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A costumed figure in a red gingham shawl and black bonnet among the displays of the Aberdeenshire Farming Museum.
Aberdeenshire

Aberdeenshire Farming Museum

A hundred and fifty years of north-east farming, told inside a steading of around 1800.

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Welcome

The Aberdeenshire Farming Museum tells the story of farming in the north-east over the last 150 years, and it tells it from inside a farm building: a semi-circular home farm steading built around 1800, in the middle of Aden Country Park.

The collection is a Recognised Collection of National Significance, a mark Museums Galleries Scotland gives to the most important collections in the country, and it is full of the tools, carts and machinery that worked the Buchan fields through the horse years and into the tractor age. It is a good place to understand why this corner of Scotland looks the way it does, a patchwork of big fields, steadings and dykes.

Temporary exhibitions change through the season and there are family events most months while it is open. The museum keeps a season rather than opening all year, so check before a special trip. The café, the craft shop and the woodland walks of the park are all a few steps from the door.

Round the cornerAden Country ParkWoodland, a lake and a Victorian arboretum round a half-moon steading in the middle of Buchan.1 min by roadSee itA tall old tree in full summer leaf in the woodland of Aden Country Park.
Before you go

The museum is in the half-moon steading at the heart of Aden Country Park and opens for a season, with events through it.

The café and craft shop are beside it.

Where
Aden Country Park, Mintlaw.
Season
Opens for the summer season: check the dates.
Where it is

Mintlaw.

Close byAround Mintlaw.
  1. The recumbent and standing stones of Aikey Brae Stone Circle in a clearing among dark pines.Aikey Brae Stone CircleThe most complete recumbent stone circle in the north of Aberdeenshire, with a 21.5-tonne recumbent stone.4 miles11 min by road
  2. The granite Station Hotel at Maud on a corner of the village.Maud Railway MuseumThe old junction station of the Buchan line, now a small railway museum on a cycle path.5 miles11 min by road
  3. The blue front of Strichen Antiques under its sign.Strichen AntiquesTwo stores of the weird and wonderful in a Buchan village: curios, jewellery, salvage and taxidermy.8 miles16 min by road
  4. Two donkeys looking over the fence at Waulkmill Menagerie.Waulkmill MenagerieA small farm menagerie near New Deer where visitors spend an hour as the keeper's helper.8 miles18 min by road
  5. The bronze of Fisher Jessie with a child at her side on Marischal Street, Peterhead.Fisher JessieAndy Scott's bronze in Peterhead to the women of the fishing towns.11 miles23 min by road
Directions
A tall old tree in full summer leaf in the woodland of Aden Country Park.WalksAden Country Park0.2 miles
A cell hall in Peterhead Prison, galleries rising to the roof above a table-tennis table.AttractionsPeterhead Prison Museum11 miles
Konik ponies at the water's edge on the Strathbeg marshes, their reflections below them.AttractionsRSPB Loch of Strathbeg12 miles
White lighthouse on a stone base rising from open seaAttractionsRattray Head14 miles
A wood-burning stove set into an old stone wall at the Kilmarnock Arms.BarsThe Kilmarnock Arms17 miles
Aerial view of a coastal links golf course with rolling fairways and dunesAttractionsCruden Bay Golf Club17 miles
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