Renovations to the Scapa Flow Museum
The Scapa Flow Museum will reopen in the summer after a significant restoration project to ensure it continues telling Orkney’s unique war history
Once a Royal Navy pumphouse built in 1937, the Scapa Flow Museum, located on Scotland’s island of Hoy in Orkney, has displayed artefacts and exhibitions since its founding in 1990. Now, following its closure for extensive renovations worth £4.4 million and carried out over the last three years, it’s due to reopen with new and improved features.
The refurbishment, funded by multiple organisations, includes the installation of a modern wing intended to complement the existing structure. Upon completion, the museum will host improved visitor space and upgraded facilities such as a café, foyer, toilets, and a gift shop at its site of the former Royal Navy base of Lyness.
The restoration project will also extend to the two First World War-era naval guns located outside, which used to be aboard the SMS Bremse and SMS Karlsruhe as part of the German High Seas Fleet that was eventually scuttled in Scapa Flow.
Other historic wartime events associated with Orkney, from the island’s role in the 1916 Battle of Jutland to the sinking of HMS Royal
Oak and HMS Vanguard during the Second World War, will be further highlighted within the museum after its conservation. Speaking to History
of War, Councillor Gwenda Shearer says: “The improvements… and associated conservation works have been long awaited by our museum’s team and by the local community - and by enthusiasts of wartime history around the world. We can’t wait to bring that story to life for many, many more people when the museum reopens in summer 2022.”