Newton Stewart Museum

Edinburgh and Glasgow have amazing world status museums but here tucked away in a former church, run by volunteers in Newton Stewart is an absolute gem of a traditional museum. It's a trove of the eclectic, mixed with the incongruous, incrediblely rare artefacts and the plain bygone, the curious and the bizarre. There are many, many sections and most tell a tale of Scottish life throughout many, many periods.

Don't expect carefully catalogued, carefully annotated displays, if that was done here it would fill the Hunterian and rival it. If you know a little about a subject you'll find it mixed with something else, 'this is the fishing section', the lady told me as I peared at Neolithic axe heads next to fishing weights. Wonderful.

I remember Kendal museum being a bit similar as a child and I don't think it got better by being made modern. This museum surprises you at every step and then serendipity kicks in as I stare at a hip bath supposedly sat in by Ingrid Pitt, err to display her attributes in the Wicker Man film, both of which I'm interested in, anyway more on another post.

I hope you get a sense of it from the few pictures, and I can't wait to go back and spend longer.

The museum is open from Easter to the end of October, small admission charge, see website for details and times. Parking is on the street nearby.

Website

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