Fiona Davidson

Poster: STROMNESS MUSEUM HALF-TERM HOLIDAY COMPETITION We’d like to see your best Buddo impression this half-term! Take part for a chance to win our brilliant Buddo Bundle from Thursday 12 until Tuesday 17 February 2026. For your chance to win our Buddo Bundle, snap a #BestBuddoSelfie of your best Buddo expression! To take part: 1. Take a selfie during your visit to Stromness Museum using the selfie props available in our front porch. 2. Post the selfie to Instagram, Facebook or BlueSky tagging @StromnessMuseum and using #BestBuddoSelfie 3. You'll be in the randomly generated draw to win our brilliant Buddo Bundle. You must post your #BestBuddoSelfie selfie by 8pm on Tuesday 17th February 2026. The winner will be drawn shortly after and notified via DM.* Good Luck! *If the winner cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 7 days of notification, we reserve the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner. The winner agrees to the use of their name and image in any publicity material, as well as their entry. Remember, entry to Stromness Museum is free for all during February 2026. We’re open Monday-Saturday 11.00am-3.30pm (closed Sunday). Find us at: 52 Albert St, Stromness, Orkney, KW16 3DH

For a chance to win a Buddo Bundle, snap a #BestBuddoSelfie of your best Buddo impression this Feb half-term! 😲
1️⃣Take a selfie during your visit to Stromness Museum.
2️⃣Post it to Insta, FB or BlueSky tagging @stromnessmuseum.bsky.social & using #BestBuddoSelfie
3️⃣You'll be included in the prize draw.

An annual reminder - much like a dug isnae jist fir Xmas, Scots isnae jist fir Burns Night! Git yaisin it ilka day! No shair where tae stert? Yin word at a time! 😊

🌿🔥 “Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire, That's a' the learning I desire.”
– Robert Burns

Through play in nature, children learn by exploring, imagining, and problem-solving.

Let’s keep the spark alive by protecting time, space and opportunities for children to play outdoors.

Who Speaks Scots Where: What Crowdsourcing Reveals In this paper, Jennifer Smith and Brian Aitken present findings from a new crowdsourced resource - Speak for Yersel

Who Speaks Scots Where: What Crowdsourcing Reveals
2 Feb @edfuturesinstitute.bsky.social – free

Jennifer Smith & Brian Aitken present findings from a new crowdsourced resource – Speak for Yersel – which sets out to map dialect use in Scots throughout Scotland
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/who-speaks...

This very special building is believed to be the only medieval Carmelite church that is still in use anywhere in the British Isles and is our #ScottishChurchOfTheWeek. This remarkable 15th century Gothic church, in South Queensferry, was once part of a Carmelite friary, founded around 1330.

🧵1/3

A poster with a blue and pink colour scheme for a LEGO event featuring two LEGO minifigures holding an architectural drawing with an old cinema building in the background.

Grab your brick separators LEGO fans in Ayrshire - the #LEGOBuilders are coming your way! They'll need your help to rebuild the iconic #ArtDeco Viking Cinema in #Largs on 9&10 Feb. Spaces go like hotcakes - so dinnae hing aboot! #LearningWithHES

I’m launching a new podcast today called The Carrying Stream, a space for long-form conversations about Scottish culture, literature, and ideas. 🎙️

The first three episodes are now live (link below).

If you’re curious, you’re very welcome to follow along.

Door signage - trigger warning. WARNING We will be asking you that question about the time you dealt with a difficult manager and had to influence them to the detriment of your own health

If you are joining us for an interview tomorrow please do observe the trigger warning before entering the room.

#LookAfterYourself
#MuseumWellBeing

A blue and silver interactive exhibit consisting of three channels each containing a different type of waterwheel.

#museum30 Day 29 prompt is #water - without which Stanley Mills would never have been established, as the mills drew the power for it’s machines from the River Tay. Oor hands-on water interactive, which illustrates how the water powered the mill, is popular with bairns - and adults!!

