MILLER HOUSE opened to great acclaim on 8th April 2004. So busy has it been, and the ongoing developments so many and important, that only now – a year later! – has it been possible to record the historic event on this website.

The warmth and extent of the response from visitors has astonished and delighted the staff, as the two comments quoted above make very clear. The museum is going to continue being “hot news” as it has been from day one – but April 8th 2004 was a milestone worthy of report, the culmination of almost nine years of striving.

The building was bought back from private ownership by the National Trust for Scotland in 1995 for £55,000 and in 1997 the Trust’s governing Council carried by standing ovation the proposal of the then property manager Frieda Gostwick to convert it into a museum.

It was intended to open in the Bicentenary Year, 2002, but funding difficulties came close to scuppering the whole project. Fortunately, in the end the delay was limited to a couple of years.

The highlight of the actual opening was the gathering in Church Street of some 50 “VIPs”, people who had strongly supported the Hugh Miller enterprise in many different ways, over many years, and who demonstrated their pleasure that the long-sought new extension had finally become a reality.

National Trust for Scotland chief executive Robin Pellew congratulated all concerned on a fine new visitor attraction which exemplified the Trust’s goals and policies.

Hugh’s great great grand-daughter Mrs Marian McKenzie Johnston carried through the informal opening, unveiling a drape from the sign beside the front door, inviting all comers to walk In the Steps of Hugh Miller.

Cromarty parish minister, Rev John Tallach, blessed the House.

Then four children, pupils of Cromarty Primary School, performed, in costume, in the Parlour, a show called At Home with Hugh Miller. The show took the form of some readings about the Miller family life in the house, and two of his folk tales. Felicity Sampays played Lydia, and Caitlin Duncan was Lydia’s pupil, Harriet Ross Taylor. Katie Mackay was the Hallowe’en Bride, and Kimberley Oman the kindly Mother Ghost.

It said a lot for their pluck and spirit that they completed the show in spite of two glass lustre lights crashing off a mantelpiece on to the hearth just behind them!

Next day, April 9th, belonged to the people of Cromarty, in an invitation Open Day, and several dozen of them took advantage of the opportunity.

EXTRACT FROM THE ADDRESS by MARIAN MCKENZIE JOHNSTON

At the opening of Miller House, Cromarty, 8th April 2004

“I am very honoured to represent the descendants of Hugh and Lydia Miller at the opening of Miller House where they started their married life. There are 62 known living descendants – 21 of us still live in or regularly visit the Cromarty Firth area; the others are spread through Scotland, England, France, America, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Australia – where number 63 is soon to be born.

I saw Miller House in its new glory only yesterday. On behalf of Hugh Miller’s family I should like to voice my appreciation not only of the work of the architect, but also that of the team of cabinet makers, carpenters, decorators, electricians, glazoiers, graphic designers, masons, painters, plumbers, restorer, technicians and anyone else I have inadvertently omitted. Hugh, to his wife’s sorrow, gave no thought to comfort, but as a journeyman himself, he did appreciate good workmanship.

In 1927 my sister Bright and I – just back from India – were first shown the Cottage and told about Hugh Miller by our grandfather, Sir Thomas Middleton of Rosefarm. He had married Lydia Miller Davidson, the eldest granddaughter of Hugh and Lydia.

Luckily for all of us my grandfather throughout his life had done extensive genealogical research, not only into his own family, the Middleton farmers who were brought to the Black Isle in 1797 by George Ross, ‘the Scotch agent’, but also into all the families the Middletons had since married. These were all families living in Cromarty at the time of the marriage of Hugh and Lydia in 1837, friends of both the Millers and the Frasers.

TRACING THE FAMILY TREE

My grandfather’s trunks of papers and letters were passed to me. They had references to the Miller family which I could not place, but with the kind help of Mary Fyfe, then manager of the Cottage, and by searching through the visitors’ books I was able to contact Bessie’s granddaughter, Ann Rider, who gave me the names of all Bessie’s descendants and lots of useful material. Ann also said she had seen a portrait of Lydia as a young girl – in white satin with a blue sash – in the house of Ada Stewart, William Miller’s only surviving granddaughter, who allowed me to borrow it and have it professionally photographed. We were thus able to present a copy to the Cottage.

By now my husband and I were checking the Miller/Fraser ancestors, using My Schools and Schoolmasters for clues, and finally were able to produce the Tree which is available for study at the Cottage. From our researches we came to appreciate the part played by Lydia in Hugh’s lifetime and after his death. It was clear that despite her distress at Hugh’s suicide and the pain of her ‘spinal disease’, it was Lydia who edited and wrote prefaces for Hugh’s hitherto unpublished works, as well as getting his family educated. We asked Elizabeth Sutherland to turn our researches into a book, which she did most beautifully, and Lydia, Wife of Hugh Miller of Cromarty was published 18 months ago.

My grandmother Lydia showed me a tea-set which she said had belonged to Hugh Miller’s mother. It was much mended, having been to India with her, and possibly also to Australia with her mother, Harriet. I inherited this and when Ann Rider sent me Harriet Ross Taylor’s Recollections of Hugh Miller, in which she describes Hugh’s mother serving tea in cups brought back from China by Hugh’s father, we took it to be dated. It was indeed Chinese circa 1780, so we have given it back to where it belongs.

In the parlour you are going to hear a recording of a song. The words were written by Harriet Davidson(Hugh and Lydia’s daughter) in Adelaide under the blazing Australian sun where she was longing for Scotland and Cromarty. Her daughter, Lydia, my grandmother, set the words to music about 1916 for her daughter Margaret to sing with her fiancé, Lieutenant Geoffrey Hillier. Alas Geoffrey was posted ‘missing believed killed’ in 1918, just before the leave in which they were to be married. His name is on the Menin Gate.

