Alastair's Holiday around Pitlochry

Well today I decided to take in Newtonmore which is a village some 45 minutes drive from the Dunalastair Hotel. You take the high road out of Kinloch Rannoch onto the A9 towards Inverness and the town is well signposted along the road.

I wanted to remind myself about Newtonmore as when I was aged 6 my folks rented a small holding there for a 3 week holiday. I remember our daily task was to find the eggs that the hens had laid. Anyway.. it is still a very attractive village and I spent some 3 hours going around the Folk museum there. You really need a full 3 hours to appreciate all there is to see and here is my wee collection of photographs...

The Sullivan Family visit the museum

This is me driving into the village and then the map of the Highland Folk Museum

This is the road I walked down towards the croft and one of a number of signs telling you what you should be seeing as you walk along

Another example of sign about a Drystone Dyke

Showing you a field growing potatoes, turnips and other vegetables and the other view showing some sheep grazing.

You then go past the croft with a kitchen garden growing amongst other things are plants used for medicinal use. Then a picture of the croft steading.

Then a closer look at the Steading and the Croft Duck Pond

I then headed toward the Highland Village passing the school House on the way

I noted a fellow MacIntyre owned this building so couldn't resist the chance of a photo.

Inside of the sewing shop and if you can't walk too far you can always catch one of the two buses that are available. Of course after my Edinburgh adventure I was far too fit to need one! :-)

This was the path that took you to the village and the sign as you enter it

You walk past a timber mill up to the village

There are no lights in the buildings so it really is very dark. One had a peat fire going so you got the chance to smell the peat fire and experience the smoke. Wonderful experience and they have folk dresses in period costume giving you a guided tour.

This was a wee loch designed to be a curling ring in winter and part of the joiners shop

Overall I had a most enjoyable visit to this Folk Museum and would highly recommend it to anyone going in that direction. Do however leave yourself 2 - 3 hours as there is a lot to see and experience with audio visual displays at various points. You really did get a sense of how the Highlanders may have lived many years ago. I might add the school house was truly excellent and I would have liked to have shown more photos of it but any teachers out there should definitely look at the teaching aids on exhibit!

On my way out of Newtonmore on the way back to the hotel I just happened to notice the Clan MacPherson Museum so couldn't resist having a wee look.

I was made very welcome by the Museum Curator and she showed me around and also played a 10 minute video of the Clan. Quite a substantial museum with several rooms full of great artefacts of the clan and lots of pictures as well as a wall with all the clan shields of which the above picture is only a selection.

1700’s Scotland - Highland life 300 years ago. The Highland Folk Museum.
Take a step back through time into villages from the 1700’s 1800’s and 1900’s with the 1700’s village used for filming the TV series Outlander.