Isn’t it? It’s by Mark Worst. The motifs on the shawl represent the women & girls who died in the Templeton carpet factory disaster in 1889.

Mural on the gable end of a building featuring a side profile view of a woman with dark brown hair wearing a shawl over her head, with fish on either side of her.

Ok @magnifyzoology.bsky.social - 1st time in 5 years of #museum30 you’ve got me stumped with a prompt! Cannae find a connection atween #mural & Stanley Mills! So here’s an image of a mural fae yin of ma learning projects. St Tenew on a Glesgae gable end thit we yaised for the Thaney’s Haven project.

Still image taken from a film with the title Scots Stories from Stanley Mills centre screen and a background image of a red brick mill surrounded by trees.

#museum30 Day 27 prompt is #achievement Ou were fair chuffed this year when oor Stories in Scots at Stanley Mills project wi the P2/3 bairns fae Stanley PS was shortlisted for a Scots Language Award. It was great fir aw the effort pit in by the bairns & cless teacher tae be recognised. 😊

Two large cylindrical cans on casters stand on a wooden floor with a blue and white sign on the wall behind that says Stanley Mills Scotland.

A large square grey metal container on castors sits in a room with other bits of machinery. One side of the container has been folded down.

#museum30 Day 26 prompt is #moving Moving materials, whether raw or finished goods, was integral to the cotton process. Stanley Mills has all sorts of objects that were created to move cotton from yin part of the mill to another - from slubbing cans on wheels to hide skin bogeys!

#museum30 Day 25 prompt is #danger The first workers at Stanley Mills were Gaelic speakers. It was a dangerous (Gaelic = cunnart) working environment: moving machine parts to cotton dust, noise to risk of fires. This panel from yin of oor community textile projects was created by Murthly WI.

A lady with orange hair is seated on a wooden bench with a window behind her. She is dressed as a Victorian millworker, wearing a light brown shawl and dress, and white apron.

A man dressed in a late Victorian style black top hat, coat and trousers, and a light grey waistcoat, stands with a walking cane in front of a large image of millworkers at Stanley Mills from 1910.

A lady with shoulder length brown hair, wearing a light brown jersey, is demonstrating felting, using bubble wrap, while sitting at a table. A lady with white hair, wearing a black jersey, is on the right.

#Museum30 Day 24 prompt is #specialist From drama to storytelling, historic re-enactment to craftwork, specialists have been integral to bringing Stanley Mills history to life for learners, creating memorable and engaging experiences for all ages.

A knitted brown otter holding a fish sits on a wooden table top against a wooden backboard.

#museum30 Day 23 prompt is #animal At the restored hydro scheme at Stanley Mills, an escape ladder’ was installed to help otters get out the modern, steeper lade. This otter, holding a fish, was knitted by the Stanley WI ladies as part of oor Community Textile Project.

A view of a tarmac road leading uphill with trees on either side and a grassy area to the right.

#museum30 Day 22 prompt is #walk the majority of the millworkers at Stanley Mills lived in Stanley village - which was created for the workers. When the bell rang to start work, they would walk doon mill brae often arm in airm . At the end of the day, it must have been a thought to walk back up!

#museum30 Day 20 is #careers ou’ve joined up with Springboard Scotland in the past to host careers events at Stanley Mills, focussed on hospitality, heritage & tourism with students learning a host of different skills.

a painted portrait of a man who is seated, his right arm leaning on a covered table, holding a scroll of paper, and his left hand on his thigh. he wears a short white wig and fine embroidered clothes and white neckerchief.

#museum30 Day 20 is #Diary. James Boswell, biographer & diarist, records meeting up with George Dempster MP (an early investor & key figure at Stanley Mills) & another Scot, Andrew Erskine, in London to see a new Tragedy called Elvira's - though they'd already decided to damn the play in advance!

A man dressed in black wearing glasses points to a large circle of mushrooms that he stands within on a grass area beside a tree.

