Flotta Heritage Centre opens

The Flotta Heritage Centre was officially opened today, and within its walls the story of this small but important island is told.

As well as a dedicated museum space in the former barn area of the beautifully restored building at Lurdy, the main house is now an authentic 1940’s home, complete with box bed and several other fixtures, fittings and artefacts, dating back to the era.

The heritage centre project was carried out by Flotta Heritage Trust, an organisation formed by members the Flotta Community Council in the 1999-2003 term. Later, the trust was granted charitable status in February 2009.

Work has been underway at the site since 2011, a process which has seen the building stripped right back to a shell, and then fully restored as it is today.

Revisiting the island, having been asked to cut the ribbon to open the building, was Mary Macaskill, 79,  who now lives in Lochinver. She lived in the house from when she was three years old until she was 17.

In opening the centre, she said that the house held a lot of happy memories for her, and thanked all involved in the project to make it as it looks today, as she once feared that the building would fall into disrepair as had happened to so many old croft houses.

The original idea of establishing a heritage centre on the island stemmed from islander Davie Sinclair, a founding member of the Flotta Heritage Trust and former community council chairman, who had gathered a number of Flotta artefacts over a period of many years.

These items went from being displayed on a shelf at his home, to moving to a portable building alongside, and then into a wartime hut.
Objects gathered by Mr Sinclair, and also by many others, which tell the story of Flotta are now housed in the heritage centre at Lurdy, now officially open to the public.

There are also copies of many historical records which cover years of island life, including two world wars in which Flotta was vitally important, and the dawning of the oil age, when North Sea Oil came to the island in the late 1970’s.