Cleuch

Explorer Tom Biggar and Upper Clydesdale Museum takes enough Scottish history to make a grandfather clock feel young. In a building on Biggar High Street, it follows 14,000 years of life in this valley, from early people through the working towns and farms of the twentieth century. You can arrive for one object and emerge arguing about a whole region. The museum was created by the independent Biggar Museum Trust to preserve local archaeology, social history and the things people made, used and left behind. The present museum opened in 2015. Its timeline gives small-town life as much room as the grand events that usually steal the headlines. I am pleased somebody has made space for the ordinary person who had to keep the place fed, clothed and working while history was busy posing. Explore the permanent displays and changing exhibitions, then look at how the town and countryside changed together. The collection stretches from prehistoric finds to stories within living memory, so there is a good chance that one room will be far older than expected and another will feel uncomfortably familiar. The museum also keeps an archive that can be consulted digitally or in person. It is the sort of place where one modest object may send you off to ask three more questions. You will find the museum at 156 High Street, Biggar. The operator lists Tuesday to Sunday opening from April to December, with weekend opening in winter, and charges admission except for qualifying local residents. Its building has disabled access, an accessible toilet and a designated parking space. Check current opening before travelling; a museum spanning fourteen millennia is entitled to take a few days off.