Museum back in action after £10.5m upgrade

Published on Thursday 25 September 2008 21:52

SCOTLAND'S so-called "noisiest" museum clanks and rattles back into life today after a £10.5 million overhaul.

Attractions like the country's only working trams have been joined by new exhibits such as a giant pit winding engine and 30ft-high virtual reality blast furnace at the Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, following its two-year closure.

The free-admission museum at Summerlee, in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, won a 4.8 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant to refurbish and extend its exhibition hall, matched with council and other cash.

Carol Ettershank, the museum manager, said: "We have transformed a dark and freezing cold building into a warm, bright and welcoming space."

The hall's new centrepiece, among a host of working machinery, is the huge winding wheel from the Cardowan colliery in nearby Stepps.

A two-storey glass pavilion offers views of the remains of the Summerlee ironworks, which provided the inspiration for the museum's creation in 1987.

Trips on the site's 500-yard tram line will also resume, with a 1904 Lanarkshire tram due to be joined by a 1937 Coronation tram from Glasgow after restoration.