The song is now sung by our daughter Stephanie Kulesza, who trained at the Guildhall School of Music. It echoes the feelings not only of Harriet in Australia, Lydia in India, myself in Uruguay, Mexico and Trinidad, but of all those who are far away from their Scottish and Cromarty roots.”

Here follows a report on how the Project was brought to fruition:

The National Trust for Scotland formed a project team in the spring of 2003, and hired two firms of graphic designers to create the exhibitions.

NTS PROJECT TEAM: (Project Manager) Glyn Young, Surveyor, Highlands & Islands Region; (Fund-raising) Lorna Stoddart, Head of Development & Danny Nugent, Grants Officer; (Interpretation) Caroline Tempest, Senior Planner & Kit Reid, Planner; (Curator) Ian Gow; (Background Research and Text-writing) Martin Gostwick, Property Manager; (Education) Sue Mackenzie, Highland and Islands Regional Education Officer.

Specialist consultants: Dr Michael Taylor, Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology, National Museums of Scotland; Dr Nigel Trewin, Reader of Geology, University of Aberdeen; Mrs Marian McKenzie Johnston, direct descendant.

Graphic Designers: David Campbell & Co, Edinburgh (Ground and First Floor displays, inter-active media, audio tour); Roy Chillingworth & Associates, Visual Consultants, King Edward, Banffshire (“The Supreme Poet of Geology” exhibition, top floor)

Main Contractors: Alastair Sim, Specialist Decorator, Inverurie; Richard Chamberlain, Main Building Contractors, Tain; Painting & Decorating (Exterior), Robbie Macintosh, Inverness.

Main Suppliers: (Museum cases) Netherfield & David Craig (sub-contractor to R Chillingworth, purpose-specific, hand-built crescent case); (Fixtures & Fittings), Johnstone, shop-fitters, Inverness; (Commissioned artworks): Robert Crerar (medallion), Nicholas Kidd (sculpture and tapestry); (Photographic Services), Andrew Dowsett; Parlour furnishings; Comus, Edinburgh

The team set out to combine Miller House, a handsome Georgian villa, with the late 17thC birthplace Cottage situated next door, so that they could operate together as a single, integrated visitor centre. We thus added a second building with space and appropriate environmental conditions, which enabled us to extend the interpretation of Miller’s story far beyond what had been possible before.

The team worked intensively on planning, designing and writing for the exhibitions that summer and through the winter of 2003/4. Building works, fitting out, and installations were carried out up to 7th April 2004.

Miller House had been for over 200 years a domestic dwelling, and contained interior features dating from a 1970s restoration which had to be gutted out. The design and interpretation of a new museum had to be in a real sense invented from scratch. The principal contents were to be artefacts hitherto crammed into the tiny, damp rooms of the birthplace Cottage, and several items which had been held in storage for over 20 years because of the inappropriate conditions.

The following are the chief new resources and points of interest:

1) The life and work of Hugh Miller, and the key events of his time, are presented in much more accessible, clear and attractive displays.

2) Elements given new emphasis are, the history of the two buildings, Miller’s career as a stonemason, and the importance of his wife, Lydia. The fossil collection has been greatly augmented by the long-term loan of some 40 fossils from the NMS National Miller Collection in Edinburgh.

3) An Educational Resource, includes 3A The Inter-active Media (touch-screens) which provide an exciting new format for learning, with adventures of discovery for children, links to nine relevant websites, and a new, original exposition in Gaelic. 3B The Parlour on the first-floor, and the hands-on workbench in the geology exhibition, also offer direct physical contact with, and information on key aspects of Miller and his family. Living History events are planned to bring fresh appeal to the story. 3C A secure archive room contains many items not on display which are available for study and for use in future temporary exhibitions. 3D. A Reading Room has been established in the Cottage with over 150 titles, including all Miller’s own works, and albums of selected writings.

4) The Cottage and its grounds have been reinterpreted by NTS and Campbell & Co through an audio tour which evokes the place as the beloved home of generations of the Miller family, a tour which concludes with several of his most intriguing folk tales.

Budgets: The total funds raised for the Miller House Project amounted to just under £300,000. Principal contributors were: Heritage Lottery Fund, £143,000; BP £50,000; Garth Weston Foundation £45,000. Ross and Cromarty Enterprise (RACE) £25,000, and some £12,500 was raised from appeals to National Trust for Scotland.

Miller House opened on time, and within budget.

The creation of the Miller House museum has helped us to forge a new partnership with the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh, and with Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, both of which contributed generously to the project with loans of artefacts and specialist advice. A mutual benefit partnership was also set up with our neighbours, Cromarty Courthouse Museum, in terms of a joint discount scheme, publicity, marketing and sharing of facilities.

Miller House has opened up the potential of the museum which now embraces both the House and the birthplace Cottage, for learning, for “Living History” performances, and for temporary exhibitions.

In its first season, it attracted a slightly larger number of visitors (5,741) compared with 2003 (5,500), an achievement in the context of a general downturn of between 5 and 10 per cent in NTS properties, and across Scottish tourist attractions nationally. A better indicator of improvement is a quadrupling of new NTS membership enrolments, from 25 in 2003 to 99 in 2004, the highest figure among the Trust’s smaller properties. The retailing operation, while still modest in scale, was considerably extended, raising revenue from £2,704 in 2003 to £4,129 last year.