How £2.8m workhouse renovation gives unique insight into the lives of Yorkshire's poorest

Dr Laura Allan is the museum’s curator, who led a team of largely volunteers to piece together the experiences of those who lived on the margins of society, to understand how they navigated the challenges of everyday life.

One of the main problems about the history of workhouses, Laura says, is nobody wanted to talk about, let alone remember, their experiences. As such, diaries and records are hard to come by.

Laura explains: “The stigma was such, that being in the Workhouse was often kept secret, and certainly not passed down the generations in family histories.”

Work began in August 2024 to collate original archives, newspapers, censuses, journals, and digital records. That research formed the bedrock of the new interpretation panels to reclaim these hidden stories and lives and find ways to bring them authentically to life, rooted in facts.

“Unlike wealthy families, politicians, or prominent local figures, ordinary people left few records of their daily lives,” she says. “Most appear in the historical record only when something went wrong - when they became destitute and sought relief from the workhouse, when they appeared before magistrates, when they entered prison, or when they came into contact with local authorities. Institutions such as the workhouse, courthouse, and prison therefore provide rare glimpses into the lives, relationships, struggles, and resilience of people who would otherwise remain invisible to history.”

One story that did make headlines was Ripon workhouse’s connection to bestselling Yorkshire novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford. Her grandmother Edith spent time in Ripon Workhouse, along with Edith's children, including Bradford's mother Freda. Decades later, the author described discovering this hidden chapter of her family history as one of "tragedy" and "heartbreak".

Laura says the story illustrates a wider theme running through the museum's research.

Edith's story survives because of records created by the institutions she encountered – a reminder that many ordinary lives entered the historical record only through poverty, welfare or crime. It’s a glimpse into how changes in fate and fortune can occur in one family across a generation or two. And prompts questions today around social mobility, poverty, fairness and opportunity.

“Workhouses were neither wholly places of cruelty nor places of care,” Laura says. “They were complex institutions shaped by national policy, local decisions, and the people who lived and worked within them.”

Visitors will then have an entirely new experience to the old Workhouse Museum which means they will walk in the footsteps of the different people who entered the workhouse. Bold interpretation panels and immersive audio map out a new rote to help visitors instinctively feel and understand the experience of segregation and control.

Everyone who entered the workhouse was fumigated– stripped naked, their clothes heated to kill vermin, and bathed. If they were lucky, they weren’t the last of the three allocated to one bath, before the water was changed. The vagrants (homeless) didn’t enter the main residential block, but were sent to cells. They were forced to complete ten hours hard labour, to receive food and bed; the yard was enclosed by spikes to stop escapees.

Paupers were sent to the Workhouse. If they were a family, they were split up. Old and young, male and female, and the children were separated from parents.

Laura says: “The children were seen as innocent victims, so separated from their parents who were considered bad influences on them. They were allowed to see them for an hour a week on a Sunday.”

One of the rooms displays the 200 rules that Workhouses had (literally, the ‘Rules room’.)

Even death was tainted by destitution. If you died in the Workhouse, you were buried in an unmarked mass grave in the grounds of Ripon Cathedral.

Visitors can also take part in activities, from dressing up in Workhouse uniforms, to sweeping the yard, and being locked in a cell (where you can listen to the sounds of jangling keys and other vagrants).

“It’s a journey through the same processes they went through. It’s designed to be quite dark in parts, hence the ‘can you survive the Workhouse?’ challenge. But we also have moments of light too. We wanted to show balance. That there was hope. That some did escape the poverty. The uplifting stories that are more heartfelt because of the hardship. Children for example were given an education, which they wouldn’t have had on the outside, as it was seen as a way out of poverty. There are glimpses of humanity.”

Laura has worked in museums for 18 years, with a PhD on the sector, looking at how to display criminal justice history to make it accessible. She spent two years at the National Justice Museum in Nottingham.

The Poor Laws of that time determined how communities provided relief for the destitute. In 1834, the government’s approach drastically shifted with the Poor Law Amendment Act, which made Workhouse conditions deliberately harsh to deter people from seeking state support. The Workhouse evolved as an institution as society did, softening over time.

And women played a key role in that. The Suffragettes and early feminists sought roles as Poor Law Guardians to oversee local workhouses. By taking on these elected positions, they could improve destitute living conditions, support unwed mothers, and demonstrate to society that women possessed the competence, and compassion, to handle civic responsibilities. It strengthened their fight for the vote.

“The Workhouse had a few women Guardians and benefactors. In 1897 when the Ripon Workhouse children refused to eat their daily porridge, Mrs Lee, a Guardian proposed that they should be served with bread and butter with jam on alternate days, or milk. Mr Hargrave, one of Guardians, objected, declaring that half the children in Ripon would be glad to have jam and butter for breakfast and suggested that there was plenty of good beef dripping available.”

The Guardians’ wives visited the Workhouse, often distributing religious tracts and bringing flowers and greenhouse fruits such as oranges or peaches.

The largest building on the workhouse site, the Residents’ Block, where paupers ate, slept and worked, has had a complete and sensitive restoration as part of the project. This building had been acquired by Ripon Museum Trust in 2017, but was in a state of disrepair after years of changing uses such as a care home and council offices. As part of the project, the leaking roof and rotten windows have been fixed, and historical features reinstated to restore its authenticity.

Revamped rooms include the Old Men’s Day Room, Kitchen and Dining Hall, and the original workhouse cellar has been opened up for the first time.

“The cellar is particularly exciting as it’s the only part of that building that had been untouched since it was turned into council offices. It has the massive original meat block table where the workhouse pigs would be butchered, trough and sink. It's like glimpsing behind the curtain, seeing how it truly was.”

The revamped museum also features new exhibition spaces, featuring artist-led projects with local community groups, who have experienced poverty or hardship.

“We want people to reflect and ask questions,” Laura says.

By recovering the voices of people who would otherwise have been forgotten, the museum hopes visitors leave with a deeper understanding not only of the past, but of enduring questions around dignity, poverty, fairness and opportunity.

riponmuseums.co.uk