Ambitions and Aspirations

The Gallery

Miss Hope MacDougall, daughter, sister and aunt to three successive chiefs of the Clan MacDougall started her collection with a single wooden spoon in the 1950s and amassed thousands of items before her death in 1998.
Her passionate interest in people's ordinary working lives, particularly in a rural or coastal setting has ensured an extraordinary selection of icons of West Highland Life have been left for the benefit and education of the nation.

The inventory spans life in the country from agricultural tools, saddlery, a blacksmith's forge, early distilling, bee-keeping, dairying, shoe-making, a travellers camp to a laundry, knitting and weaving, dying, lace sewing machines, an early collection of vacuum cleaners, the complete Ford Post Office, an early school classroom and the complete contents of a herring gutter's cist and much, much more……

What is particularly unique is that each item is now backed up with clear documentation as to its origin and owners, where known, and often Miss MacDougall's own research. Whilst her work was extensive, some items have required much detective work (and there are still some mysteries!).
Her written archive contains much original material, fascinating anecdotes and excellent photographs and fills around one hundred files in itself.

Miss MacDougall's long family history at Dunollie and her deep interest in the Oban and Lorn area mean that a great many items relate to North Argyll. The Collection tells the story of working and domestic life in the Highlands and Islands for the past 200 years and more, with around 5,000 objects from croft, village and town, from the land and the sea.

But this Collection is more than a record of local life, A knife from the Sahara, an Afganistani glove; these, and many like them, are also key elements of the Collection. Comparing lives - travelling people's worlds, whether Mull or Maori.