Kirbuster Museum

Kirbuster Museum

The Kirbuster Museum is housed in an unrestored traditional Orkney longhouse, dating to at least the 16th century. A stone bed, traditional household furnishings, farm implements, and artefacts of daily life provide a fascinating glimpse of daily life in Orkney over the past centuries.

A central hearth, burning peat, provides warmth for the longhouse, and there is a lovely Victorian garden outside. Recommended.

The longhouse is the last traditional 'firehoose' in northern Europe, a reminder of a bygone age, yet it was occupied as late as 1986, a reminder of just how long the traditional ways of life have remained central to Orkney culture. You can see a stone-built neuk bed, and Edwardian parlour, and a collection of agricultural equipment.

Visiting

As my long-suffering family will attest, I am not a 'museum person'. But I enjoyed the Kirbuster Museum enormously. You really do get a very clear idea of just what life was like for an ordinary Orkney family. And with the peat fire burning on the hearth you can almost feel transported back in time to an age long before television or mobile phones.

I found the museum very evocative and friendly, a unique glimpse into Orkney's past and a reminder that those traditions were the ordinary of life not so very long ago!

As of this writing, the museum is open seasonally, from spring to the end of October.

The bedroom

The family spinning wheel

The Victorian garden

The peat fire