Welcome

The Friends of The Argyll Papers was established to support the development of the family and estate archive of the Campbell Family, Dukes of Argyll, and to promote its use and enjoyment by a wide audience.

The Argyll Papers has been described as one of the most important private archives in Britain (Professor Allan Macinnes, 2014). It is a rich resource for Scottish and British history from the thirteenth to twenty-first centuries and attracts visitors from all over the world, researching a wide range of subjects including family and local history, Gaelic studies, place names, military history, political history, economic and social history, agriculture and industry, architecture and more.

Why we need your help

Caring for an archive of this size and importance, and making it available to researchers, is an enormous responsibility which is both costly and time-consuming. The archive does not receive any public funding, but Friends’ memberships and donations provide a valuable small regular income which contributes towards collection care and improvements to the research facilities. The Friends also support volunteering opportunities in the archive and fund-raising initiatives to help with conservation and cataloguing. You can find out more about what we do and how you can get involved by following the links on our website.

Using the archive

Researchers wishing to use the archive should contact The Argyll Papers Archivist directly on archives@inveraray-castle.com. Please note that the archive is staffed on a part-time basis and is not fully catalogued, so can only support limited and specific enquires for now. For more information about the contents of the archive see the Draft Collection Level Description.