Edinburgh Museums Collection Centre: Making Edinburghers Gallus Again

If you want to relive the memories of when you were a cocky young rascal, Edinburgh Museums Collection Centre will bring them back with an amazing treasure trove spanning a wide range of subjects.

Visitors can view the reserve collections of the social history, Museum of Childhood, and applied art collections. These items are not currently on display in the museum venues, and are held in store so that they can be accessed for research, lent to other museums for exhibitions, or used in temporary exhibition programmes.

Some objects relate to communities which had specific local trades, or to businesses which once thrived but have long since disappeared. Together these varied collections tell us much about the lives of local people.

Scottish manufacturing may be a specialist interest, but within Edinburgh it produced, among other things, items in pottery or glass which combine function and beauty and which are truly stunning to look at. There is something for everyone in the childhood section, from dolls houses, prams, bicycles, to train sets.

All the objects have stories to tell us – who made them, who used them and what they were for, and taking a tour will open new windows into the past.