Final preparations under way as Perth Museum gears up for opening day
sound of the power drill is all around in Perth Museum as the countdown to its big opening drawns near. Pots of paint, screwdrivers and spirit levels – seemingly the tool of choice for those hanging exhibits – are everywhere.
As a man and a woman lift a 16th Century painting of St Bartholomew onto the wall, the piece taken from a nearby kirk following a rabble rousing sermon by John Knox in 1559, someone directs: “over a bit!”
Around a quarter of a million items have now taken their place at the new £27m museum – which is due to open this Saturday – and the final snagging to this impressive public space, designed out of the old City Halls, is almost complete.
The museum has been more than a decade in the making and charts thousands of years of history of both city and country.
“It is lovely to see everything where it is meant to be after spending so much time with these objects,” said Anna Zwagerman, conservation officer at Culture Perth and Kinross, who has been busy removing the tiniest flecks of white paint from an ironstudded pre-reformation chapel door, which is likely around 600 years old.
The Stone of Destiny, which arrived one early morning last week in an unmarked van surrounded by a large police escort, lies in its new home, a few miles from where it was stolen by Edward I some 700 years earlier from nearby Scone Abbey. It takes on a new, deeper form and atmosphere away from the regalia that surrounded it in Edinburgh Castle and placed, via the power of sound and vision, back to Mout Hill at Scone and the inauguration of boy king Alexander III, who was crowned aged seven.
Visitors will have time slots to view this symbol of nationhood, which will have its own security guard to protect it from stunts and protests. Three hundred free tickets for a place were snapped up in just 13 minutes on Frithe day morning. It is hoped the new museum, which received £10m from the UK Government’s Tay Cities Deal, will spark fresh energy in the city centre which, like most, feels a little subdued.
Helen Smout, chief executive of Culture Perth and Kinross, who has been working on the project for 13 years, said the countdown to opening was like “waiting for a party”.
She added: “It is just the waiting, the feeling of being slightly tense, slightly nervous and excited also to see how people react. Everyone here has put absolutely everything into this.
“The museum is not going to change the fortunes of the city on its own, but it is a catalyst.
“We knew that Highland Perthshire always attracted a lot of visitors to the area but there was a sense that Perth wasn’t performing quite as well as we thought it was .
“A great many people knew about Perth but also there was a view that it was a gateway for the Highlands or Tay Country so they were not necessarthe ily thinking that Perth was a place to spend time. We want people to come for a weekend - or longer.”
In this museum, alongside history, lies high hopes for a city’s future.