DIY skills on show as Yorkshire's museum gets £2m new look (Video)

The restoration of one of the region's most historic museums is a testament to the power of Do-it-Yourself.

In a week in which it emerged Yorkshire Forward grants totalling 6m to help revamp the National Railway Museum's Great Hall and York Minster's Great East Window have been axed, those behind the county's cultural attractions are understandably nervous.

The reopening of the Yorkshire Museum in York is not only a welcome piece of good news, however, but also a blueprint of just what can be achieved in a climate of public spending cuts and financial restraint.

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With no Arts Council or Lottery cash, the 2.1m overhaul was funded largely through charitable donations and money from York Council and working on a tight budget – the new look Rotunda Museum in Scarborough cost 4.4m – its staff have done much of the work themselves.

Since the museum closed in November, those normally used to analysing historical artefacts and guiding visitors around the exhibits have been busy knocking down walls, hanging new ceilings and building display cabinets. All, at some point, have had a paint pot and brush in their hand to ensure the attraction is ready in time for the public reopening on this weekend's Yorkshire Day.

"We have literally created our own blank canvas," said the museum's head curator, Andrew Morrison, who got up at 5am some mornings to capture atmospheric shots of Ilkley Moor for the display boards. "When we started this project, we decided 2.1m was a realistic amount of money to raise. However, when you are completely transforming a museum of this size, that kind of money doesn't go very far.

"When the museum closed, we kept the staff on and while many of us didn't know an awful lot about DIY when we started, we certainly do now. After finding some timber in a shed our community archaeologist spent evenings at home in front of the television carving replica wooden corbels for the entrance hall and everyone has had an input into its transformation."

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The Yorkshire Museum opened in 1830 and is the second oldest purpose-built museum in the country. However, like many ageing attractions, the exhibits were housed in dark rooms and lacked the hands-on attractions tourists now demand.

As part of the revamp, the boards have been removed from the windows of the Grade II listed building, the dust has been blown from many previously unseen artefacts and the private library is now open to the public for the first time in more than 150 years.

Visitors will now have the chance to get close to Roman gravestones, walk in the footsteps of dinosaurs and get a glimpse of life in medieval times.

A newly commissioned film in the museum's new 270-seat auditorium promises to tell the 2,000 year story of York in just eight minutes.

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Mr Morrison said: "We want people to take their shoes off and walk on the Roman mosaic floor and we want to inspire them to ask questions about the past.

"In the 1980s computer technology transformed the museum experience with hands on exhibits, but not even the best animation can beat standing in front of an actual dinosaur which once lived off the East Coast."

During the closure, a collection of exhibits from the Yorkshire Museum were put on display at the British Museum and while they have now returned home, the partnership between the two venues will continue.

"Working with the British Museum has been a fantastic opportunity for us and we will now have a rolling programme of exhibits on loan from London," added Mr Morrison. "This whole project has been driven by an ambition to spread the word out about the historically important treasures we have in Yorkshire.

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"Hopefully now we also have a museum which not only does justice to the past, but which will bring it alive for future generations."

nSee inside the reopened museum in a Yorkshire Post film at yorkshirepost.co.uk/video

Milestone in history of showcase for some of county's greatest finds

The museum first opened in 1830 as the new home for the collections of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society and its first keeper was the renowned geologist John Philips.

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The following year the museum held the first ever meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Since 2002, it has been run by the York Museums Trust and has become home to some of the most important archaeological finds in the county.

The highlights of the new-look museum include dinosaur footprints found on Yorkshire's East Coast, along with two near complete skeletons of pliosaurs.

A head of a ichthyosaur is also on display and will be joined by its body, currently undergoing conservation, next year.

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In the museum's new Extinct zone, there are also the bones of the first dodo brought back to Britain and the skeleton of an 8ft Moa bird.

Other exhibition highlights include a Roman gravestone dedicated to the foster son of one of York's earliest settlers, the Middleham Jewel, a 15th century pendant regarded as one of Yorkshire's greatest finds, and the York Helmet, which dates from the 8th century and is the finest example of its kind in Europe.

The museum is also home to the remains of a shrine to St William of York. As part of the revamp, parts of the stonework, which have not been seen in public since the 1540s, are now on display again.