Orkney Museum

Orkney Museum offers a broad, chronological journey through the history of the islands, from Neolithic settlement and Norse rule to the modern era. Its galleries focus on archaeology, social history, art, and the stories that have shaped Orkney’s communities over thousands of years. While the museum’s public displays emphasise these wider narratives, they also touch on how Orcadians lived, worked, and adapted to their environment.

Behind the scenes, Orkney Museum cares for a substantial stored collection representing the full breadth of the museum service, including material from Kirbuster Farm Museum and other sites. These stores hold a wealth of objects reflecting all aspects of life in Orkney. Early domestic technologies and other innovations that chart changing patterns of energy use in Orkney through heat, labour and household work are stored alongside extensive peat working tools - the traditional fuel in Orkney homes for centuries - including spades, tuskers, straw cubbies and caisies. These sit alongside a broad range of early lighting technologies, from oil burning cruisie lamps to paraffin lights, and into the 20th century with the first electrical fittings.

These reference collections offer rich opportunities for viewing and research, providing access to important agricultural and rural domestic items that sit beyond the scope of the main museum’s displays and form a valuable resource for anyone exploring Orkney’s energy story and the everyday ingenuity of island life.