The Skye Museum of Island Life at Kilmuir, Isle of Skye was opened in 1965. The aim was to preserve a township of thatched cottages, each one depicting, as closely as possible, the conditions prevailing on the island at the close of the nineteenth century.
There are very few old-fashioned thatched cottages to be seen today in the Highlands. A hundred years or so ago thatched houses were very much a part of the Highland scene and within their walls, by the light of the peat fire – the crofters of the Islands kept alive the songs and stories which have made the Hebrides famous throughout the world.