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About us

The Museums Service came into existence in 1990 with the appointment of the first Museums Officer, although the then District Council had operated a museum in North Berwick since 1975. The service now operates museums at Prestongrange, near Prestonpans; Dunbar Town House; and John Muir's Birthplace. North Berwick Museum is currently closed pending redevelopment. In addition the service puts on exhibitions and events, and supports activities, including exhibitions, by community groups across East Lothian. Find out more from our leaflet (This is a PDF so you'll need a pdf reader to open it. If you have a Mac you can use Preview otherwise something like Acrobat Reader or the lovely, smaller Sumatra will do. Both are free.)

The permanent staff now comprises the Museums Officer, Assistant Museums Officer, Collections Officer and the Museums Education Officer, plus a Manager and three Museum Assistants at John Muir's Birthplace. Prestongrange and Dunbar museums are open seasonally from April to October, although Dunbar Town House is open at weekends from November to March staffed by volunteers from Dunbar & District History Society.

The Collections comprise some 25,000 items, ranging from steam locomotives to fine art, and including local archaeology, ceramics, textiles and costume, natural history specimens, as well as objects illustrating domestic, working and community life. Of particular importance are the Cornish Beam Engine at Prestongrange Museum, the Haddington Weavers and Craighall Friendly Society banners and a collection of stone anchors.

Collections not on display are held in our environmentally-controlled store at the Museums Service Headquarters in Haddington.

Find out more about what we do in the museum blog.