Geoffrey Stell is a buildings historian with specialist interests in Scottish castles and fortifications. Born in Keighley, Yorkshire, in 1944, he is married, and has a son, a daughter and four grandchildren. He has been a resident of West Lothian since 1971.
He was trained as a historian at the Universities of Leeds and Glasgow between 1963 and 1969 when he joined the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) as a historic buildings investigator. From 1991 until his retirement in late 2004 he was Head of Architecture at RCAHMS, responsible for all architectural surveying and recording work. Since 2005 he has served as a historic buildings consultant, tutor and lecturer, his principal teaching commitment being a course on historic building analysis which he gives at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh.
Publications
Geoffrey is the author or editor of numerous books and essays on a wide range of subjects relating to Scottish building history. Principal single-, joint-authored and edited publications include (in chronological order):
- Loads and Roads in Scotland (1984)
- Dumfries and Galloway (1986/1996)
- Monuments of Industry (1986)
- Buildings of St Kilda (1988)
- The Scottish Medieval Town (1988)
- Galloway, Land and Lordship (1991)
- Materials and Traditions in Scottish Building (1992)
- Scotland’s Buildings (2003)
- Lordship and Architecture in Medieval and Renaissance Scotland (2005)
- Orkney at War: Defending Scapa Flow, volume 1, World War I (2011)
- Orkney at War: Defending Scapa Flow, volume 2, World War II (in preparation)
Full lists of his publications can be found on the following pages:
Unpublished reports
Lists of his unpublished reports can also be found on the following pages: