Glasgow ship museum unveils new 'unique' smell system

Nowadays, the Tall Ship Glenlee is a distinctive landmark on the Glasgow skyline at its specially designated berth alongside the Riverside Museum on the River Clyde. 

The 127-year-old former merchant sailing vessel - one of only five remaining Clyde-built steel sailing ships still afloat today and the only one in the UK - provides a unique space for exploration, learning, heritage and entertainment in Glasgow.

Now the living museum, which is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people each year, has unveiled an innovate new upgrade that lets visitors control its smells.

In 2022, the Tall Ship Glenlee secured funding from Museums Galleries Scotland’s Museum Development Fund, allowing for upgrades to signage, interpretation and sensory experiences.

Alongside three soundscapes, the team identified seven areas where scents could enrich the experience, bringing the past to life in a visceral and personal way. For this, they worked with museum smell experts AromaPrime, who provided a range of samples based on the ship’s stories.

The seven final scents include old-fashioned soap in the captain’s bathroom, tobacco and alcohol in the captain’s saloon, putrid dirty linen in the deckhouse, oil and smoke in the engine room, potatoes in the galley and antiseptic fluids in the hospital.

What is particularly unique to the Tall Ship Glenlee is that, using a specially designed system, the scents fill the historical rooms at the touch of buttons that visitors can trigger. This new feature was designed and installed by the museum’s team with advice from AromaPrime.

Liam R. Findlay, historical scenting consultant at AromaPrime, says: “The way visitors can trigger the scents in the rooms is quite a new approach in the museum sector. Certainly, there have been museums with button-triggered scents on a tiny scale, usually on a display board, but I have never seen a museum that allows visitors to trigger the ambient scenting of whole 3D spaces! It is very exciting to have seen this project come together.

“In museums, multisensory elements are not always expected by visitors like they might be at theme parks. With this in mind, it is good practice to allow visitors the choice to smell or not to smell something, like in this instance.

The Tall Ship Glenlee (Image: Supplied)

"Of course, the interactive element also encourages visitors to focus on the smells more, thinking about the smells’ characteristics and what they suggest about the historical settings they represent.”

"Lauren Henning, Learning and Museum Manager at the Tall Ship Glenlee, explains the process behind the multisensory upgrade: “Sustainability, as well as accessibility, particularly for those with sensory sensitivities, were key considerations as we planned how to manage the scents.

"Our workshop manager devised a proposal and prototype to control the timings of scent released by AromaPrime’s Vortex Compact machines. Each system is activated by a brass doorbell integrated into interpretation panels, inviting visitors to ‘smell me’ upon pressing the button. To avoid too much potency and to ensure visitor comfort, the button would only release the scent a maximum of every 20 minutes.

“AromaPrime provided numerous samples and invaluable guidance for our choices. Liam’s advice was particularly insightful, emphasising that scent accuracy wasn’t always essential, as visual and auditory cues would also influence how visitors perceived and identified each smell. The entire team took part in selecting the scents from samples, memorably captured by a TikTok video!

“In July, an intensive installation effort transformed the ship with the new multisensory interpretation. We’re currently fine-tuning each space with consideration to scent duration, machine placement and tube positioning, considering factors such as space size and airflow. Already, the ship is becoming more scented!”