A wheel treat in the basement

AT FIRST glance they have little in common except their antiquity and being buried away for too long in dusty cupboards and basement storage boxes.

But the Royal Museum of Scotland has now "rediscovered" a range of national treasures that are going to be put on display to the public.

They include an antelope net used by Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone during his travels in Africa and a rare "hobby horse" bike that was the plaything of the 19th-century aristocracy.

Other extraordinary finds include a fossilised tree, around 250 million years old and linked to the great Scottish naturalist John Muir, and an 18th-century illustrated guide to Scotland.

The objects are among the four million items collected by the museum, in Edinburgh's Chambers Street, since it opened in 1868. But its curators have only been able to put a fraction of its treasures on display at any one time.

A £46.4m revamp will, however, create a series of new galleries which will allow more of the collection – including the best of the "rediscovered" objects – to be put on show.

The objects were found again as part of the biggest removals exercise in the museum's history. Around two million items currently in storage in the basement are being moved to a new storage hall in Granton in a major operation that starts in January.

Wendy Turner, head of collections management, said: "By spring next year, we will have moved over two million objects and specimens from Chambers Street to Granton. When you think that each object needs to be handled in a specific way, and that some are either of very high monetary value or are extremely fragile, large or awkward, the mammoth scale of the project becomes clear.

"As we are moving items, we are also uncovering new information about them and the stories behind them are coming to light – it really has been a journey of discovery in itself. It's almost like a huge Aladdin's cave. There are some real gems, such as the fossilised tree trunk and Livingstone's net, that we are very excited about.

"Opening up the Chambers Street basement to the public will enable us to make the building much more inviting and easy to access and will give us a huge space where we can place some of our most impressive items. It will have a real wow factor."

The biggest item is the hobby horse, or draisine – named after its German inventor Baron Karl von Drais – which was made for the 13th Earl Of Eglinton in Ayrshire around 1822.

Draisines were forerunners of the modern bicycle and their popularity briefly flowered in the early decades of the 19th century. They were the first commercially successful, two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machines and riders would simply propel the draisine along by sitting in the saddle and striking their feet on the ground.

The patent was filed by von Drais in Germany in 1817, but by 1819 they were starting to appear in London and were being bought by the wealthy as a novelty. One nickname was the Dandy-Horse.

Archibald William Montgomerie, the then Earl of Eglinton, could not resist, and had one made for his Ayrshire estate.

The museum's transport curator, Alistair Dodds, said aristocrats paid coach-builders to manufacture them. "They were a real novelty at the time, and so popular with the dandies of the era. The Earl of Eglinton was certainly a dandy, and he would have ridden it around the grounds of his family seat in Ayrshire."

The last time it was seen in public was in a parade in 1897. Then it was found by an estate worker in a shed in the 1930s and was donated to the museum.

"It was a very elegant machine and in fine condition," Dodds added. "There are very few remaining, so it is of great importance. Of all our bikes, this is the oldest and we are very pleased that it will be put on display again."

The Royal Museum, which will close for three years while the new interior is created – although the adjoining new section will remain open – currently displays between 6,000 and 7,000 objects. Once the new galleries and the new entrance hall are opened, the amount on show will be doubled.

Museum director Gordon Rintoul said: "There are a lot of items we have been keen to display over the decades, some of which are of international importance.

"Once the improvements have been made, the amount of public space we have will have been increased by 50%, so we hope to double the number of objects on display."

The £46m cost of the project is being funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Scottish Government and a £12.6m fundraising campaign.