Scotland Archives

History and Development 

At the end of the Second World War the Royal Air Force was tasked with undertaking Operation Revue.  This provided the Ordnance Survey with aerial imagery of the entire UK for the first time. The imagery allowed the creation of new mapping and informed postwar planning and reconstruction. Several squadrons experienced in photographic reconnaissance undertook this work throughout the late 1940s. Around 500 sorties were flown over Scotland, resulting in a collection of over 280,000 images. From creation, copies were held by the Scottish Office in a specially created Air Photograph Library in Edinburgh.

During the 1960s the Library was renamed the Scottish Office Air Photographs Unit (APU). It grew significantly with the transfer of Ministry of Defence / Ordnance Survey imagery of Scotland dating from the Second World War onwards. From this time the APU commissioned aerial surveys and advised the Scottish public-sector on the application of aerial imagery. It also maintained the Central Register of Air Photographs for Scotland (CRAPS) - a register of all known aerial imagery covering the country. In 1993 the APU and staff were transferred to RCAHMS.