The Highland Folk Museum is at Newtonmore, twenty-two kilometres south-west of Aviemore, and it is one of the best free attractions in Scotland. It is an open-air museum — buildings rather than cases — spread along about a mile of ground, with a road train running the length of it for anyone who does not want to walk both ways.
It was founded in 1935 by Dr Isabel Grant, originally on Iona and later at Kingussie, and moved to its present site in the 1980s. That makes it the oldest open-air museum in Britain, and one of the very few anywhere founded by a woman.
The museum is organised chronologically as you walk along it.
Baile Gean — a reconstructed 1700s Highland township, built using period methods: turf and creel houses, thatched roofs, earth floors, a central hearth with no chimney. The buildings are based on excavated evidence, and in season there are costumed interpreters in them keeping the fires going. The smoke, the dark and the smell are the whole point, and no display case conveys them.
This township has been used as a filming location more than once, most famously for a television series that brought a considerable number of visitors here.
A 1930s working croft with livestock, a byre and a working kitchen.
A schoolhouse of 1930s date, with lessons in session.
A church, a post office, a tailor’s, a clockmaker’s and a joiner’s shop, several with people working in them.
A curling hut, a shinty display — Newtonmore is one of the heartlands of the game — and a substantial collection of Highland material culture.
Three things. It is outdoors but sheltered — you are moving between buildings you go inside, which changes the experience of Scottish weather completely. It is staffed by people who do things rather than by attendants. And it is free, with a request for a donation and a modest parking charge.
Visitors regularly spend three or four hours and are surprised to have done so. It is comfortably the best value day out in Badenoch and Strathspey.
Time: three to four hours if you walk the whole site. The road train runs its length for those who would rather not.
Cost: free entry with a suggested donation; parking is charged.
Season: open roughly April to October, with reduced hours at the ends of the season and the site closed in winter. Check before travelling.
Terrain: a mile of largely level ground with grass and gravel paths. The road train helps considerably.
Facilities: café, shop and toilets.
By car: twenty-two kilometres south-west of Aviemore on the A86 at Newtonmore, signposted from the A9.
By train: Newtonmore has a station on the Aviemore to Perth line, about a kilometre from the museum.
By bus: services run along the A9 corridor.
Newtonmore itself has the Clan Macpherson Museum and the Wildcat Trail around the village. Kingussie, five kilometres north-east, has Ruthven Barracks and the RSPB reserve at Insh Marshes. The Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig is on the same road back towards Aviemore.
A day taking in the Folk Museum, Ruthven Barracks and the wildlife park is one of the best in the area and involves very little driving.
Yes, entry is free with a suggested donation. Parking is charged.
Three to four hours to walk the whole site. A road train runs its length if you would rather not walk both ways.
Baile Gean, a reconstruction of an eighteenth-century Highland township built with period methods, based on excavated evidence, with costumed interpreters in season.
Outdoors, but you move between buildings that you go inside — which makes it far better in poor weather than “open-air museum” suggests.
No. It runs roughly April to October with reduced hours at either end. Check before travelling.