We all know about the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Kelvingrove, Scotland Street and the Museum of Transport in Glasgow. Most have heard of the Secret Bunker in Fife and the Blackhouse in Arnol on the island of Lewis. But here we offer a few other suggestions of museums worth visiting. Some are taken entirely at random, some less prominent, others perhaps forgotten.

Among them is Auchindrain Museum, Scotland's first open-air museum, the founder of which, Marion Campbell, is the subject of a new book. Like many independent attractions, it faces funding problems so severe that it may have to close. On a happier note, the future of Blairs Museum in Aberdeenshire, of art and artefacts owned by the Scottish Catholic Church, has been safeguarded by developers.

Scotland has a wealth of museums. All need our support. To find out about lesser-known attractions near you, visit www.scottishmuseums.org.uk.



Auchindrain Museum
This museum stands at the end of an old drove road that linked Loch Awe and Loch Fyne. It is said that it was on this route that the last woman to be killed by a wolf in Scotland was found lying in the snow.

The story is recalled in a compelling new biography of Marion Campbell of Kilberry, that estimable lady of Argyll whose dream it had been to establish a Scottish version of the great Scandinavian folk museums at Auchindrain, six miles south-west of Inveraray on the A83.

What attracted Marion Campbell to Auchindrain, or Achadh an Droighinn - The Field of the Thorntree - were the 22 historic buildings and the agricultural land that represented the last complete surviving example in Scotland of a unique and ancient arrangement of traditional farming and land tenure. Multiple tenancy farming townships such as Auchindrain were a distinct way of working the land which dated back to medieval times. Each family would have its own share of the land, but certain activities would demand communal working while their cattle shared the same grazings.

In 1779, Auchindrain was home to 38 people, a figure which rose to 65 in 1841. From 1842 onwards, the population dwindled slowly so that by the 1960s it was deserted.

Led by the indefatigable Marion Campbell and fuelled by the enthusiasm of local historians and antiquarians, an action committee was formed to start the work of preserving Auchindrain. In 1964 a body of trustees took over the task of running it as the first open-air museum in Scotland.

Yet for all its significance, all is not well. In the 1960s and 1970s Auchindrain was attracting around 20,000 visitors a year. Now it is very different. There are new wolves on the drove road. Owing to lack of investment, it attracts around 6000 and, along with so many other independent museums, particularly in rural Scotland, it is stumbling from one funding crisis to another, as Joanne Howdle knows only too well.

Two years ago she left her job as curator of Wigan Pier, with its 52 members of staff, to come to Auchindrain as museum manager. She is the only full-time employee and does everything from cutting the grass to painting the buildings to fundraising.

She explains: "Argyll and Bute Council is currently giving Auchindrain revenue support in return for my services curating the social and fine art collections at Campbeltown Museum. This agreement will last for three years. But Auchindrain also desperately needs capital investment to develop our visitor facilities. We need to raise around £2m but with our low visitor numbers and so much lottery money going to the Olympics, it is going to be an uphill struggle. Without revenue funding from national government sources for the day-to-day running of the museum, Auchindrain will have permanently to close its doors to the public in the next few years."

Councillor Alison Hay, who chairs Auchindrain's trustees, agrees. "Auchindrain is facing a financial crisis. If we don't get extra funding, Auchindrain will close and that would be a tragedy. I think it is a crying shame that so many independent museums have such a hand-to-mouth existence."

  • By Inveraray. Call 01499 500 235. Adults £4.50/£3.50; children £2.20. Open daily Apr-Oct, 10am-5pm.

www.auchindrain-museum.org.uk
Yesterday was Summer, The Marion Campbell Story (Argyll Publishing, £20)

Glasgow Police Museum
This museum has two main displays. The Glasgow Police Historical Exhibition tells the story of the City of Glasgow Police, Britain's first police force, from 1779 until 1975. Artefacts include the first medal awarded to a police officer in Britain for bravery.

68 St Andrew's Square, Glasgow.

Call 0141 552 1818. Admission is free. Open daily Apr to Oct, Mon-Sat 10am-4.30pm; Sun noon to 4.30pm.

www.policemuseum.org.uk

Cromarty Courthouse Museum
Visitors meet the eccentric seventeenth-century laird Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, who proposed a University of the Highlands as early as the 1650s. A trial from the 1770s in the original courtroom, with life-like animated models, is relived.

  • Church Street, Cromarty.

Call 01381 600418. Adults £5/£4; family £15 (under-fives free); Open daily, Apr to Oct, 10am-5pm.

www.cromarty-courthouse.org.uk

Surgeons' Hall Museums
Scotland's largest medical museum houses one of the most significant surgical collections in the world. Objects, images and artworks trace surgery's fascinating history from Roman times to the present, and includes the breakthrough discoveries of antisepsis and anaesthesia, and the chilling Burke and Hare murders.

  • 18 Nicolson Street, Edinburgh. Call 0131 527 1649. Adults £5; children £3. Open daily 10am-4pm.



The Scottish Mining Museum
The Scottish Mining Museum was founded in 1984 to preserve and present Scotland's mining heritage. It is based at one of the finest surviving examples of a Victorian colliery in Europe with a recreated underground roadway where you will experience the atmosphere of a working pit.

Lady Victoria Collier, Newtongrange. Call 0131 663 7519. Adults £5.95; children £3.95. Open daily Mar to Oct, 10am-5pm; Nov to Feb, 10am-4pm.

www.scottishminingmuseum.com

Biggar Gasworks Museum
Built in 1839, Biggar Gasworks remains just as it was when it closed in 1973 following the arrival of North Sea gas. Find out how gas was made from coal in the only preserved gasworks in Scotland.

  • Gasworks Road, Biggar. Call 01899 221050. Adults £1; children 50p. Open daily, Jun to Sept, 2pm to 5pm.



Blairs Museum
The Blairs Museum, Scotland's Catholic Treasury, holds an internationally-renowned collection of fine and decorative art, embroidered vestments and church plate, including portraits of Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  • South Deeside Road, Aberdeen.

Call 01224 863 767. Adults £2.50/£2. Open until September 30, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 12pm-5pm.

www.blairsmuseum.com

Marischal Museum
In the centre of Aberdeen, the museum lies in the University of Aberdeen's Marischal College, founded in 1786. Most notable in the collections are the Egyptian and Classical antiquities, non-Western ethnography, Scottish prehistory and numismatics.

  • Marischal College, Broad Street, Aberdeen. Call 01224 274301. Admission free. Open all year: Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm, Sun 2pm-5pm.

www.abdn.ac.uk

The Museum of Scottish Lighthouses
The museum consists of the first lighthouse built on mainland Scotland and a purpose-built museum housing artefacts donated by the Northern Lighthouse Board and the general public.

  • Kinnaird Head, Stevenson Road, Fraserburgh. Call 01346 511022. Adults £5. Open daily all year; Aug Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 11am-6pm.

www.lighthousemuseum.org.uk

Tarbat Discovery Centre
This museum, situated in an old church, is now known to be the only site of a Pictish monastic settlement found in Scotland to date. There have been numerous beautiful pieces of sculpture unearthed, both inside and outside the church, which are now on display inside the museum.

  • Tarbatness Road, Portmahomack, Tain. Call 01862 871351.

Adults £3.50/£2; children £1 (under 12s free). Open daily Apr to Oct, 10am-5pm.

www.tarbat-discovery.co.uk