The Unst Heritage Trust comprises the Heritage Centre and Boat Haven, on Unst in the Shetland Isles. Our small museums are dedicated to the cultural heritage and history of this most northerly island in Britain.
Unst has a special place in Shetland, its culture and our hearts; its values and heritage are precious possessions able to enrich our lives and others. Unst Heritage Trust gathers, distils and delivers this enrichment through the imaginative use of its unique resources.
The Unst Heritage Centre owes its existence to the foresight and effort of the original Unst History Group.
When the oil industry arrived in Shetland in the 1970s, the Shetland Islands Council encouraged history groups to be set up to record memories of the way of life before oil changed it forever.
The Unst History Group was set up in 1976 and regular meetings were held to record member’s memories and research the past way of life, historic people and events. In the early 1980s a number of events took place involving the return of Shetland and Unst connected visitors.
Exhibitions of items from earlier times were displayed and this encouraged the idea of having a permanent exhibition of such items, resulting in the Unst Heritage Centre opening in a former shop building in 1986.
At the same time Duncan Sandison, a local business owner and keen leisure sailor, who was interested in all things nautical started collecting examples of the traditional wooden boats that had been used for centuries in the Shetland fishing industry and as a means of transport generally, before they too disappeared from use.
As the collection grew it became clear that a custom-built building was needed to house it and so the Unst Heritage Trust was set up in 1993 by members of Unst History Group in order to obtain funding to build the Unst Boat Haven, it opened in May 1994.
As the Heritage Centre collection was also expanding they needed to look for larger premises, so when the Haroldswick Primary School closed in 1997 it was purchased by Shetland Amenity Trust and leased to Unst Heritage Trust, opening as the Unst Heritage Centre in May 2001.
