In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries land ownership in Scotland, and Britain as a whole, was an extremely emotive subject. Historic local quarrels against landowner absenteeism and disinterest were being increasingly mixed with agitation on the perceived injustice that landed elites were benefitting from enhanced land values; brought about not by their own investment, but by greater state investment in roads and communications.
In response, and despite great political opposition, David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, managed to push a bill through Parliament that sought to accrue more financial contribution from landowners in this regard. An aspect of the Chancellor's famous 'People's Budget', the Finance Act of 1910 empowered the Inland Revenue, in the guise of the Valuation Office, to conduct a physical survey and valuation of every piece of property in Britain and Ireland. This would create a 'datum line' of values (as at 30 April 1909) from which the levying of a new increment value duty on all future sales and transfer of land or property could be based.
In Scotland, every portion of property, and their applicable boundaries, were marked onto specified Ordnance Survey maps and given individual assessment numbers, unique to the parish, burgh or ward in which they sat. Four-page entries on each of these portions were then recorded in an accompanying field book in which the situation, size, ownership, insurance, physical particulars, and values were noted.
Detail from field book on physical particulars of St Michael's Church, Linlithgow, "a fine specimen of Gothic Architecture" (National Records of Scotland, IRS86/98 entry 1266).
However, partly due to the consistent hostility of the landed classes and the consequences of the Great War, the increment value duties never really came to bear; and the scheme was abandoned in 1920. Nevertheless, the records of the survey created a benchmark for future land purchase and ratings reform, and are a fantastic archive of geographical, archaeological, and social information for pre-War Scotland.
