Museum & Gallery Collections

A variety of objects from the Museum Collection are on permanent display at the Auld Kirk Museum and within the Heritage Centre at Kirkintilloch Town Hall. In addition, there are frequent exhibitions of artwork held in our permanent collection at the Lillie Art Gallery in Milngavie.

In addition to this, objects and artefacts from all of EDLCs collections (Archives, Local Studies and Museum) are often temporarily displayed in community libraries (William Patrick Library, Bishopbriggs Library, Milngavie Library), as well as the Lillie Art Gallery.

Unfortunately, it is impossible for all of our objects to be on display at any one time so the majority of the collections are kept in storage. From time to time, objects are removed for display purposes or for conservation work. If an object is not on display, it can be made available for private research and education by prior arrangement in writing.

The permanent display at the Auld Kirk Museum includes objects from when the Romans were in Kirkintilloch, examples of tools from local industries, and items & images from everyday life throughout the 19^th & 20^th Century. The Made in Kirkintilloch Heritage Centre on the first floor of Kirkintilloch Town Hall tells the story of Kirkintilloch’s industrial history through a permanent display on the upper floor. It's suitable for families, with interactive and drawing activities available. We also have a community learning space and co-curated exhibition space which has a changing programme of collaborative exhibitions between artists and communities.

Find out more about our collections

The Auld Kirk's collection reflects the rich history of the local area. From Roman artefacts to innovations of the 20th century, around 13,000 objects reveal fascinating facts about the social, industrial and everyday activities of people who lived or worked in East Dunbartonshire.

Objects in our care range from the commonplace, such as a postcard of Kirkintilloch railway station, to the unexpected, for example, our Japanese whisky bottle. We also have some very special items, among them a Neolithic carved stone ball from around 3,000 BC, found in a garden in Lenzie.

Since 1962, Robert Lillie’s founding bequest of artworks has been developed to form a collection of Scottish art dating from the 1880s to the present day. Around 1250 works are contained in the collection, which includes paintings, prints, drawings and a small collection of sculpture and ceramics.

The collection includes work by Joan Eardley, the Scottish Colourists, Mary Armour, David Young Cameron, Elizabeth Blackadder and Willie Rodger.

Curious about Collections

Fancy finding out what’s happening behind the scenes at the Museum? Follow EDLC_Culture on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates, tales and treasures from our collections.

We are now on Instagram too – follow us here @edlc_heritage.arts

You can view over 600 oil paintings and sculpture on the ArtUK website. As part of a project started by the Public Catalogue Foundation, this website is a showcase of art from every UK public collection.

Another good place to explore some of our collections is by visiting the Trails + Tales timeline webpage. This features objects, documents and photographs from Museums Collections and the Archives.

Our online catalogue

If you want to find out more about what is in the collection you can
search our online catalogue.

Here you will find over 2500 records with information about and images of permanent collection objects. This database however is constantly being updated and added to as object records are transferred from paper to digital format to improve access so not all our objects are available to be explored here yet.

Search now