Dumfries Museum and Camera Obscura

Dumfries Museum

Do you know that this beautiful Dumfries museum building started life as a stone windmill in the late 1700s?

It was built on a hill top overlooking the town and was one of the most prominent landmarks of the district. By 1834, when the mill was no longer in business and due for demolition, the building was rescued from destruction when the Astronomical Society converted it into an observatory! A museum was added later and is now one of Dumfries's most popular attractions with a camera obscura providing panoramic views of the town and the museum telling the history of the land and people of the region.

The local history gallery within the museum shows memorable events that happened in the Dumfries area since the middle Ages, social changes, paintings and drawings of local landscapes, and a collection of early maps.









You can learn how to make cheese and butter from milk

The geology gallery includes fossil footprints left by animals lived in the area over 280 million years ago, tools and weapons of early people, stone carvings by Scotland's first Christians and the everyday life of the Victorian times.

The natural history gallery exhibits different kinds of birds and common local mammals.

Golden eagle

Outside, the statue of John Sinclair M.D, an assistant surgeon born in Dumfries, can be seen along with gravestones of covenanters and a Russian cannon captured during the Crimean war.

Dumfries Museum Events and Activities

The museum organises family events and educational activities throughout the year, where, e.g. visitors can make a mini rocket powered with a simple chemical reaction, play 'Be an astronaut' with a space suit dress up or learn how to view the sun safely and make solar prints using natural minerals and the light of the nearest star.

Sources;

J.A. Mackay (1990) - Pictoral History of Dumfries

Fortune P., McMillan H. - Dumfries : A history and celebration
 

More information on facilities and opening times can be found on the following  links: https://www.visitscotland.com/info/see-do/dumfries-museum-and-camera-obscura-p251151

https://www.facebook.com/DumfriesMuseum/