The valuation rolls for 1855-56 to 1957-1958 have all been digitised and are available in the search rooms on the Virtual Volumes system. Now that all the valuation rolls have been digitised we do not provide access to the originals. However we do provide access to the valuation rolls for Public Undertakings (NRS reference VR121) which have not been digitised.
A project to index selected valuation roll years is underway and more information on this can be found on our page on Valuation Roll Indexes.
For valuation rolls which are unindexed some rolls, particularly for the more populous areas such as Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, can be awkward to search. For these areas there will often be several volumes covering each year. This can often mean a time-consuming search through the volumes in question before you find the entry for the property concerned.
Within each volume, the entries are arranged either by parish or (in cities and larger towns) by electoral ward, and below that level, by street and then by door number or house name. Consequently you may need to find out in which parish and/or electoral ward the property concerned was situated, before being able to identify the correct valuation roll for the relevant year. A local archive or library may have old Post Office directories or local gazetteers, which will often help you to obtain this information.
Because of the time-consuming detective work needed, staff at the NRS cannot search valuation rolls on behalf of correspondents. Duplicate original valuation rolls for specific areas may also be held locally on microfilm. You should check this with local libraries and archives.
