York Castle Museum

York Castle Museum

York Castle Museum
Eye of York
York
North Yorkshire
YO1 9RY

Tel: 01904 687 687
E-Mail: castle.museum@ymt.org.uk

Web: York Castle Museum

About York Castle Museum

York Castle Museum is one of Britain's leading museums of everyday life.

York Castle Museum shows how people used to live by displaying thousands of household objects and by recreating rooms, shops, streets - and even prison cells.

York Castle Museum is best known for its recreated Victorian street, Kirkgate, which combines real shop fittings and stock with modern sound and light effects, to evoke an atmosphere of Victorian Britain.

The street was named after York Castle Museums founder, Dr John L. Kirk, a North Yorkshire country doctor who collected everyday objects and wanted to keep them safe for future generations.

York Castle Museums room settings include a Victorian parlour, an 1850s Moorland cottage, Jacobean and Georgian dining rooms, a 1940s kitchen and a 1950s front room.

York Castle Museums new gallery, The Sixties, which opened in Spring 2008, explores the music, fashion and everyday life of this exciting decade.

York Castle Museum also displays historic toys, fashion, armour, weapons, tools, printing presses, cooking utensils, farming equipment and much more.

York Castle Museums past as two prison buildings is also explored with a look at conditions in 18th century gaols and at its most famous former prisoner - highwayman Dick Turpin, who was hanged in 1739 for horse stealing.

Turpin spent his last six months in the the Debtors' Prison, which was built in 1701-5, and today houses half of the museum's displays. The other half of the museum was originally the Female Prison, built in 1780-83.

The museum, which opened in 1938, was named after the former York Castle, which stood on the site.

Remains of the former Castle walls can be seen outside the museum next to the River Foss and our Victorian watermill.