About Nairn Museum
Now closed for the winter. Reopening late March. Email the manager for access during this period.
Nairn Museum Description
Nairn Museum offers visitors and locals alike a fascinating insight into the life and times of the town and surrounding area. Permanent displays illustrate various aspects of Nairn's history, while each year there is also a programme of changing exhibitions.
The Museum particularly welcomes children, providing a range of hands-on exhibits and a safe play area.
Facilities for the disabled include a wheelchair and stair lift.
A broad range of archive material is available to help those with local and family history enquiries, along with access to over 5000 digitised photographs covering all aspects of life in Nairnshire.
Nairn Museum is an independent museum and registered charity (SC 019425). We are indebted to The Highland Council for an annual grant towards running costs but we do have to make a small admission charge.
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We are looking for some additional volunteers for the new season. If you have an interest in history and enjoy meeting the public, please get in touch. Mornings: 10-1, or Afternoons: 1-4.30 Plenty of tea & biscuits provided! Call manager on 01667 456791... Email: manager@nairnmuseum.co.uk
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We are delighted that the work to create our new Family History Centre is progressing well. This should be completed by the time we open for the season at the end of March, in time for our first exhibition, 'A Woman's Place: prominent women from the history of Nairn'. This will feature the Fishertown Fishwives, together with exhibits on poet, Olive Fraser, and the town's other significant daughters, including a barnstorming social activist, a courageous World War One nurse, a respected historian and biographer, and local author, Frances Hendry. See the Museum website for this season's exhibition programme.
Nairn Museum took part in an interesting and very promising inaugural public meeting organised by the new Dementia Friendly Nairnshire Group at Nairn Courthouse today. Here's the group's chairman Tom Heggie speaking to attendees. These included representatives from Alzheimer Scotland, Nairn Citizen's Advice Bureau, Dementia Adventure, Green Hive, High Life Highland, Highland Cycle Ability Centre, Links Studios, Music in Hospitals & Care, Nairn Golf Club, Wheels in Nairnshire ...and numerous others. Memories are the lifeblood of all museums, and we're really looking forward to participating in this exciting initiative as it develops
Alzheimer Scotland - Inverness, Nairn Badenoch & Strathspey Citizens Advice Scotland Dementia Adventure Green Hive High Life Highland Highland Cycle Ability Centre Music in Hospitals & Care Scotland The Nairn Golf Club Wasps Artists' Studios Wasps Links Studios, Nairn
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Excellent news! We are delighted to announce the award of a grant from Museum Galleries Scotland (MGS) to create a new Family History Centre at Nairn Museum in partnership with Cawdor Heritage Group. The grant will be used to extend and greatly improve access and facilities for local historians, family history researchers, professional genealogists, visiting academics and amateur sleuths in Nairn and surrounding areas. The award will enable us to accommodate and safely store ...a substantial recent donation of material collected by local author and historian, the late Alan Barron, former Director at the museum - including much in-depth research on local people and families, and a large number of family trees. This will also increase and enhance storage facilities for the museum's extensive collections of census records, accounts of births, marriages and deaths, valuation rolls, parish registers, local newspapers, etc. We hope that the new Family History Centre will be completed in time for our opening on 28 March
Museums and Heritage Highland Ancestral Tourism in Scotland VisitScotland
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Merry Christmas to all our Friends both current and to come.
A big thank you to James Ross and Coronach for a wonderful Christmas concert yesterday at the museum. Thanks also to our fantastic helpers on the day. Everyone enjoyed the beautiful music, and the mulled wine and mince pies went down a treat!
Tickets are still available for our Christmas concert of Renaissance music performed by Coronach on Sunday 15th December 2019, 3-4pm. Admission £10 in aid of Nairn Museum (mulled wine, mince pies and festive nibbles provided). Advanced booking advised. Tel. 01667 456791 or contact: manager@nairnmuseum.co.uk
Tickets are selling fast for the forthcoming performance of CORONACH at Nairn Museum’s annual Christmas concert – on Sunday 15 December at 3pm.
Based in Inverness, CORONACH is a group of enterprising instrumentalists who have specialised for nearly 20 years in performances of courtly and popular music from Renaissance Scotland – featuring a wide range of early wind, stringed and keyboard instruments, and a concort of voices. The music is researched and arranged by director Ja...mes Ross, who also wrote ‘Musick Fyne, Robert Carver and the Art of Music in Renaissance Scotland' (The Mercat Press, Edinburgh 1993). Recordings of CORONACH’s music on the group’s own CMF label can be purchased at: http://www.coronach.co.uk/intro.htm
Call 01667-456791 or email manager@nairnmuseum.co.uk for tickets to the concert at Nairn Museum. Price: £10 (includes mulled wine and nibbles)
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One of the fishwives of Nairn, Mrs Baillie of Society Street. She sold fish in Nairn and would go to the fish market in Inverness most days of the week. She carried on until she was 68 in 1933. Each house in the Fishertown had a smoking shed for smoking haddock. Durkins (fir cones) which had been steeped in water were used to create the smoke. Some fishwives would walk for miles to sell their fish with heavily laden baskets. As well as being responsible for house and family, the fishwives would gather bait, bait lines, gather durkins, prepare and smoke fish.
This old range from a Fishertown home would have been a welcoming and cosy place to sit by at this time of year!
If you'd like to join us for our Coronach Christmas concert on the 15th of December, please get in touch. Mulled wine and mince pies will be served!
The museum is now closed for the winter. We look forward to seeing you again in April. In the meantime, you are welcome to contact the manager if you'd like to visit to do some research. School groups are always welcome! And don't forget our Coronach Christmas concert on the 15th of December!
We all had a splendid evening at this evening’s Inverness Fiddler’s concert with the A Capella singers ‘The Broads’. Many thanks to the Nairn Rotary club for organising this, all proceeds going to Nairn Museum.
Join us for a magical Christmas concert of Renaissance music performed by Coronach on Sunday 15th December 2019, 3-4pm. Admission £10 in aid of Nairn Museum (mulled wine and festive nibbles provided). Advanced booking advised. Tel. 01667 456791 or contact: manager@nairnmuseum.co.uk
Interesting ideas here!
Another fine day to visit the beach in Nairn! This photo was taken around 1900. If you get too hot at the beach, come visit us in the museum for an hour or so and find out a little more about the Nairn of yesteryear.
Don’t forget the incredible evening with the Inverness Fiddlers on 16th November at the Community Centre. Proceeds for the Alan Barron memorial refurbishment.