#museum30 Day 19 prompt is #magic. There used to be ‘fairy ring’ behind Stanley Mills. They were said to be magical places where fairies danced in a circle. If you stepped in yin, you’d be made to dance til exhaustion. This millworker clearly wasnae feart! Rings are caused by an underground fungus.

Brissit brawnis, and brokin banis, 🚑
Stryf, discorde, and waistie wanis, 🚔
Crukit in eild, syne halt, withal, 🤕
Thir are the bewties of the fute-ball. ⚽

“The Bewties of the Fute-ball” (anon)
Middle Scots poem, c.15–16th century, from the Maitland manuscripts (with added emojis)

Also heart attacks

A black and white image showing a hydro-electric scheme under construction with workers standing along a walkway and sitting along the top of a building.

#Museum30 Day 18 prompt is #photographs There‘a no many photaes of folk who lived or worked at HES properties. But ou have them for Stanley Mills! Glass plates showing the construction of the hydro scheme in the 1920s were donated by the Culbert family, many of whom worked at the mill.

two folded lengths of narrow, off-white coloured woven tape with a catalogue number attached on a small piece of white card.

a folded length of thick woven cotton that has been dipped in tar, which is brown in colour.

#Museum30 Day 17 prompt is #making Stanley Mills made predominantly cotton products throughout its 225 year history. Specialising in niche products ensured it outlived its competitors into the late 20th century. These included narrow tape for cigarette factories & heavy duty belting for factories.

A green Christmas tree with blue tinsel and hessian parcels underneath standing in a school hall

A room with pillars with a hopscotch grid marked out on a grey floor with red tables in the background.

Two tall glass cabinets containing a range of objects with windows behind them. A torso mannequin with a maroon football shirt on it stands between them.

A mosaic of a mill made using LEGO single studs stands on a red tabletop with a yellow display sign on the left.

#museum30 Day16 prompt is #Last12Months has involved lots of community engagement at Stanley Mills, starting with oor mill themed tree at Stanley PS Xmas Tree Fair & including a LEGO mosaic for Mills weekend, a Pop Up display, Soup Club talks & visit, & activities for National Play Day & Maths Week.

A head and shoulders image of an older lady with short, dark hair and glasses wearing a pink shirt underneath a light blue jumper.

#museum30 Day 15 prompt is #kindness During WWII, Stanley Mills took 3p a week from the wages of millworkers like Nell Hannah, for Comfort Boxes for troops. Nell nominated a man she yince dated who had joined the navy. He received a box, it led to a marriage proposal (which was accepted!) 😊

A large green and black machine with moving rods and wheels sots on a green base in a room with windows behind and cream coloured walls and ceiling.

#museum30 Day 14 prompt is #heavy . The design of the Bell Mill at Stanley Mills is all aboot process, with some of the biggest & heaviest machinery on the lowest floors. Yin of the heaviest machines is the opening machine which broke up cotton - it’s now in oor Artefact Room - on the 4th floor!!

He also picked up a braw pair of socks when he was there. For his feet… 😄🍏🧦

A knitted doll with dark brown curly hair and a white face and dark green jersey in front of a red brick building with large windows.

#museum30 Day 13 prompt is #background This is Hamish, yin of oor knitted soft toy dolls produced by the Stanley WI ladies as part of a community textile project at Stanley Mills. He went to Finland as part of a storytelling exchange! Here he is with Vapriikki museum in Tampere in the background!

a graphic of a web page showing a waterwheel with five circular buttons to the left with thumbnail images and tabs for themed sections.

#museum30 Day 12 theme is #digital Yin of the first learning resources developed at Stanley Mills, back in 2008, was digital. But as ou aw ken, digital technology moves quickly, and the software used to create (and support) it became obsolete - much like the waterwheel technology used at the mill!

A 5 storey red brick mill with blue sky and clouds above it, the reflection of which is in water in a lade in the foreground. There are dark green railings on the left of the lade and trees on the right hand side.

#museum30 Day 11 prompt is #reflection and taking it literally, this iconic shot of Stanley Mills, in Perthshire has the Bell Mill reflected in the water in the lade.