Located in the centre of the old industrial village of New Lanark, now a World Heritage site, this award-winning visitor centre is primarily located in two of the original buildings, namely 'Mill No. 3' and the wonderfully titled 'Institution for the Formation of Character'. Featuring the Millennium Experience, an educational ride, together with audio-visual displays explaining the history of the village and a range of working textile machinery, the centre represents heart of the New Lanark Conservation Trust's efforts to preserve and invigorate the village.
Associated with the visitor centre, but located elsewhere in the village are a preserved Millworkers' House, the period Village Store which provided the inspiration for the co-operative movement and the house of mill-owner and social reformer, Robert Owen (1771 - 1858). Visitors can also see the mill lade, together with a restored mill wheel and can walk upstream along the River Clyde past the weir, where water is drawn off to power the mills, to the Falls of Clyde Wildlife Reserve. The same water was used to generate electricity for the village from 1898. A new turbine installed beneath the Visitor Centre in 1931 was restored in 2021 and still generates 400 kW of power supplying the Visitor Centre and New Lanark Mill Hotel.
New Lanark Visitor Centre was opened in 1990 by George Younger (1931 - 2003), Secretary of State for Scotland, and today attracts around 500,000 visitors annually.
