Highland Folk Museum

About this Organisation

The Highland Folk Museum is a museum and open-air visitor attraction in Newtonmore in Badenoch in the Scottish Highlands. It was founded in 1935 by the ethnographer, historian and collector Dr. Isabel Frances Grant (1887-1983), who developed a unique collection of Highland artefacts showing “…different aspects of the material setting of life in the Highlands in byegone days”, including vast arrays of objects: furniture; tools; farming implements; horse tackle; cooking and dining utensils and vessels; pottery; glass; musical instruments; sporting equipment; weapons; clothing and textiles; jewellery; books, photographs and archive papers with accounts of superstitions, stories and songs; and home-crafted items of every shape and description, including basketry, Barvas ware and treen. These objects are housed today in 'Am Fasgadh' - a purpose-built collections store at Newtonmore. The eighty-acre site is laid out in four distinct areas: Aultlarie Croft - a 1930s working farm; Balameanach (Gaelic for ‘Middle Village’) - a developing community of relocated buildings; the Pinewoods – an area of forest with interlinking paths; and Baile Gean - the Highland Folk Museum’s reconstruction of an early 1700s Highland township. These are interpreted through 'live demonstrations' and the museum also hosts a wide variety of activities and events. In 2015 the collections at the Highland Folk Museum received official ‘Recognition’ from Museums Galleries Scotland as a ‘Nationally Significant Collection’.

Contacts

Organisation Type

Museum

Location

Highland Folk Museum
Aultlarie Croft
Kingussie Road
Newtonmore
PH20 1AY
Entry last updated: March 20th, 2019

Please note that links to websites and catalogues are provided by the Organisations listed and not maintained by Scottish Local History Forum.