Castle Museum’s Victorian street to get big facelift
Kirkgate: Insight into real inhabitants of York
KIRKGATE, the Castle Museum’s world-famous Victorian street, will give
an authentic insight into the lives of York’s Victorian inhabitants
following a £300,000 refurbishment.
An alleyway, called Rowntree Snicket, will portray the poverty
stricken areas of the city – complete with a stinking privy, or outside
toilet.
And all the shops in Kirkgate will be based on real examples from
Victorian York, such as Leak & Thorpe Drapers, Sessions bookshop,
The Little Dust Pan ironmongers, Banks’ music shop,
Kendrick’s toy shop and fancy goods repository and Brittons grocers.
Janet Barnes, chief executive of York Museums Trust, said Kirkgate was the museum’s highlight for most visitors.
“We feel now is the time to extend the street, and introduce visitors
to ‘real’ people who tell us more about life in the Victorian age.”
Curator of history Gwendolen Whitaker said the museum had fantastic
Victorian collections, with hundreds of items not on show because there
simply wasn’t enough space.
“By expanding Kirkgate, we can show off some of these brilliant
artefacts, but also create some fantastic new shops, such as the Cocoa
Rooms, where people used to go and drink coffee and cocoa, and
a funeral directors,” she said.
“For the first time, all of the shops will be based on real businesses
which existed in York – with some of them still trading in the city
today.”
The new Kirkgate, which will reopen on June 2, is being funded by the
Museums, Libraries and Archive Fund, with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
also giving a £10,000 grant.
Curators have spent months researching old York businesses and the
people who worked there to ensure the Kirkgate shops are as realistic as
possible.
Their work gives fascinating glimpses into the lives of individuals
such as George Alp, a teenage dad, heavy drinker and policeman,
Elizabeth Kidd, a mental health worker and photographic model and
Isaac Dickinson, slum dweller, activist and Royal Baker.
The project aimed to capture the investigative spirit of Benjamin
Seebohm Rowntree’s groundbreaking study of poverty, which analysed its
causes and used York as an example to reflect what was
happening to the poorest people across the country.
Kirkgate: Insight into real inhabitants of York
KIRKGATE, the Castle Museum’s world-famous Victorian street, will give
an authentic insight into the lives of York’s Victorian inhabitants
following a £300,000 refurbishment.
An alleyway, called Rowntree Snicket, will portray the poverty
stricken areas of the city – complete with a stinking privy, or outside
toilet.
And all the shops in Kirkgate will be based on real examples from
Victorian York, such as Leak & Thorpe Drapers, Sessions bookshop,
The Little Dust Pan ironmongers, Banks’ music shop,
Kendrick’s toy shop and fancy goods repository and Brittons grocers.
Janet Barnes, chief executive of York Museums Trust, said Kirkgate was the museum’s highlight for most visitors.
“We feel now is the time to extend the street, and introduce visitors
to ‘real’ people who tell us more about life in the Victorian age.”
Curator of history Gwendolen Whitaker said the museum had fantastic
Victorian collections, with hundreds of items not on show because there
simply wasn’t enough space.
“By expanding Kirkgate, we can show off some of these brilliant
artefacts, but also create some fantastic new shops, such as the Cocoa
Rooms, where people used to go and drink coffee and cocoa, and
a funeral directors,” she said.
“For the first time, all of the shops will be based on real businesses
which existed in York – with some of them still trading in the city
today.”
The new Kirkgate, which will reopen on June 2, is being funded by the
Museums, Libraries and Archive Fund, with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
also giving a £10,000 grant.
Curators have spent months researching old York businesses and the
people who worked there to ensure the Kirkgate shops are as realistic as
possible.
Their work gives fascinating glimpses into the lives of individuals
such as George Alp, a teenage dad, heavy drinker and policeman,
Elizabeth Kidd, a mental health worker and photographic model and
Isaac Dickinson, slum dweller, activist and Royal Baker.
The project aimed to capture the investigative spirit of Benjamin
Seebohm Rowntree’s groundbreaking study of poverty, which analysed its
causes and used York as an example to reflect what was
happening to the poorest people across the country.
