Highland Folk Museum

Explore over 35 reconstructed historical buildings depicting Highland life from the 1700s to mid-20th century in this open-air museum.

Planning your visit

The Highland Folk Museum is Britain's first open-air museum, founded on the Scandinavian model, and it stretches for about a mile along a wooded site at Newtonmore with over 35 reconstructed buildings covering Highland life from the 1700s to the mid-twentieth century.

The most affecting section is Baile Gean, a recreated township of the 1700s: turf-and-creel blackhouses with thatched roofs and open central hearths, smoke filtering through the thatch, built using period methods. Standing inside one, in the smoke and dim light, conveys the material reality of pre-Clearance Highland life more directly than any display case. The township was used as a filming location for Outlander, which brings a proportion of current visitors.

Further along the site are a 1930s working farm, a schoolhouse, a joiner's shop, a church and a row of 1930s houses, with costumed interpreters demonstrating crafts and domestic work in season.

Entry is free, with donations invited. It is seasonal, closing over winter, and requires substantial walking outdoors. Allow three hours. Bookable options include tours from Inverness combining the museum with the Cairngorms. Current availability is listed below.