Award Winning Team Visit Highland Folk Museum

Locals and visitors to the Highland Folk Museum, will this week (Friday 15th July) have a unique chance to meet members of The Highland Council’s award-winning Am Baile website team at the Museum’s Newtonmore site and have the opportunity to bring in photographic and archive material which could be recorded for posterity on the Am Baile website.

Admission to the museum will be offered at the reduced special rate of £3 for individuals presenting information to the Am Baile team. Last month the website www.ambaile.org.uk received the Scottish Executive Delivering Excellence Award at the COSLA Awards 2005 from Public Service Reform Minister Tom McCabe.

Throughout the week Monday 11th – Sunday 17th July, visitors to the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore will be able to participate in a programme of activities following the theme of "Footprints in the Past".

Staff in period costume will re-enact and demonstrate traditional skills inviting visitors to join in and try their hand at ‘turning’ bowls and stools 1700s-style; learn about the versatility of nettles and other plants used for medicine and in cooking and also learn about the principles of roof thatching.

The fearsome nettle will be one of the plants used on the 11th and 12th July to show how our descendants used Mother Nature’s supplies to make medicinal potions and lotions to treat their ailments. These demonstrations will run from 2pm - 4.30pm.

On the 12th and 14th July, pole late demonstrations will run from 11am – 2pm; and thatching demonstrations from 1pm - 4-30pm.

On the 15th July weaving demonstrations will run from11am – 1pm and 2pm - 4.30pm and at 2pm and 3pm the age-old tradition of "Waulking the Cloth" will be demonstrated by working women singing in Gaelic as they shrink their tweed.

A look at domestic life in the Township and cooking, crops, health and dress will be on the 11th and 13th July, from 11am -1pm and 2pm- 4.30pm.

For children, on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th natural science visits the Highland Folk Museum through Mr. Bug. Find out about, and see, reptiles and insects. Bug-handling sessions will only be for children over 5years old. Mr Bug sessions will be 11am, 11.45am, 12.30pm, 2pm, 2.45pm, and 3.30pm.

Children, young and old, can join in school games as their grandparents used to play on the 15th July from 1pm – 3.30pm.

The Highland Folk Museum, at Kingussie and Newtonmore, invites visitors to enter the World of the Highlander - to see, touch, smell and feel the atmosphere as they walk through the material remains of 400 years of Highland life from clansman to crofter.

The Highland Folk Museum is managed by The Highland Council’s Education, Culture and Sport Service. Further information about the museum is available at: www.highlandfolk.com or by telephoning 01540 661307.