He was subsequently made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau with swords by the Dutch government for his singular gallantry during the Battle of the Java Sea.In April 1946 Cruden was discharged and on his return he rejoined the Ministry of Works, succeeding J.S. Richardson as the Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Scotland, a title he preferred though, formally, he was latterly Principal Inspector of Ancient Monuments. In his new post, Cruden was responsible for advice for properties in state care (then generally known as “guardianship monuments”), and he wrote many guide-books about these important buildings. He was also responsible for the protection of ancient monuments through scheduling.Cruden’s interests ranged widely in time and space.

He excavated at the great hill-fort of Traprain Law and at the Brough of Birsay in Orkney. His booklet The Early Christian and Pictish Stones of Scotland (1957) can still be read with profit over four decades on. He studied and produced the earliest papers to be published on Scottish medieval pottery. But his first love was medieval churches and castles and he wrote the ministry guide-books on many such monuments; The Scottish Castle (1960) and Scottish Medieval Churches (1986) represent the distillation of his wide knowledge.

He was also a regular attender of the Viking Congress and appears to be the last surviving member of the first Congress in 1950. Cruden was also a keen golfer and, after retirement, wrote a history of the Bruntsfield Golf Club (Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society, 1992).Stewart Cruden had a keen awareness of what was important in life: his family came first. His evident love of them, his modesty and his wide-ranging interests earned him the affection and respect of his colleagues, who presented to him a volume of essays on Scotland’s ancient monuments and historic buildings on his retirement, Studies in Scottish Antiquity (1984).He had an equally devoted band of followers in those who attended his Monday-evening lectures at Edinburgh University ons Scottish archaeology and architecture, an event for him of paramount importance in his diary for several decades.If friends are the measure of a man, it should be recorded that Cruden’s great friends were Gordon Childe, legendary Professor of Archaeology at Edinburgh University, Bryan O’Neil, formerly Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments, and W. Douglas Simpson, the great expert on Scottish castles, after whom he named his sons.David J Breeze.