Having secured excellent and imaginative Curatorial support from Joanne Howdle from Caithness Horizons the Museum embarked upon a wonderfully quirky Antiques Roadshow Trail.
The Museum, sometimes in collaboration with Mackay Country Community Trust, rolled into ‘town’ with displays, intriguing artefacts, one or two of the Artists in Residence and a whole lot of expertise to spare. You can hardly imagine the intriguing and often puzzling items members of the public brought along to get ideas and advice about ‘what on earth is it?!’ or ‘where on earth did it come from?’. The ‘finds’ included a porcelain ginger jar made in China in the later seventeenth or early eighteenth century; wooden water pipe from a distillery; a hook used for catching sand eels and a Roman nail from Inchtuthil.
During the course of these Roadshows ninety-five artefacts or groups of artefacts were presented for discussion, conservation advice and identification. Detailed research regarding the history and provenance of thirty of these artefacts has been undertaken and the resulting information passed back to the owners of these objects: a wonderful journey of discovery for everyone involved. The Roadshow team travelled all across Mackay Country and put on their show in Bettyhill, Borgie Forest, Durness, Skerray, Strathy, Strath Halladale and Tongue.
Short video clips of some of these objects can be viewed on our YouTube Channel
We took the museum to the communities and involved people in production and identification of heritage material, using artefacts relevant to creating events, encouraged and participated in a range of artistic medium encouraging a vehicle for successful heritage interpretation. With creating Artist Residencies with workshops and video consultant we produced new exhibitions touring the area based on archive materials with an intergraded Schools programme.