Museum nan Eilean will close at 1pm on Saturday 1st December to allow for the dismantling and removal of the Fonn’s Duthchas exhibition.  The gallery spaces will remain closed until Tuesday 8th April 2008 while the Museum is being re-displayed.  During this time Museum staff will still be in the building and available to assist with any enquiries.  We apologise for any disappointment or inconvenience this may cause to visitors. 

Museum nan Eilean will re-open with a new exhibition, including Stornoway Ironworks, an exhibition being shown in partnership with Historic Scotland.

Aspects of the Island

Visit Museum nan Eilean and find out about the fascinating history and culture of the island from its rich and varied archaeology, its distinctive Gaelic culture to its recent past.

The Museum also has a programme of temporary exhibitions.

 

 

 

 

Stornoway Ironworks

The stunning ironwork of Stornoway is to be the focus of an exhibition which is due to open in April 2008. The celebration of the amazing decorative cast ironwork will go on display from April 2008 in a joint project between Historic Scotland and Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar. The exhibition will tell the story of the ironwork, its enormous popularity in the 19th century, and how it survived in Stornoway despite vanishing from much of Britain during World War II, when large amounts were removed for the war effort.

Scotland was a world-leader in the manufacture of architectural ironwork and it was exported across the globe. Stornoway is a rare pocket where much of it survived intact, so we can get a glimpse of what communities all over the country looked like before the war.

The exhibition is being put together following the work of Ali Davey, an Historic Scotland Research Fellow, who photographed and recorded much of Stornoway’s ironwork in 2006. She said: “The streetscape in Stornoway is remarkable; it illustrates how streets across Scotland once looked before the ironwork was removed and was replaced by bare stone copes, privet hedges and poor mild steel replicas of what had once been there. The residents of Stornoway have largely kept their ironwork well maintained, some remarkably so for its age, and it contributes a great deal to the quality of the built environment. “

Ali’s research has shown that the cast ironwork in the Isle of Lewis capital is among the largest and best maintained examples in the country.  Like other island communities, Stornoway did not lose its ironwork to the war effort and it retained its Victorian and Edwardian ironwork which had been made by world famous ironfounders, predominantly in Glasgow.

As well as looking at the past it will also be very much concerned with the present – showing owners how they can care for this precious resource. The exhibition is planned to be in place for a year from April 2008. A publication is also due to be published in 2008 to provide some history and background to the many names you can find hidden under years of paint, and to illustrate the wonderful diversity of ironwork to be found in Stornoway.