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Visitor Information: Reception and Shop, Perth Museum & Art Gallery |
Perth Museum and Art Gallery is one of the oldest museums in the UK and has a collection of nearly 500,000 objects. It is housed in an imposing building near the north east corner of the central area of Perth, and admission is free. A visit should be viewed as an essential part of getting to grips with the story of Perth and its people.
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Beyond the doors of Perth Museum and Art Gallery is the main reception area, set beneath a beautiful glass dome. Here you can also find the museum shop and a small lounge area. Before progressing through to the main galleries beyond, spare a moment for the spectacular Pictish Cross slab which stands unassumingly off to one side. This is the stone known as "St Madoes 1" and originally stood beside the Church at St Madoes, on the north side of the Tay five miles east of Perth. It stands 1.75m high by 0.91m wide and the front face carries a cross surrounded by animals. The rear carries carvings of three symbols and three mounted warriors, but it is difficult to see these in any detail because of the stone's current location, which means its rear face has to be viewed in a mirror.
Access to the Library and the Upper Round Gallery is from the main reception, but the gateway to most of the galleries is the circular central lobby beyond the reception area, home to a display illustrating the theme of Kirk and Country. This includes an impressive display of silver, gilt and pewter from the ancient St John's Kirk of Perth.
From here you have a series of options on how to proceed further. For the purposes of this page, we'll assume an approximately clockwise tour of the museum and art gallery which leads you around its different elements before returning you to the central lobby. Heading left from the "Kirk and Country" brings you into Art Gallery 1. It is worth remembering that this is an art gallery as well as a museum, and all three art galleries carry exhibitions that change every few months.
 Social History |
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 Some of the Artworks on
Display |
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 Another Gallery |
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 Miss Ballantine's Salmon |
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 Wild & Wonderful
Perthshire |
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 Trades of Perth |
At the time of our visit, Art Gallery 1, and the smaller Art Gallery 2 next to it, were home to an extensive exhibition entitled "House and Mouse: A History of Shopping for Food and Clothes in Perth". This offered an insight into the an activity which consumed a considerable part of people's lives (and incomes) from the medieval period to the advent of the supermarket era. It covered topics such as food rationing in World War Two, weights and measures, and the range of products available in the shops. Meanwhile, Gallery 3 carried an exhibition devoted to the work of Ian Cuthbert Imrie to celebrated the 70th birthday of this well known Perth artist.
From here you start to head back towards the core of the museum, passing first through a side gallery containing a display of Perth's silver and details of how it was made; plus a series of exhibits on Perth's glass industry. This side gallery is divided by arches from "Furniture and Faces". Housed in one of the most impressive of the museum's galleries this brings together an extensive collection of fine antique furniture and a series of portraits of Perthshire people, which line the wall. The effect is very much what you might expect to find in the drawing room of a Scottish stately home.
A side door off the Silver and Glass gallery leads you into the very different environment of "Wild and Wonderful Perthshire." Here you follow a trail past exhibits about Perthshire's flora, fauna and geology. Thoroughly modern in approach this combines exhibits, information and hands-on sections designed to appeal to everyone.
The final area is entitled "The Time of Our Lives" and covers the story of the people of Perth and Kinross. This area is sub-divided into a series of themes covering farming; transport; communications; industry; trade; power and authority; and the common good. It covers the whole history of human in the area and allows you to chart man's progress from an age of stone tools to the world we live in today. Among the exhibits are two further Pictish symbol stones, one of which, the Inchyra Stone, carries rare examples of Ogham script.
The origins of Perth Museum and Art Gallery date back to the formation of the Antiquarian Society of Perth in 1784, which two years later was renamed as the Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth. In 1824 the Society gained a permanent home for its collections when the Marshall Monument was completed as a memorial to Thomas Hay Marshall of Glenalmond, a former Lord Provost of Perth. In 1881 the Perthshire Natural History Museum was built to provide a home for the collections of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science.
In 1932, building began on a new Art Gallery and Museum for Perth, immediately to the south of the Marshall Monument. In 1934 the collections of the Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth and the Perthshire Society of Natural Science were brought together in the new building, which was formally opened on 10 August 1935 by the Duke and Duchess of York.
 Exhibition of Furniture and Faces |
