:

Q8: Do you have any ideas for how to increase public invlolvement with graveyards? Please tick any of the suggestions below that you agree with and tell us of any others:

National training programmes:
On site information (e.g. interpretation panels):
Better liason with local groups
National Inventory of Graveyards
Lecture series
Better event information

Please use this space to give more information about your concerns for graveyards or the problems you have encountered:

Personal Information: In order to help up target our services and engage better with our audience we are gathering monitoring information about those we communicate with. It would help us if you filled in the information below, but please do not do so if you do not wish to. All information gathered in this manner will be kept confidential and will not be used for any other purpose.

Sex: Male:   Female:

Age range: Under 18:   18-25:   26-44:   36-45:   46-65:   Over 65:

Would you say you had a disability? Yes:   No:

Education:

Present employment:

Thank you for your time.