Coats Observatory — Attraction in Scotland

This could be OK if only they would actually clean things up a bit (the place is very tatty) and know something of what they are talking about. Maybe it was a bad day but when I visited the guide's talk consisted quite literally of "This is a telescope. It was made in 1880 at the same time the building was built. Any questions". She quite literally knew nothing of her subject. Obviously there is a limit to how much a tiny provincial museum like this can manage but they have an observatory, albeit a tiny one. They have a planetarium (not in use when I visited and similarly tiny) a film presentation and a building to show it all in. So there is no excuse for then locking the building up only to have it unlocked by someone who knows nothing and apparently has no interest in let alone enthusiasm for the subject.

One of the rare occasions when it is people at such an exhibition that let it down. Even with their limited resource they have enough to inspire and educate and they failed...

Thomas Coats built this observatory after some citizens professed an interest in astronomy, a man whose philanthropy was famed, his thread mills making him and his brothers the Bill Gates of their time. The observatory is still in working order and open to the public, although now superceded by significantly more powerful telescopes. The mills that provided the wealth for this project closed in the 80s, but like this building still stand albeit with a different use as living memorials to this man and the company he founded. Coats the company? They have a small presence in Paisley only despite being a billion pound company, but without history...

Despite it's clear under funding the by the council, the observatory has been a place of wonderment for me since childhood.

The staff are very knowledgeable and thee are a few gems to behold once there, including the Coates telescope which is well over 100 years old, and is still in use today.

Well worth a visit if you...