Known as ‘Scotland’s Noisiest Museum’, Summerlee first opened its doors to visitors in 1988. Since then the Coatbridge attraction has welcomed around 5 million visitors!
Here are some pictures from the museum’s more-than 30-year history.
The sights, sounds …and smells of one of Summerlee’s famous summer steam fairs.
Beginnings
Summerlee from the air before the museum was developed. The large building was the closed Hydrocon crane factory that would become the museum’s Exhibition Hall.
The former industrial site was transformed by the Summerlee Heritage Trust in the mid-1980s. Hundreds of apprentices cleared the former site of the Summerlee Iron Works (1836-1933). The work included restoring the silted-up Gartsherrie Branch of the Monkland Canal that had lain derelict for 50 years.
‘The Heritage’
‘Dinosaurs of Coatbridge’: an early poster for Summerlee.
Although its official name was the Summerlee Heritage Trust, the museum became known locally as ‘Summerlee Heritage Park’ or often just ‘The Heritage’. The name would change when the museum reopened after refurbishment in 2008 as Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life.
Who remembers our old tearoom? It’s hard to believe that this is now the museum reception!
The site grew quickly with a reconstructed mine and miners’ houses being built from 1989. The boatshed down by the canal was originally built for Monklands District Council’s exhibit at the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival and relocated to Summerlee afterwards, along with the replica of the Vulcan barge.
One of Summerlee’s most popular exhibits, the miners’ rows under construction in the early 1990s.
This big hole in the ground would become Summerlee’s reconstructed drift mine…
…nearly finished!
Summerlee has played an important role in preserving old engineering skills, puting them to use restoring old machinery and building new exhibits. They won a conservation award in 1999 when they reconstructed the winding drum of the internationally important Farme Colliery Engine (1810) based entirely on old photographs.
Members of the Summerlee Heritage Trust team with the wheels for the new colliery headgear, early 1990s. Two of them are still part of the team!
1990: Trevor from the Friends of Summerlee demonstrating a circular saw powered by the miniature traction engine, ‘Tigger’.
Museum staff work with the Summerlee Transport Group to run and maintain the tram fleet, which currently consists of four tramcars, one of which is being restored.
Lanarkshire Tramways No.53’s first day in passenger service on the 1st April 1995.
The tram depot under construction around 1988, with another member of staff who still works at Summerlee.
Flooding in 1994. Here we see the boatshed half-submerged. Fortunately, the storm drains have since been upgraded to stop this happening again.
A trip up the canal on the Firequeen, the museum’s very own steam-powered boat.
New Beginnings
The No.2 winding engine from Cardowan Colliery near Stepps was fully rebuilt on a specially-designed concrete plinth.
The 1990s saw Summerlee become part of the new North Lanarkshire Council’s museum service and the following decade would bring the biggest change since the museum first opened.
The site was closed for nearly three years while the Exhibition Hall was comprehensively refurbished to bring it up to modern standards.
The £10m project saw the Exhibition Hall completely gutted and rebuilt inside, with a new roof.
New exhibits, environmental controls, a new cafe, conference room and viewing platform for the archaeological site, all contained in a fully-accessible building. All of this was achieved in part due to the tireless fundraising efforts of the Friends of Summerlee.
Many significant objects that had been in storage for years were restored for display in the Exhibition Hall. This is the sculptural pediment from the Coatbridge Co-op, which can now been seen rebuilt inside the museum.
Work goes on around the Gibb & Hogg colliery locomotive, 2007.
Re-opening in October 2008, the museum was reborn as Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life. Since reopening, annual visitor figures have been double what they were before the refurbishment with approximately 180,000 visits every year.
2009 saw Princess Anne return to give the revamped museum the royal nod of approval.
The Princess Royal had visited Summerlee in 2001 and returned eight years later to see the newly-refurbished museum. Here she is greeting staff in front of the restored Co-op pediment.
In 2009 the Industrial and Associated Social History Collection cared for by North Lanarkshire Council was officially Recognised as being of National Significance by the Scottish Government. We became members of Industrial Museums Scotland, which is a network of Scotland’s industrial museums, providing support and sharing best practice.
2013: the restored Vulcan barge is lifted over the ironworks site and placed on a specially-made cradle in the canal.
Further developments at the museum have included the Engineering Pavilion, the refurbishment of the Vulcan barge and the opening of a 1980s room in the miners’ cottages.
‘SHIFT’ was a 2018 National Theatre of Scotland production inspired by reminiscences of people’s working lives gathered in partnership with the museum team.
2018 saw museum staff celebrate 30 years of Summerlee with a specially-made tram-themed cake!
Into the Future
Summerlee’s swans on parade.
The pandemic hit museums hard but Summerlee bounced back with the return of events in 2022, starting with the first Summerlee Science Festival. We have plans to improve the site over the coming years – watch this space!
What are your favourite memories of Summerlee?