The Lost Villages of East Ayrshire Exhibition  – National Mining Museum Scotland.
Sat 03 Aug – Sat 26 Oct. 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

‘The ‘miners’ row villages’ in the Ayrshire coalfield are a remarkable and distinctive man-made feature in the landscape and transformed the upland areas where they were set. The Lost Villages of East Ayrshire exhibition is based on an oral history project which gathered voices from the mining communities of East Ayrshire. It features stories from villagers about domestic life, work and leisure within the Ayrshire coalfield. The exhibition also offers some insights into de-industrialisation and the legacy of the row villages for the the communities today.

Whilst much of the physical evidence of these villages are mostly gone, there are still surviving traces of them but more importantly they live on in the memories of the former villages and their families. They are of real importance not only to the Cumnock and Doon Valley area, but to the industrial history, social and cultural history and heritage of Scotland as a whole.

The exhibition was developed in partnership with East Ayrshire Leisure. The Lost Villages was an oral history project by the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde, led by researchers Prof Arthur McIvor and Dr Yvonne McFadden. The project was part of the Coalfields Community Partnership funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Environment Scotland.’

The exhibition is situated in the Special Exhibition Gallery.  Entry is FREE.

Venue: National Mining Museum Scotland, Lady Victoria Colliery, Newtongrange, Midlothian, EH22 4QN