The following photograph of the public park football team from 1954 was uploaded to the Johnstone history Facebook page and is surely worth reposting here.

Johnstone Band had a piece of music specially commissioned to perform at the recent Kapitol Cory Online Brass Band Championships. The piece, Black Cart Water by Nicholas Olsen, celebrates Johnstone’s industrial past with the thread and cotton mills that were powered by the Black Cart Water. We hope you enjoy our performance.

Thanks to Mark Good for his work on the video, to Ryan Bradley for the audio, to Kukscinema Scotland for drone footage and to Iain Murray of Johnstone History Museum for his assistance.

Revised 6 February 2024.

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We have added a new feature to our web site. You will find a Videos link on the banner. Have a try! (Please note: This feature is developing rapidly and may change from day today.)

Johnstone History Museum Celebrates its 50,000th Visitor

Johnstone History Museum, which is located within the Morrisons store in Johnstone achieved a huge milestone the other day when it welcomed its 50,000th visitor through the door.

Tassum Shafiq, from Bridge of Weir, was welcomed by two of the Museum volunteers, Helen Bowie and Marlene Rogan. At an event organised to celebrate the occasion, Tassum was presented with a traditional Scottish Quaich and a commemorative Certificate by the Chairman of the Johnstone History Society, Iain Murray.

Iain reported that he was delighted to see the Museum achieve such an important milestone and thanked the whole team of volunteers who keep the whole show running. The Community Museum opened its doors in April, 2008, the year after the Morrisons store itself opened. Visitors come in from all over the world but it is also great to welcome locals who discover a lot about their own town for the first time. The Museum also hosts school groups and local interest groups for organised visits by arrangement.

When asked how it all came about, Iain stated that, “when the Supermarket was being planned, discussions were held between the Council planning department, Morrisons’ Directors and members of Johnstone History Society, about the possibility of incorporating a purpose built Community Museum within the store. With financial help from the Heritage Lottery Fund the present facility came to pass.

“Johnstone History Society, owes a huge debt of thanks to the late Councillor John Kenny, the late Adam Lynch and his wife Janette who put in a huge amount of work to help create the Museum that we see in place today. The present team carry on the work they created”.

The Museum contains a huge amount of information, photographs, historic documents, maps, memorabilia and industrial artefacts that chart the history of the town from February, 1782, when George Houstoun, the Laird of Johnstone planned the Town, to the present day.

Kukscinema Scotland has produced a memorable flyover video of Johnstone. We recommend expanding the view to full screen.

View at Facebook.

Our website was damaged in an attack on our webhost's publishing system on Sunday July 19. Restoration work is in progress.

The principal impact was in the loss of certain control features and numerous graphics. Restoration from backup files is proceeding. Positions of graphics are indicated by the admittedly unattractive temporary images.

Read about Joe Reilly's life at the Linwood Car Plant in the latest addition to our Shop Catalogue. (Joe Reilly and Dr Valerie Wright will be presenting "The Linwood Line" at the December talk of the History Society Tue December 10th

Our members at the October meeting were treated to a fantastic talk on bridges by Bruce Keith. Were were unsure of what we were going to hear but were treated to a very informative and interesting talk on the history of bridges in Scotland from the earliest surviving stone bridge to the New Queensferry Crossing.

As usual the Museum will be open on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th September as part of Refrewshire Doors Open Day.

The theme this year is Animals and we are featuring Working Horses as part of this subject.

We can stamp your Doors Open Day passports and there will be a Childrens quiz.

We will be open from 10:30am till 4pm on both days

Thanks to John Butler, who built our Model Coal Mine, we now have a brand new exhibition of many of his fantastically detailed models which have won him many awards in National Model Competitions.

We had a great talk from Alastair Dinsmor about the start of the Police Force in Glasgow. The First In Britain. Alastair helps run the Glasgow Police Museum which is well worth a visit see LINK

Glasgow Police Museum

Thanks to the efforts of Rees Clark, our brilliant Web sponsor, we can now post little videos on our site. Our first adventure is to show you the newly painted Museum and new displays. More to come once we find our feet.

Thanks to John Butler, we now have our own Johnstone Coal Mine model. It now takes pride of place in one of our display cabinets.

The model is on a glass shelf of a three story display cabinet. We have challanged John to add to his coalhead mine display by adding a mine shaft or two, that can then been shown descending down to the level of the next shelf. We will then need some little miners, pit ponies to go with some pieces of Johnstone coal. Some have suggested that, on the shelf below that, we should have some water.

Flooding was always an issue with the Johnstone mines which were contantly subject to water ingress. See the Coal Mines and Quarries section of our Gallery section.

The redecoration of the Museum has been completed and we are now concentrating of some new displays.

We have completed the Textile wall and have now started on a "History of Johnstone Display". It will include a Map of the area in the 1650's showing the features of interest to Johnstone and its connection with the Houstoun Family. The planning of the town in 1782 by George Houstoun and the importance of coal to the prosperity of the Town. The next new board is concentrating on Transport with features of the coming and going of the Canal, the Railways arriving and the Electric Tram System that used to go all the way from Glasgow, through Johnstone to Kilbarchan.

Oh! Not to forget our NEW Johnstone Burgh football team stand-alone display.

Do come in and see how we are getting on.