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Lybster harbour heritage centre set to be a year-round venue





Donna Booth (right), manager/curator at Waterlines, with photographer Angus Mackay and artist Jane McDonough on the opening day of the Abandoned exhibition. Picture: Alan Hendry
Donna Booth (right), manager/curator at Waterlines, with photographer Angus Mackay and artist Jane McDonough on the opening day of the Abandoned exhibition. Picture: Alan Hendry

Efforts are well under way to make Lybster’s harbourfront heritage centre “a community space as well as a visitor space”.

Twenty-four years after it opened, Waterlines is set to become a year-round venue with plans for exhibitions, workshops and events that will appeal to local people as well as tourists.

For the next few weeks the centre is playing host to Abandoned – a joint exhibition by photographer Angus Mackay and artist Jane McDonough inspired by deserted houses in Caithness and Sutherland.

Waterlines was originally opened by Lybster Heritage Trust in 2000 in restored harbour buildings. Opening times have been limited since Covid but wind-farm funding is helping to give the centre a new lease of life.

Donna Booth, who took up the role of manager/curator at the end of May, is looking to develop the space and make it sustainable. She hopes to source funding to upgrade the lighting and heating.

“It’s a really beautiful venue in a beautiful place on the east coast of Caithness,” Donna said at the opening of the Abandoned exhibition on Saturday.

“It was created as a heritage museum to tell the story of Lybster, and it was done with so much heart in 2000, but it hasn’t really developed since then.

“We want to revamp it and make it a community space as well as a visitor space, which is why we’re opening through winter, have rotating exhibitions, have events and workshops, and work with other local organisations and artists and creatives.

Waterlines began life in 2000 in restored buildings beside Lybster harbour. Picture: Alan Hendry
Waterlines began life in 2000 in restored buildings beside Lybster harbour. Picture: Alan Hendry

“We’re involved now with Museums and Heritage Highland to really develop our collection and our museum space, but just to make it somewhere that people really want to go. And it’s wonderful that we’ve got a café that supports it.

“We’d like to do pop-ups, supper evenings, music events, we’re planning a harbour festival... We’ve done a lot of relationship-building and awareness. I think this exhibition really does show what can be done.

“And we’re looking at how we can work together with Lyth Arts Centre to promote what each other is doing, rather than competing.”

Abandoned runs each Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 10am to 3pm, until the week before Christmas.

Donna added: “The exhibition finishes on December 21 so we’ll probably shut for three weeks and open mid to late January. But we really are keen for it to be a year-round venue, and for it to be a community venue as well as a tourist venue.”


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