About us

Ripon Museum Trust (Charity No.1141462. Company Ltd by Guarantee registered in England and Wales No. 7465640) was formed in 1983 by a small group of volunteers and now, substantially larger, we would describe ourselves as a medium-sized voluntary organisation with full-time support from three paid staff:

Head of Museums (Sue Dalton)

Learning & Access Officer (Sue MacKay)

Adminstration & Volunteer Officer,  part time (Wendy Hunwick-Brown)

We currently have around 140 volunteers between 16 and 90 years (including the board of Trustees) and they fulfill a variety of roles which range from helping with education visits to gardening, cataloguing the collections to keeping our accounts, repairing brickwork to researching the stories behind the buildings.

In short, Ripon Museum Trust would be unable to exist, function and progress without volunteers.

We do not receive any regular government funding (although North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council are very supportive of us). We charge an entrance fee to the three museums and every penny goes towards the upkeep and running of the buildings and garden.

We are delighted to have won several awards in the last few years including;

• Museum Accreditation for all three museums
• Investing In Volunteers Award
• Sandford Award for Heritage Education
• Environmental Award for the Workhouse Garden
• Regional winners for the Marsh Award for Volunteers in Learning from the British Museum
• Finalist in the White Rose Tourism Awards