Workhouse Museum
It’s all hands on deck as Marines from Menwith Hill volunteer to give Ripon’s three museums a deep clean before they reopen at February half-term.
The list of tasks the volunteers will be tackling range from mopping floors and dusting lampshades to dusting down the cobwebs and polishing brass knobs at not one but three museums, all in a weekend!
The Prison & Police Museum, Courthouse Museum and Workhouse Museum & Gardens will be looking spick and span when they re-open, in time for half term, on Saturday 15 February 2014.
“We are looking forward to the experience of finding out more about the history and having the opportunity to help out where we can,” said Will Hess, NIOC Menwith Hill.
The grim atmosphere of the Workhouse Museum (open 11am – 4pm), housed in the former Gatehouse, has been carefully maintained in order to give visitors a sense of what life in a Victorian Workhouse could have been.
The Prison & Police Museum (open 1 – 4pm), is in the former House of Correction and Liberty Gaol and contains a fascinating selection of artefacts from the Trust’s extensive collections of police and prison memorabilia – from a pillory and whipping posts to a prisoner in a Victorian Cell.
Discover what being the Liberty of Ripon meant at the Courthouse Museum (open 1 – 4pm) and learn about what happened in a courtroom in the 1800s.