Soaking up the culture

In the latest of our series on Scotland's great museums and art galleries, Roddy Martine Explores Perth

During the 1980s, I used to occasionally work out of the Perthshire Advertiser offices in Perth, and often mused on how pleasant it would be to live there. With the green swathes of the North and South Inches, fine Georgian terraces, and the River Tay flowing past in stately grandeur, Perth has it all when it comes to period charm.

Moreover, like so many of Scotland's smaller towns, there is a rich cultural and arts heritage embodied in its two major exhibition spaces – the Perth Museum and Art Gallery in George Street, and its sister Fergusson Gallery, housed in the Round House, a former Waterworks in Marshall Place.

The Perth Museum's story began in 1784, when the Reverend James Scott formed the Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth. As with every enterprise, all you need are a few enlightened, committed and generous sponsors. Perth, being the market town of rural Perthshire, was fortunate to have them in abundance and, consequently, the Society flourished.

Thirty eight years later, the Marshall Monument, raised in memory of Thomas Hay Marshall, Lord Provost of Perth and owner of the Glenalmond estate, was built in George Street to house the Society's collection, and, in 1867, Francis Buchanan White, the Perth-born entomologist, added to the momentum by founding the Perthshire Society of Natural Science.

In 1881, the Perthshire Natural History Museum was built in Tay Street, in memory of Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, past president of the Society, and in 1902, it came un...

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• By : Roddy Martine
• In : Destinations
• Issue : 35
• Page : 58
• Words : 753