Qualla: West Highland Museum

West Highland Museum: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Toen96, CC BY-SA 4.0. Look at the base of the cylindrical mirror and you see nothing -- apparently random smears of paint on a flat surface. Place the mirror upright and suddenly a face resolves in its curved reflection: Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, gazing out from an eighteenth-century parlor trick designed to save lives. The technique is called anamorphosis. When government agents came searching for evidence of Jacobite loyalty, the mirror was removed, and the 'painting' became meaningless marks. The West Highland Museum in Fort William bought this object from a London junk shop. It may be the most important thing in the building, but in a collection this eccentric, that is a serious competition.

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Image: Toen96 | CC BY-SA 4.0

West Highland Museum: From Reading Room to Listed Building

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Enric, CC BY-SA 4.0. Victor Hodgson founded the museum in 1922, gathering exhibits and books and displaying them in the Public Reading Room in Monzie Square. By 1926, enough funds had been raised to purchase part of the current premises in Cameron Square -- the former British Linen Bank branch, now B...

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Image: Enric | CC BY-SA 4.0

West Highland Museum: Jacobites, Commandos, and a Birching Table

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alex Gillespie on behalf of the WHM, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Jacobite collection is the museum's spine -- the secret portrait its centerpiece -- but the exhibits sprawl across centuries. The Governor's Room, paneled with pine salvaged from Fort William's demolished fort in 1936, contains a round mahogany wine table reputed to have belo...

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Image: Alex Gillespie on behalf of the WHM | CC BY-SA 4.0