Victorian era brought to life at museum

And a major £300,000 revamp of a Yorkshire museum’s most popular attraction is aimed at giving the clearest insight yet into what life was like in the Victorian period.

York Castle Museum’s recreated Victorian street, Kirkgate, has been expanded with all the shops based on real examples from the late 19th century.

Curators at the museum have spent months researching the businesses and the people who worked there to ensure the stores in Kirkgate are as realistic as possible.

The research included interviews with people connected to the businesses, including family members and former employees who worked in the shops during the 20th century, as well as access to company archives.

The results have revealed fascinating glimpses into the lives of people in Victorian York. Some of the individuals identified in the research will be represented in the new Kirkgate, such as George Alp, a teenage father, heavy drinker and policeman, and Elizabeth Kidd, a mental health worker and photographic model.

The project is also aimed at capturing the investigative spirit of Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree’s groundbreaking report, Poverty: a study in town life.

The study, which was published in 1901 at the end of the Victorian era, used York as an example to reflect what was happening to the poorest people in society across the country.

York Castle Museum’s curator of history, Gwendolen Whitaker, said: “Victorian York was a glamorous and prosperous, bustling and poverty-stricken place with people from every walk of life working and living in the city centre.

“For the rich, goods came flooding in from all over the Empire while in close proximity two-thirds of the city’s population lived in squalor.

“To show these contrasts we have made Kirkgate a much bigger visitor experience, complete with new backstreets and new shops all based on actual York businesses.

“This expansion has meant we have been able to get thousands more items from our collections out, with many on show for the first time.”

All shops in the new layout operated in York between 1870 and 1901, and include the Thomas Horsley gun-making business, George Britton’s grocers for the discerning customer and Banks music shop.

One of the alleyways will portray the poverty-stricken areas of York so often overlooked, complete with a view into a home of the Victorian working class.

The expanded Kirkgate will reopen on Saturday. The project has been funded by the Museums, Libraries and Archive Fund (MLA), while the Joseph Rowntree Foundation also gave a grant of £10,000.