No looking back as museums time travel into the 21st century
Some of Scotland’s remotest attractions are leaving the dark ages and enjoying a modern makeover, finds Sandra Dick
THE stories they tell are hundreds of years in the making and reflect the ingenuity of people who made the harsh but beautiful Highlands and Islands their home.
However, in some cases, the challenge of presenting the complex stories of struggling croft families, clan wars and Jacobean rebellion has led to rather unexciting displays of kilted dummies, objects trapped behind glass cases and rather underwhelmed visitors.
Now these unique narratives are set to be propelled straight into the 21st century.
Museums and heritage projects are preparing to invest millions of pounds in cutting edge technology, “hands on” interactive exhibitions and more creative displays to meet the demands of rising numbers of sophisticated international visitors.
There are also ambitious construction projects that will see elements of Highlands and Islands heritage – from mills to brochs – reborn for a new generation of heritage-hungry tourist.
The investments are being seen as vital if Highland attractions are to meet the expectations of well-travelled visitors once coronavirus-related restrictions are lifted.
A new pilot programme, Xponorth, has been launched to link small museums and heritage projects with creative specialists who can devise innovative and high-tech ways to tell their stories.
Ideas include virtual reality and augmented reality technology, sleek and modern design, greater use of online and digital platforms to raise museums’ profile, and new income streams from poetry, crafts, music festivals and books.
The programme is working alongside grassroots organisation Museums and Heritage Highland (MHH).
“A lot of museums have amazing ideas to bring in virtual reality, augmented reality, new products to sell and new experiences but don’t have the capacity, direct knowledge or digital skills to make them happen,” said Nicola Henderson, Heritage Advisor at
Xponorth. “This allows them to get in touch with an idea and get some support to develop their plans and be put in touch with experts.”
Augmented reality – which superimposes images or information on a smartphone or tablet screen for visitors to better visualise artefacts or stories – is currently being considered by a number of smaller museums.
They include Tain Museum which is planning an augmented reality experience for visitors to the medieval St Duthac Collegiate Church.
At Wick Museum, there are hopes of projecting images on to the town’s harbour walls to show how it once looked.
Many of the museums planning major revamps are on the busy NC500 tourist route.
While Inverness Castle is set to undergo a multi-million-pound revamp, a £650,000 investment is under way at Strathnaver Museum in Bettyhill to tell the story of the area’s farming communities. A further £41,000 digital project is also being developed to tell the ancient story of the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis.
One of the largest projects is a £7 million redesign of Kilmartin Museum in Argyll, to showcase a Bronze Age skeleton and artefacts collected from nearby Dunadd hill fort in a modern building.
In the case of Glencoe Folk Museum, created in the 1970s by a group of local women from two early 18th-century thatched crofters’ cottages, £1m will be spent replacing 50-year-old display cases with new space for its 6,000 objects.
As well as museums, a string of ambitious construction projects are under way, led by the Caithness Broch Project. It aims to create an archaeological trail around Caithness and build a replica Iron Age Broch. John O’groats Mill Trust, meanwhile, is raising £2m to turn the historic B-listed building into a cultural centre.
The investments are fuelled by soaring tourism, fresh respect for Highland and Island heritage, and concerns that sophisticated visitors familiar with high-quality museum spaces were being met by wellintentioned but sometimes disappointing displays.
According to Professor Jim Hunter, founding director of the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Centre for History, the investment shows a new appreciation for the region’s culture and history.
“People are beginning to value places in a way they did not 50 or 60 years ago,” he said.
A lot of museums have amazing ideas to bring in virtual reality, augmented reality