The papers concern all the normal features of the domestic life and estate management of a Scottish family. They cover mainly the period from 1717, when James Graham, Judge Admiral, first acquired the lands, until the 1840s, when William Graham, his great-grandson, ceased to run the estate himself, but they also contain both earlier and later material. Most of the material concerns William Graham (succeeded 1746, died 1790), and his son Thomas Graham Stirling (succeeded 1806, died 1836). The former was an agricultural improver, and was interested primarily in Airth itself. The latter through his mother's family, the Stirlings of Ardoch, inherited the estate of Strowan in Strathearn, and was involved in the guardianship of three young Stirling cousins who owned property in Jamaica. He was also a trustee for Day Hort McDowall of Walkinshaw. All these interests are represented in the papers. His older brother James was an Indian civil servant, and he himself was captain of an East Indiaman. The papers therefore include a small Indian section.