With the first stages of developing our building and exhibition designs completed, Highland Council have awarded planning permission which will allow our proposals to be brought to fruition, and the Museum will close for construction work at the end of the 2023 season.

This is a major project for the Museum, budgeted at £2.1m, and as of February 2023 just over £2m has been raised – we’re very nearly there! As well as kind public donations, this funding has been generated from generous grants from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Highland Council, SSE, Museums Galleries Scotland, Garfield Weston Foundation and Historic Environment Scotland – to name but a few.

In brief our project will:

• Restore and rethatch our listed 19^th century cottages
• Replace our exterior display areas with a new extension building, incorporating a new accessible entrance and climate-controlled exhibition space, and turning the Museum into a fully-indoor attraction capable of hosting group visits and events. Most importantly the building will house the Museum’s first ever toilet facilities!
• Make the Museum fully-accessible for the first time. We’ve partnered with the Lochaber Disability Access Panel to ensure that our facilities and exhibitions accommodate the broadest range of physical and intellectual access requirements possible.
• Reduce our carbon footprint and energy costs through installing solar panels and air-source underfloor heating. To provide natural insulation and promote biodiversity the extension building will sport an organic roof.
• Convert an outbuilding into ‘The Byre’ community gallery – a flexible space for local groups to produce their own exhibitions, host meetings and small events, or just drop in and socialise.

The redevelopment is an incredible opportunity for the Museum and we’re working with experts to turn our plans into reality. The restoration of our historic buildings and construction of the new extension is being led by Peter Drummond Conservation Architects, who have huge experience of working with historic buildings including the conservation and repair of the 13^th century Portencross Castle (project featured on BBC Restoration) and extensive work with Church of Scotland.

Our accredited collection of over 6,000 historic artefacts spans geological times to the present day, and we intend to bring this history to life for our international tourist audience – albeit without compromising the popular quirky, ‘curated clutter’, atmosphere of the current Museum. Rising to this challenge is Mather & Co. exhibition designers of Chester, who are producing all-new displays throughout the Museum. Like our architects they have huge experience of heritage projects, including the National Football Museum in Manchester, St Alban’s Cathedral, Inverness Castle and, excitingly, Downton Abbey: The Exhibition.

In planning the content of the Museum we’ve worked throughout the project to ensure that the community has a say in how the Museum should look and feel, and contribute local stories for the displays. As well as focus groups and surveys we have also begun an oral history project, chatting to local people about their memories of growing up and daily life and work in Glencoe, so that we can share community voices telling their own stories in the redeveloped Museum. We’re also working with Gaelic experts to make sure that Gaelic culture is properly celebrated in the new displays, which will include areas where visitors can listen to the local Gaelic dialect and learn basic phrases themselves.

We’re also really excited to be developing a new learning and outreach programme so we can take the Museum out into the community and interact with people like never before. This is being led by Parris Joyce, working as Learning & Engagement Officer in a new role created through our project. Parris has been doing superb work getting schools and the community involved with the Museum and making sure that working with people is at the heart of the redevelopment.

The Museum will be closing for construction work in the Autumn, and all being well the new Museum should be ready around September 2024. It is our hope that we will be able to stage a ‘soft’ opening for the community and Christmas events, followed by a grand re-opening at the start of the tourist season in Spring 2025.