Coastal Communities Museum
About
A volunteer-run local museum on the first floor above North Berwick library on School Road, covering the coastal ward of North Berwick, Dirleton, Gullane, Aberlady and Whitekirk. It is free, it is small, and it is the best hour you will spend in the town on a wet day. The collection includes an original West Bay beach hut donated by the family that owned it, a digital archive, an audio tour of the town, and rotating exhibitions; the 2026 display is a set of farm implements from the coastal ward's agricultural past. Volunteers staff the desk and will talk to you at length, which is the point of the place. Access is good for a first-floor museum: there is a lift, level access once you are up, a portable hearing loop, and a Changing Places toilet on the ground floor.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓An original West Bay beach hut inside the museum
- ✓A free audio tour of North Berwick
- ✓The Catherine Watson story and the Robert Louis Stevenson connection
- ✓Volunteers who actually know the answers
Tips
- →Open Wednesday to Saturday, 11:00 to 16:00, until 31 October. It closes for the winter, so do not plan a December visit around it.
- →Free entry, donations welcome.
- →Two hours' free parking in the shared library car park if you enter your registration on the tablet at the building entrance. This is for museum and library visitors only.
- →Group visits can be arranged on Mondays and Tuesdays when it is otherwise closed to the public.
Best Season
More Attraction Activities
Scottish Seabird Centre
Live cameras on the Bass Rock gannet colony, a viewing balcony over the harbour, and the booking office for the boats. About an hour and a quarter.
Tantallon Castle
A huge red sandstone curtain wall on a clifftop headland facing the Bass Rock, four kilometres east of town. Parts are currently closed to visitors.
Dirleton Castle and Gardens
A thirteenth-century fortress and its gardens in the village of Dirleton, four kilometres west. Parts are closed, and it shuts Thursdays and Fridays in winter.