Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum

New audio presentations in the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Cottage featuring Andrew Carnegie himself, weaving and life in Victorian Dunfermline.

New costume displays also on show all as part of the major museum refurbishment which is due for completion in late summer 2008.

About the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace.

The Main Hall of The Andrew Carnegie Birthplace is currently under refurbishment due for opening in late summer 2008, however the birthplace cottage and shop will be open as usual.

In 1895 the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Cottage was bought as a surprise 60th birthday present for Andrew Carnegie by his wife Louise and then let out to tenants.

With the creation of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust in 1903, a caretaker was installed and in 1908 it was first opened to the public.

In 1909 Andrew Carnegie wrote in the visitors book 'First visit to my birthplace. The humble home of honest poverty... Best heritage when one has a heroine for a mother.' In the following year, formal title to 'Carnegie's Cottage,' as it was then known, was transferred from Mrs. Louise Carnegie to the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust.

After the death of her husband (11th August 1919) Mrs. Carnegie proposed and funded the erection of a Memorial Treasure House adjoining the Birthplace.

Work began in 1925 on the design by architect James Shearer RSA which was inspired by the architecture of 17th century Lowland Scotland and was translated into local sandstone and Cornish slates.

The linked buildings of the Cottage and Memorial Hall were formally opened on 28th June 1928, the ceremony beginning with the switching on by Carnegie's grandchildren of a granite water fountain quarried on Carnegie's Highland estate of Skibo, near Dornoch.

During the Centenary Year of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, on 28th June 2003, the Birthplace Cottage and Memorial Hall celebrated its 75th year as an independent public Museum with an exhibition of archive photographs showing the Opening Ceremony and original lay-out of the Museum alcoves and displays.

The day that Dunfermline put out the flags for its benefactor Andrew Carnegie is captured in the celebrated oil painting. 'The Dunfermline Demonstrations' - today the focal point of the foyer in the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Dunfermline.

The Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack and the Lion Rampant fly in symbolic salute to the 'Star-Spangled Scotchman' on his triumphant return to his native city.

The vibrant scene - replicated on presentation coasters - was commissioned by the American steel king to remind him of the demonstrations given in his honour on 27th July 1881, when he returned with his mother, Margaret, to lay the memorial stone of the world's first Carnegie Free Library.

Dunfermline :
Only thirty minutes from the centre of Edinburgh, across the spectacular Forth Road and Railway Bridges, lies Dunfermline, the ancient capital of Scotland.

Start your Dunfermline itinerary with a visit to the Carnegie Birthplace Museum (free admission) at the Southern Gateway to Dunfermline's Heritage Quarter. Enjoy coffee and look round the gift shop before visiting the city's other heritage sites:-

Dunfermline Abbey & Royal Palace
Abbot House Heritage Centre

Plus free entry to St. Margaret's Cave and the pleasures of Pittencrieff Park, purchased by Andrew Carnegie in 1902 and given to the people of Dunfermline in 1903 "To bring into the monotonous lives of the toiling masses of Dunfermline, more 'of sweetness and light.'"