The Gordon Highlanders Museum – a Regiment's Story and Lunch
A few hours.
The route
The Gordon Highlanders Museum tells the story of a famous Highland regiment in a granite house on Viewfield Road, in Aberdeen's leafy west end, and it's a fascinating place to spend a wet morning.
Two centuries of uniforms, weapons, medals and film fill the galleries, and the café on the ground floor, with more tables out in the memorial gardens, serves lunch. There's a comic and a quiz to keep children busy.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The day
Aberdeen
A morning indoors in Aberdeen's west end: two hours with the regiment's story, then an easy lunch without leaving the building.
About three hours
The Gordon Highlanders Museum
An attraction
The Gordon Highlanders Museum on Viewfield Road has a free car park, or take the 11, 4, 5 or 6 bus to the Viewfield Road junction (check the times). The 4th Duke of Gordon raised the regiment in 1794, and it served in almost every campaign of the British Army until 1994. Its story runs from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War, told in uniforms, weapons, film, life-size scenes and 11 Victoria Crosses. Two hours is about right. It's open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am, and tickets are £15.50 for an adult and £7 for a child at the time of writing. Most of it is reached by lifts and ramps, with toilets on every floor and baby changing on the ground floor.
5 min on foot
Cognito at the Museum
Lunch
Lunch is in the museum's own café, Cognito at the Museum, on the ground floor, with more seats out in the walled memorial gardens. It's open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am, with last orders at 4pm, and there's no need to book. There are high chairs and children's books; only assistance dogs go in. If it's full, Figment on Countesswells Road is 5 minutes' walk away.
If it rains
All of it is under a roof: only the outdoor trench and the garden tables are out in the weather.
Worth a detour
- Johnston Gardens
Johnston Gardens is a small, sheltered city garden of streams, ponds, rockeries and a little Japanese bridge, a few minutes along Viewfield Road from the museum, and it's free. It adds about 2 minutes at the wheel, or walk round, and half an hour among the paths.
