Where should I look for information about, or records of, mortsafes, morthouses or watch boxes?

Recourse should first be made to published parish histories and the best place to look for these is normally the local studies library for the area concerned. Historic Environment Scotland has information about buildings, monuments and other structures in over 1,000 graveyards in Scotland, some of which is accessible on Canmore, <https://canmore.org.uk/> [accessed 26 April 2024].

The best place to look for references to mortsafes in original records would be either in kirk session records or heritors records, although in both cases references are rare.

Minute books survive for most kirk sessions. There are occasional references to mortsafes in kirk session minutes. Kirk session minutes have been digitised and are available to browse free of charge on the ScotlandsPeople website (there are fees for downloading). The National Records of Scotland online catalogue shows the location of the original records, including those held by local archives services, along with any access conditions. Several hours might be required to read through the minutes, looking for references to mortsafes, morthouses and watch boxes.

Heritors’ minutes and accounts may also contain records of mortsafes, morthouses and watch boxes. Almost all surviving heritors’ minutes are held by the NRS. Although heritors’ minutes and accounts are not usually as voluminous as kirk session minutes, they also require a lot of research time, in searching through unindexed volumes.