York Museums Trust

Yorkshire Museum

The Yorkshire Museum closed its doors to the public on November 2009 for a complete redisplay of the archaeology and science collections. We called the project Letting in the Light. Over the decades much of the internal space had silted up, with windows being covered over and the original Georgian architecture disappearing beneath collection displays and additions so it was the intention of the project to clear it all away and reassert the beautiful internal spaces.

The project team decided to strip out the contents themselves and to recycle as much as possible in the redisplay or to pass it on to other museums and organisations if there was possible use. They also decided to do as much work as possible themselves. For example much of the painting and decorating was done by the team. This not only kept the costs down but their close involvement resulted in a great team spirit and a shared detailed knowledge of the building.

One of the interesting moments during the work was the discovery of a skeleton in the basement during the fit out of the toilets which was later declared to be Roman.

During this work the volunteers from the Yorkshire Philosophical Society continued their important work in cataloguing and doing conservation work on the very important library of some 42,000 volumes. NADFAS volunteers have been very helpful in providing some basic book conservation and U3A have helped with the research which will inform the new displays.

The Yorkshire Museum reopened on August 1 2010, Yorkshire Day.

Museum Gardens

The Museum Gardens have really developed over the last year as we have continued to improve the horticultural quality of the planting. The Garden team have made such a difference to the experience of visiting the gardens. We have invested in more staff to talk to visitors and ensure a safe and pleasant visit for everyone. We did some visitor research which indicated some 1.3 million people pass through the gardens each year and as such it is the most visited site within York Museums Trust.

Horticultural improvements have included replanting the Fern bed near Manor Lane, redesigning the Prairie bed near the main entrance, planting around the Hospitium and the first stage of the Rockery project. The grass seeding underneath the trees has also been successful and 36,000 bulbs were planted to give a good colourful show in the spring and summer. A Wollemi Pine was planted to relate to the fossil collections in the museum and the Butterfly border redesigned with the benches repositioned around St Marys Lodge. We have also written a Garden Plan which will direct our energies over the coming years.

We also revised the opening times so that it is clear when we are closing, so from now on summer closing time is at 8.00pm and winter closing is at 6.00pm.

We also worked with the architects DSDHA who have drawn up plans about how we could join up the historic Museum Gardens with the land at the back of York Art Gallery which at present is not available for public use. This is a long term plan but we hope that the extension of the gardens into green public spaces won't be too long in being achieved.

We also held our Wild Wednesdays during August which has now become a part of the holiday programme. This is an opportunity for the museum team to work outside on a variety of themed events on archaeology and science. Families love these events and we are attracting more and more people to each of these four day events. We also took part in the Big Garden Bird Watch and in Illuminating York in October where two light installations were placed in the gardens and in the quadrangle of Kings Manors. Increasingly we are thinking of the Museum Gardens as being a fifth site and a visitor destination in their own right.