East Lothian Council Museums

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East Lothian Council Museums Service

Novaspero in Eyemouth Harbour, by John Bellany

East Lothian Museums on www.flickr.com

Prestongrange Museum Re-Opened

Prestongrange Museum has now re-opened. We look forward to welcoming you once again. Why not join us for Fairytales Day on 31st July?

Vacancies

There are currently two vacancies for the new John Gray Centre being advertised - Centre Development Officer and Heritage Resource Development Officer, with more information on the John Gray Centre page. For more details and to apply, go to the My Job Scotland website. Closing date is 8th August 2010.

Welcome

East Lothian Council 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 has three museums:

Prestongrange, near Prestonpans;
Dunbar Town House (Closed for refurbishment)
John Muir's Birthplace

North Berwick Museum is currently closed pending redevelopment. A Museum for Musselburgh is due to open in late 2010. The John Gray Centre is due to open in Haddington in 2012.

In addition the service puts on exhibitions and events, and supports activities, including exhibitions, 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 Acrobat Reader or Sumatra will do.) You can get involved online too on Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and more!

Staff

The permanent staff now comprises the Principal 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.

Find out more about what we do in the museum blog.

Collections

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.

Explore our collections on Flickr, YouTube or Scran.

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.