Inside the museum
Explore life in the countryside at our five-star museum.
Learn about the land, people and ways of working that have shaped Scotland’s rural history. Discover Scotland’s largest collection of tractors, combine harvesters and other farming machinery.
Picture gallery
Encounter some of the most incredible animal portraits ever produced in the Picture Gallery. Painted in astonishing detail by renowned artist William Sheils, these rare works showing livestock, often at full scale, were commissioned in 1832 by the Edinburgh University Museum of Agriculture for teaching purposes.
Study store
Take a peep behind the scenes of the museum through the glass walls into the study store, which houses over 6000 objects, from peat spades to blacksmithing tools. Lining the walls are beautifully-crafted scale models of agricultural implements and equipment dating to the nineteenth century.
Land gallery
Clad in earthy rusted steel reminiscent of the colours and textures of the land, this gallery tells the story of changes in how Scotland’s land has been used and managed between the eighteenth and early-twentieth century.
Themes explored include the introduction of new crops, methods and industries such as forestry.
People gallery
Evoking the interior of the home, this gallery explores the realities of life in rural communities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for men, women and children.
Themes explored here include how country life has been shaped by family and leisure, by war and the Scottish clearances.
Tools gallery
This gallery explores the role of technology in transforming the countryside and considers the rural trades that emerged in relation to farming. The oldest known surviving threshing mill in the world, from Breck of Rendall in Orkney, sits at the heart of this gallery accompanied by ploughs, combines and a wide range of nineteenth- and twentieth-century machines.
Science gallery
Adjoining the Tools Gallery, the objects here chart the role of science in boosting food productivity. Here you can learn about how the same area of land can produce three times more food than a century ago.
Tractor store
Farming was transformed by the widespread adoption of tractors in the twentieth century, which raised productivity by replacing horsepower. The tractors on display here span the whole century to show how tractor technology evolved throughout.
Horticultural Store and Blacksmith Workshop
An impressive range of lawnmowers from across the ages can be found here, alongside an original blacksmith’s workshop where visitors can see and smell the working space and learn more about this traditional skill.
Garden Detectives
Take a close-up look at plants, learn amazing facts about nature and experience some sounds and smells from a real garden.
Exploring the interactive displays your little ones can gain new skills and investigate your own garden with the eyes of a garden detective.
Gallery accessibility
Getting around the galleries
The museum galleries and displays are accessible via lifts and a continuous ramp at a gradient of 1:16.
Lift dimensions can be found on the AccessAble website.
You can check our museum map or ask a member of our Visitor Experience team for the nearest lift.
Facilities
There are toilets on both floors of the museum. These include accessible toilets and baby changing facilities.
The toilets on the first floor are situated to the left of the information desk as you enter the museum. The toilets on the ground floor are next to the People gallery.
Seating
There is seating throughout the main museum building if you need a rest.
Lighting and noise
The lighting levels in some of the galleries are low for the protection of the exhibits.
Visit our accessibility page for full access information for the National Museum of Rural Life.