Sanday Heritage Centre sits within a complex of 3 important heritage sites. The heritage centre itself is located in the island's old Temperance Hall, it's an important resource for the island and offers a glimps into life in Sanday across eras. It includes a main exhibition space, a reference room that includes a photographic and sound archive and a small gift shop. Across the field, there's a croft that's been sympathetically restored and furnished to depict life in Sanday in the early 20th Century, and between the two, adjacent to the heritage centre, is a recreated burnt mound. The mound was discovered in 2005 at Meur in Sanday, uncovered by a storm, and due to coastal erosion a decision was made in 2014 to re-excavate the site and reconstruct the main elements at the heritge centre.
Sanday Heritage Group is a sub-group of Sanday Development Trust, it's a volunteer run organisation that manages and cares for these impressive sites and of course the fantastic collections and displays in the heritage centre itself. The success of the heritage centre means that it's bursting at the seams and NILPS funding was able to support some minor repairs and improvements to the units at the rear of the heritage centre building to make them more accessible and weatherproof to increase storage and potentially display space into the future. Work included new access ramps and repairs to windows and chimnies. The aim is to store and display larger items that can't be housed in the main exhibition space and that don't require the same controlled environmental conditions.
Find out more about Sanday Heritage Centre here: Sanday Heritage Centre | Orkney.com and Sanday Heritage Centre – VisitSanday.com
