Wester Ross museum hits lotto jackpot
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A ROSS-SHIRE community has hit the lottery jackpot with its ambitious plans for a new £2 million museum.
Gairloch Heritage Museum (GHM) has been awarded a Heritage Lottery grant of £725,600 towards the conversion of a former Cold War bunker into a first-rate visitor attraction and heritage hub.
The investment will secure the long-term future of the museum’s collections and the cultural activities it offers.
The museum hopes to open its new premises in early 2019.
Gairloch’s derelict bunker has been used over the years as an anti-aircraft operations room, an emergency operations centre and a roads depot.
The new museum will feature expanded displays, and improve access to GHM’s collections and archives.
It will provide more space for exhibitions, and incorporate a cafe and a shop.
The project will also offer training opportunities both for the museum’s volunteers and, in partnership with UHI, for the area’s young people.
A number of professional jobs will be created within the new centre.
The museum has been managed and run by volunteers since 1977 and is a cultural hub for Gairloch and the surrounding area.
It houses the first Pictish stone found on the west coast mainland of Scotland, and its Gaelic language and literature resources are highly valued by Gaelic scholars.
With the support of HLF, the new museum will reach out to broader audiences, build partnerships with other educational and cultural organisations and contribute even more significantly to the local economy.
The lease on the existing museum building, The Old Steading, ends in 2018 and cannot be renewed. But at any rate the building has become too small for the museum’s needs.
Roy Macintyre, chairman of GHM said: "Our project is a very ambitious one for a community of our size, but is the only way to make the museum sustainable and keep it open, preserving our heritage for the future.
"The investment by Heritage Lottery Fund is a vital part of the total funding package for the project and we are now very hopeful of raising the remaining funds to start building a fabulous new educational and heritage resource for our community in the new year."
So far the museum has raised over £1m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Hugh Fraser Foundation, SSE Sustainable Development Fund and more than £130,000 in the small community through donations and events. It is also hoping for financial input from Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
Some of the total project cost is also accounted for by volunteer time and the transfer of the building from Highland Council for a nominal sum.
Lucy Casot, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Scotland said: "Gairloch Heritage Museum is bursting with stories and pictures which give us clues to what life was like in Wester Ross over the past 2000 years and how it has shaped the region.
"Thanks to players of the National Lottery, the community can come together to preserve and share this precious collection."
