East Lothian Council Museums Service
North Berwick and Musselburgh
The Options Appraisals and Business Plans for Museums in North Berwick and Musselburgh have now been released to the public.
If you would like to respond to either of the reports, please get in touch.
Winter Season
Prestongrange Industrial Heritage Museum and Dunbar Town House are now both closed for the Winter Season.
At Prestongrange, you can still visit the site and listen to an audio tour via your mobile phone.
Dunbar Town House is closed at present due to building renovation work.
Remember John Muir's Birthplace remains open throughout the winter so you can still visit us there!
About us
The Museums Service came into existence in 1990 with the appointment of the first Museums Officer, although the then District Council had operated a museum in North Berwick since 1975. The service now operates museums at Prestongrange, near Prestonpans; Dunbar Town House; and John Muir's Birthplace. North Berwick Museum is currently closed pending redevelopment. In addition the service puts on exhibitions and events, and supports activities, including exhibtions, by community groups across East Lothian. Find out more from our leaflet (This is a PDF so you'll need a pdf reader to open it. If you have a Mac you can use Preview otherwise something like Acrobat Reader or the lovely, smaller Sumatra will do. Both are free.)
The permanent staff now comprises the Museums Officer, Assistant Museums Officer, Collections Officer and the Museums Education Officer, plus a Manager and three Museum Assistants at John Muir's Birthplace. Prestongrange and Dunbar museums are open seasonally from April to October, although Dunbar Town House is open at weekends from November to March staffed by volunteers from Dunbar & District History Society.
The Collections comprise some 25,000 items, ranging from steam locomotives to fine art, and including local archaeology, ceramics, textiles and costume, natural history specimens, as well as objects illustrating domestic, working and community life. Of particular importance are the Cornish Beam Engine at Prestongrange Museum, the Haddington Weavers and Craighall Friendly Society banners and a collection of stone anchors.
Collections not on display are held in our environmentally-controlled store at the Museums Service Headquarters in Haddington.
Find out more about what we do in the museum blog.
Collections and Access Policies
The Museums Service Collections Policy and Access Policy were approved by East Lothian Council in August 2005. The Collections Policy sets out our remit in terms of collecting as well as setting guidelines for recording, conserving and securing the collections. The Access Policy shows how we plan to make the collections, and information about the collections, available to the public and researchers through exhibitions, activities, publications and events.
Contact
The Museums Service can be contacted by post at:
Museums HQ
Dunbar Road
Haddington
East Lothian
EH41 3PJ
Telephone 01368 861954
Fax: 01620 828201
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