Biggar Museum Trust facts for kids

The Biggar Museum Trust (BMT) is a special charity in Biggar, a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It looks after several museums in the area. A man named Brian Lambie started collecting amazing historical items from Biggar over 40 years. He and others then created the Biggar Museum Trust.

The old museum buildings were getting difficult to use and expensive to keep up. So, in 2010, the Trust found a new, bigger place in the middle of Biggar. They decided to build a brand-new museum there. This new museum would bring all the collections together. The project cost £2.2 million. More than half of this money was raised by people living in Biggar and the nearby countryside. Other groups like the Clyde Wind Farm Community Fund and Museums Galleries Scotland also helped.

Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum

The Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum opened its doors on July 28, 2015. This museum has a large history gallery. It shows the story of the Biggar area from ancient times up to the 1900s. There's also a fun street of old shops inside the museum. These shops are set up to look just like they did in Biggar long ago. They are filled with items from the museum's collection. The museum also has a special room for temporary exhibitions. This room can display items borrowed from big national collections.

Other Places to Explore

The Biggar Museum Trust also looks after other interesting historical places:

Holy Trinity Chapel

Holy Trinity Chapel is an old chapel located about 3 miles (5 km) from Biggar. It was built to serve a large house called Lamington House, which is no longer there. The chapel was restored by a group called the Oxford Movement.

Brownsbank Cottage

Brownsbank Cottage was once the home of a famous Scottish poet named Hugh MacDiarmid. Today, a writer lives there for a period of time. This writer creates new works, often in the Lowland Scots dialect. Brownsbank Cottage is about 5 miles (8 km) from Biggar. You can only visit it if you arrange an appointment beforehand.

Biggar Gasworks Museum

The Biggar Gasworks Museum is very special. It is the last remaining gasworks in Scotland. In the past, this gasworks used coal to make "town gas." This was before natural gas became common for heating and cooking.

Biggar Town Connections

Biggar town itself has other places to visit, like The Puppet Theatre and the Corn Exchange Theatre and Art Gallery. The town also has strong links to the Scottish hero William Wallace. There is a small bridge in Biggar that people connect with him. However, his connection to the town of Lanark is more widely known.

External links

• Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum—official site