The Outdoor Museum

Tar cauldron and hand crane

Excavation of Roundhouse 10, October 2020

As well as the amazing collection housed within Gairloch Museum, there are two areas outside the Museum that you can visit to learn about Gairloch’s past.
Behind Gairloch Museum you will find the Achtercairn Archaeology Trail – a route that leads you round the sites of 12 roundhouses, used as dwellings during the Iron age.
You might want to visit the first roundhouse, a two-minute wander up the start of the trail on a good path. Recent excavations have uncovered a whole host of interesting finds including pot boilers, polishers and a quartz hammerstone. The rest of the trail is on a hill track and takes about two hours to complete. You can pick up a guide map from the Museum Shop.
Over the road in front of the Museum is a wheelchair accessible viewpoint with information about the local geology as well as large samples of rock types. There are some large Museum objects to view relating to the local fishing industry as well as an interpretation panel that shares the story of how important the industry was for the local economy.
View to Free Church and Gairloch Beach
We are grateful to Art Fund, the Postcode Local Trust, the Nineveh Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and the Hugh Fraser Foundation and many individual donors for helping to get us started on our Outdoor Museum Project. If you would like to help us with phase two of our plans, we would love to hear from you.