Inspiration for a Fairer Future Project

Transforming Ripon’s Museums for everyone

Ripon Museum Trust is in the midst of its most ambitious project to date. Inspiration for a Fairer Future  is a transformative £3.3m initiative that is breathing new life into the Workhouse Museum & Garden, conserving our heritage, transforming the visitor experience and, from 21st July 2026, will be ready to welcome new, diverse audiences to one of Ripon’s most important heritage buildings.

The building works to redevelop the Workhouse museum started in November 2025 and are due to finish at the end of June 2026.  Previously in a very poor state of repair, with a leaky roof and rotten windows, the main building has been transformed to offer an entirely new visitor experience, enabling visitors to walk in the footsteps of Victorian paupers.

As part of the renovations, previously blocked-up doorways and fireplaces have been reopened, the 1970’s Council-installed stud walls have been removed, and original stone flag flooring has been uncovered.  A disused cellar, complete with an original stone butcher’s block, was also revealed where meat and other perishables would have been butchered and stored.  Now that it’s opened up, we’re excited to incorporate it into the new visitor route.

This project is more than just conserving bricks and mortar- it is about community. At the heart of the project is our vision – to ‘use our heritage assets to inspire people to seek a fairer society’.

All three of our museums (the Workhouse Museum & Garden, the Prison & Police Museum and the Courthouse Museum) offer a journey through the long and often tangled relationship between poverty, crime and punishment. Through our heritage sites, we invite our community to explore our themes of justice, fairness, welfare and equality not as abstract concepts, but through real stories, real lives and real places.

Museums are places to reflect and spark meaningful conversations. Society’s challenges then remain society’s challenges now. Poverty and inequality still exist today.

Here at Ripon Museum Trust, we believe that the stories of the past can help us to ask big questions about today. This project will enable us to open the doors of this unique heritage site wider than before, welcome diverse audiences and work with partner charities who are making a real difference to people’s lives today. By broadening and deepening our connections with our community, and by placing people and their real lived experience at the heart of everything we do, we will inspire people of all ages to help us shape a fairer future.

What We’re Doing

1. Saving the unique heritage of the Victorian Workhouse Museum. Once a Workhouse, then a Care home, followed by council offices, the Resident’s block had a leaking roof, rotten windows and failing services.  The building has been carefully renovated to reveal the original building and help visitors better understand its role as a place of separation and control.  
2. Connect stories across all three museums through innovative interpretation and a new visitor journey. New exhibitions at the Workhouse Museum & Garden and a new visitor route will follow the footsteps of the real people who found themselves there, and their struggles and hopes. We are partnering with charities to share their work and connect all three museums and the wider heritage of Ripon with a walking trail. As visitors explore the museums, we will invite them to reflect: Was it fair? Could it have been different? What can we learn from the past to build a better future?  
3. Work with communities to co-produce new activities and amplify voices too often left out of history. Our new Youth Engagement and Learning Officer is working with young people to explore their perspectives on our themes and encourage this audience to participate more in the life of the museums. We are working in close partnership with the YMCA, Wetherby Youth Offenders Institution, Evolve College and Ripon Girl Guides. In addition, we will be including new sessions and resources for primary & secondary schools.  
4. Share our collection more widely – We are responsible for a regionally significant collection of objects focused on the prison and police services that needs our care. We are working with our community to develop the skills, knowledge and experience needed to look after our collection. Complementing this, we are offering an engaging programme of object handling, family workshops and Conservation In Action sessions that invite visitors to explore, respond to and help interpret collection items.  
5. Expand volunteering opportunities, keeping people at the heart of our work – including new school groups and youth volunteering.  
6. Contribute to Ripon’s regeneration, enhancing pride in place and supporting local economic resilience. 

Funders

Inspiration for a Fairer Future is made possible thanks to the generous support of:

• The National Lottery Heritage Fund
• The UK government through the Shared Prosperity Fund
• The Wolfson Foundation
• Garfield Weston Foundation
• The Headley Trust
• The Foyle Foundation

Be part of this journey.

By exploring and supporting Ripon Museums, you are helping safeguard an irreplaceable historic building while creating a space where heritage inspires change. Together, we can ensure that the lessons of the past continue to shape a more compassionate and Fairer Future.