Isle of Lewis stone to feature in Royal Museum’s ‘Wall of Wonders’

The public have been asked to support a fundraising drive to create a ‘Wall of Wonders’ – the centrepiece of the revamped Royal Museum building in Edinburgh.

The £2 million push aims to fill the funding gap in the £46.4m project to transform the celebrated Victorian building.

Almost 1,000 separate objects, including a 2.8 billion year old rock specimen from Lewis, will be showcased when the museum reopens to the public next summer.

“The Grand Gallery”

Taking the form of two 18-metre tall towers, each 13.5m wide, the ‘Wall of Wonders’ is expected to be the star attraction in the muesum’s Grand Gallery.

Objects already selected for the centrepiece are one of the world’s first gyroplanes, a girder retrieved from the wreckage of the Tay Bridge disaster and from overseas the jaw bones of whales captured in Indonesia in 1843 and glass models of sea creatures by the German artist Leopold Blaschka and his son Rudolf.

Contributors to the campaign will be recognised by receiving a special souvenir booklet and will also receive a commemorative print of the museum by the original architect, Captain Francis Fowke.

Public donors are being encouraged to donate sums of £12.50, £25 or £50 a month over two years, or one-off gifts of £25, £50 and £100 towards the wall.

The Grand Gallery exhibits will be built in September and it is hoped the museum will be ready to reopen next summer.

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