Summerlee, Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, formerly known as Summerlee Heritage Park is an award-winning industrial museum in Coatbridge

Coatbridge

Coatbridge is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, about east of Glasgow city centre, set in the central Lowlands. The town, with neighbouring Airdrie, is part of the Greater Glasgow urban area. The first settlement of the area stretches back to the Stone Age era...

, North Lanarkshire

North Lanarkshire

North Lanarkshire is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. It borders onto the northeast of the City of Glasgow and contains much of Glasgow's suburbs and commuter towns and villages. It also borders Stirling, Falkirk, East Dunbartonshire, West Lothian and South Lanarkshire...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It was built on the site of the old Summerlee Ironworks and incorporated the main workshop of the former Hydrocon Crane factory.

It temporarily closed in 2006, but reopened on 26 September 2008 following a £10m refurbishment (pictured right).

The former main hall was completely redesigned by North Lanarkshire Council's in-house Design Team and now includes a stainless steel café pod and futuristic viewing pavilion. The museum aims to show Lanarkshire's contribution to engineering, and incorporates interactive displays and a children's "Discovery Zone".

The museum also incorporates several railway steam locomotive

Steam locomotive

A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

s, preserved carriages from a 1960s era Glasgow Class 311

British Rail Class 311

The British Rail Class 311 alternating current electric multiple units were built by Cravens at Sheffield in 1967. They were intended for use on the line from to and , which was electrified in 1967.-Appearance:...

 and has a short working tram line.

See also

• Beamish Museum
  Beamish Museum
  Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum is an open-air museum located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, County Durham, England. The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early...
  
   - an industrial museum in the North of England
• Black Country Living Museum
  Black Country Living Museum
  The Black Country Living Museum is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings, located in Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The museum occupies a urban heritage park in the shadow of Dudley Castle in the centre of the Black Country conurbation...
  
   - an industrial museum in the West Midlands conurbation
  West Midlands conurbation
  The West Midlands conurbation is the name given to the large conurbation that includes the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton and the large towns of Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich, Solihull, Stourbridge, Halesowen in the English West Midlands....
  
  
• East Anglia Transport Museum
  East Anglia Transport Museum
  The East Anglia Transport Museum is an open air transport museum, with numerous historic public transport vehicles . It is located in Carlton Colville a suburb of Lowestoft, Suffolk...
  
  
• Glasgow Museum of Transport
  Glasgow Museum of Transport
  The Glasgow Museum of Transport in Glasgow, Scotland was established in 1964 and initially located at a former tram depot in Pollokshields. From 1987 the museum was relocated to the city's Kelvin Hall...
  
  
• National Tramway Museum
  National Tramway Museum
  The National Tramway Museum, at Crich, in Derbyshire, England, is situated within Crich Tramway Village, a period village containing a pub, cafe, old-style sweetshop, including the tram depots. The village is also home to the Eagle Press, a small museum dedicated to Letterpress Printing including...
  
  
• The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft
  The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft
  The Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft is a transport museum which specialises in the preservation of trolleybuses. It is located by the village of Sandtoft, near Belton on the Isle of Axholme in the English county of Lincolnshire.-Description:...
  
  
• St Fagans National History Museum
  St Fagans National History Museum
  St Fagans National History Museum , commonly referred to as St Fagans after the village where it is located, is an open-air museum in Cardiff chronicling the historical lifestyle, culture and architecture of the Welsh people...
  
  - Museum of Welsh Life, Cardiff, Wales.

External links

• Summerlee, Museum of Scottish Industrial Life - official website
• Details from Visit Lanarkshire