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Gairloch Museum Art Fund MuseumOfTheYear 2020

Explore 7,000 years of history displayed within a former nuclear bunker, from the making of mountains to the mighty midge.

Independent museum. Registered Scottish Charity SC010249

DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES!Gairloch Museum’s free Winter Talk on Monday 26th October (7pm-9pm) will be exploring how Perthshi...
16/10/2026

DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES!
Gairloch Museum’s free Winter Talk on Monday 26th October (7pm-9pm) will be exploring how Perthshire’s Scottish Crannog Centre, which suffered a devastating fire in June 2021, has not only recovered but become bigger and better than ever. The talk will take place in Gairloch Community Hall directly after Gairloch Museum’s short Annual General Meeting at 7pm - and there will be delicious free home-baking, teas and coffees thanks to the Museum's lovely Am Bard Café team.

Crannogs are ancient dwellings or strongholds which were built on either partially or totally artificial islands in lochs in Scotland and Ireland. Eighteen have been found in Loch Tay and they are also found in other areas of Scotland including the Highlands. Crannogs in mainland Scotland are thought to date back to the Iron Age (800-400BC) and some remained in use until just a few hundred years ago.

Archaeological research into the crannogs of Loch Tay resulted in a reconstruction being built at Kenmore in 1997. The reconstructed crannog became a popular visitor attraction, and the destruction caused by the 2021 fire was a major loss to archaeologists, visitors and the local community.

The story of how people came together not only to rebuild the crannog but also to re-create an Iron Age Village is an example of resilience and imagination, with the newly-opened Crannog Centre being the first of three reconstructed crannogs which will be built.

Everyone welcome, and there is no need to book in advance.

The four works by Paul Furneaux RSA, which we’re delighted to be exhibiting at Gairloch Museum - “Lewis: Sunlight”, “Sma...
16/10/2026

The four works by Paul Furneaux RSA, which we’re delighted to be exhibiting at Gairloch Museum - “Lewis: Sunlight”, “Small Island”, “Rising Sea” and “Calm Sea” - explore the ever-changing relationship between land, sea and light. Their subjects have a particular resonance with Wester Ross and the Hebrides, where shifting weather, fleeting sunlight and the restless movement of the sea continually transform familiar views. 

Furneaux seems concerned less with recording a particular place than with capturing its atmosphere and the impressions it leaves in the memory. His images invite us to look beyond what is immediately recognisable and rediscover the qualities of light, space and movement that create a visceral impact.

Born in Aberdeenshire, Furneaux studied at Edinburgh College of Art before receiving a scholarship to study traditional woodblock printing in Japan. That experience profoundly shaped his artistic practice, and he has become an accomplished practitioner of mokuhanga, the Japanese technique of water-based woodblock printing. Through successive layers of translucent colour, he creates images of remarkable subtlety, luminosity and depth, often moving towards abstraction.

His work brings together the precision and restraint of Japanese printmaking with a deeply personal response to the natural world, achieving an expressive richness through an economy of colour and form.

“RSA Select” continues at Gairloch Museum until next Saturday, 24th October, in both of our galleries, with free entry. A ‘must see’ if you’re in the area and a huge honour for us to host the work of these acclaimed Royal Scottish Academicians!

SEARCHING FOR MARY ANN MCLEAN Mary Ann McLean was said to have been born in North Erradale about 1910. The family left t...
15/10/2026

SEARCHING FOR MARY ANN MCLEAN

Mary Ann McLean was said to have been born in North Erradale about 1910. The family left the area and moved to Aberdeen. That is not a lot of information to go on, so how would you go about trying to find out more about her and her family using the records we hold in the Museum?

Gairloch Museum has copies of local Census information so we first of all looked at the 1911 and 1921 Censuses for North Erradale. However, we couldn’t find any McLeans who fitted the above information. That might have been the end of the search but we decided to look at other nearby townships.

This led us to a family at Aultgrishan, a crofting township between North Erradale and Melvaig. On the 1911 Census, in croft 9 (originally a Mackenzie croft) which had a house with two rooms, we found the McLean family consisting of: mother Kate (a 42-year-old widow) and three children living with her: John (11), Murdoch (9), and Maryann, 8. This would give Mary Ann a birth year of c1903.

On the 1921 Census for Aultgrishan, Kate is recorded in croft 10, (formerly a McIver croft), in a house with three rooms along with only one son, Murdo. He is 19 years old and a shepherd. John would be 21 so where has he gone? Mary Ann would be around 18 so where might she be? There is one match of her name and age. This was a Mary Ann MacLean who was 18 years old and a domestic servant in Glen Cottage, the estate factor’s house in Gairloch. Could this be our Mary Ann?

Going back in time the McLeans are not recorded on the 1901 census for Aultgrishan but there is a possibility of them living in Melvaig. This was on part of croft 25 (25B) which was a house with one room. John MacLean, junior, was 48 years old and a crofter and fisherman, was recorded there along with his wife, Catherine (32) and son John (just a year old). Catherine and John can be matched with the Kate and John we found in the 1911 Census.

In the 1891 Census for Melvaig there were two houses on lot 25. A Mary MacLean, an 80-year-old widow, was recorded in one of the houses with her son, John, who was 38 and listed as a widower. John seems to be the 48-year-old man recorded in the 1901 Census.

So … are the Macleans at Aultgrishan the correct Macleans? Do we have the right Mary Ann? Was John, Catherine’s husband, married previously to a wife who died? (He was unmarried on the 1881 Census.) There could be a lot more searching to be undertaken. What direction would you research next? And do you have any family or local knowledge which might help?

