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National Museum of Scotland

© Blair Logie

This museum bills itself as "presenting Scotland to the World and the World to Scotland". In many ways the test of how good this museum will be, is in how well it achieves this aim. So does it achieve this?

Well, in some ways it achieves its aims very well, but in others it struggles. In my opinion, one of the problems is the design of the building itself. The National Museum of Scotland can be a confusing place to visit. First of all you can enter it via the doors of the Royal Museum of Scotland or via the doors of the National Museum of Scotland. Then on most floors you can walk along a corridor and find yourself back in the Royal Museum and vice versa.

In addition you could also miss an awful lot of exhibits due to the internal layout of the National Museum, which certainly isn't the guided "you can only walk in this direction" type of museum. The cases and exhibits are numbered and colour coded but again I only realised the significance of this late in my visit.
There is of course the possibility that this will put you off visiting. That however, would be a mistake as this is probably one of the best museums I have been in recently.

The present site of the museum was opened in December 1998. The museum is on seven levels, which are arranged, in chronological order. The lower ground level (which I missed) examines Scotland's history from the formation of the landscape itself to the early people who settled in the country. The next two levels show a variety of exhibits in relation to the Kingdom of the Scots and their struggle for independence. This includes such diverse topics as Government, both local and national, warfare, arts, crafts and an extensive display on the importance of religion in these early days.

It is probably worth noting at this time that the museum is suitable for children of all ages. It isn't just glass cased exhibits (although there are many of these) but the museum also provides interactive displays, free guided tours and a discovery centre on level one where you are actively encouraged to feel, try on and use.

Levels three, four and five take you from 1707 to the outbreak of World War One. Again many of these exhibits will surprise you, showing the age when Scotland was "the workshop to the world" and contributed to Britain being the world "superpower" of the day.

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