Did you know? If you are interested in researching people from the Gairloch area, Gairloch museum is the place to go! As well as the usual genealogy records, the museum archive holds copies of the family papers of the Mackenzies of Gairloch dating back well before the first Census in 1841. There is also a wealth of research on local families undertaken over the years by museum volunteers, and a library of more than 4,000 photographs.



Photos 1 and 2: croft maps – crofts 9 & 10 Aultgrishan. (From crofting maps held in the Museum.)
Photo 3: Glen Cottage, Gairloch: the estate factor’s house.

Closing tomorrow! Are you organised, good with budgets, and passionate about building roundhouses? We're looking for a p...
15/10/2026

Closing tomorrow! Are you organised, good with budgets, and passionate about building roundhouses? We're looking for a project manager to join our team for the warrant and build phase of the Roundhouse Project. If this could be you, check out this link for more information: https://www.gairlochmuseum.org/recruitment
Application deadline: 16 October 2026, 2pm.

Samantha Clark is a visual artist and writer, who is based in Orkney. Her practice has evolved over thirty years, throug...
14/10/2026

Samantha Clark is a visual artist and writer, who is based in Orkney. Her practice has evolved over thirty years, through textile, writing, drawing, installation, video and permanent works in the public realm, with painting as her primary current focus.

Shaped by Orkney’s dynamic natural environment of wind, sky and particularly water, her recent work invites us to notice how water permeates everything: sea, lake, stream, cloud, rain, fog, tears…
Sam’s work is compelling, mesmerising, her handling of the painted surface intricate and web-like, almost microscopic in its detail and alive with a shimmering energy. Both meditative and dynamic at the same time.

We are thrilled to be exhibiting three pieces at Gairloch Museum - Crevice, Plunge and Night Waves. Each reflects her process - a slow and meditative practice, an accumulation of simple marks and layered washes from which intricate forms emerge that resemble sea foam, cloud formations or wave patterns. Inspired by water, clouds, shifting light and the movement of the sea, and through carefully layered colour and repeated fine marks, she creates images that move between recognisable landscape and abstraction, offering a fresh way of looking at familiar surroundings.

Sam trained at Edinburgh College of Art (1985-89), Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts (1991) and the Slade School of Art (1993-6). She has carried out numerous residencies, commissions and exhibitions, including residencies at Oxford University, the British School at Rome (1991), the University of Tasmania (2000) and IAAB International Exchange Studios in Basel (2004). Her first book ‘The Clearing’ was published by Little, Brown in 2020. In 2023 she received the inaugural Royal Scottish Academy MacRobert Trust Art Award for Painting. In 2025 she undertook a residency at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Japan.

Sam’s work can be seen in “RSA Select”, at Gairloch Museum, until Saturday 24th October.

This coming Sunday 18th October, a small group of local pipers are rekindling the annual walk up to the memorial to Iain...
13/10/2026

This coming Sunday 18th October, a small group of local pipers are rekindling the annual walk up to the memorial to Iain Dall at Flowerdale.

Anyone is welcome to come along and join the "Wednesday pipers" and make the procession from Flowerdale carpark up to the Iain Dall monument, a distance of about a mile. A small refreshment will be enjoyed before heading back to the carpark. The procession will begin at 1.30pm.

Iain Dall MacKay, the Blind Piper of Gairloch (1656-1754) was just 7 years old, when he lost his sight from having smallpox. Despite this, he studied Piping with the MacCrimmons on the Isle of Skye (his father Rory was also a talented piper, married to the daughter of a Chief of MacKay). Iain Dall lived in a MacKenzie property in Flowerdale and increased his income by piping and performing poetry, though only 6 of his poems have survived. He carried the composition of pibroch to a high level and at least eleven pibrochs can be attributed to him. Iain retired to Badachro to live with his daughter, the mother of the Gaelic poet, William Ross. He passed away there at the age of 98, and is buried in the old Gairloch churchyard.

A tradition evolved of celebrating his life and work with an annual event held locally. Established by the late Bridget and Alex MacKenzie (Dornoch), Alastair Pearson (The Old Inn), Stuart Letford and the late Roy Wentworth, after a few years, Iain Blake took on the coordination of events which included piping competitions, recitals, concerts, talks as well as a procession to the memorial.

The Wednesday Pipers hope to rekindle interest and support for this event and ensure the legacy of Iain Dall Mackay is remembered and celebrated annually.

We are maybe a wee bit late for National Porridge Day (which was Saturday, for anyone who is managing to keep track!) bu...
12/10/2026

We are maybe a wee bit late for National Porridge Day (which was Saturday, for anyone who is managing to keep track!) but not for . This lovely wooden porridge bowl, donated to the Museum by Isobel Mackenzie, is on display in the Museum’s Croft house. We can’t help but wonder how many warming breakfasts were enjoyed from it … 🤔

Closing soon! Are you organised, good with budgets, and passionate about building roundhouses? We're looking for a proje...
12/10/2026

Closing soon! Are you organised, good with budgets, and passionate about building roundhouses? We're looking for a project manager to join our team for the warrant and build phase of the Roundhouse Project. If this could be you, check out this link for more information: https://www.gairlochmuseum.org/recruitment
Application deadline: 16 October 2026, 2pm.

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Achtercairn
Gairloch
IV212BH

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01445 712287

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