England Guide
Yorkshire
York Museum
Opening time: Daily 9.30/10am–5pm
Price: £7.50
Address: Eye of York
Website: www.yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk
The outstanding Castle Museum displays a remarkable "collection of bygones" instigated by a Dr Kirk of Pickering, who in the 1920s realized that many of the everyday items used in rural areas were in danger of disappearing. A whole range of early craft, folk and agricultural ephemera is complemented by costumes, toys, machinery, domestic implements and show workshops, plus special exhibitions on subjects as diverse as swimming costumes through the ages and fire engines. Two entire reconstructed Victorian and Edwardian streets are perhaps the highlight, though Kirk's fetishistic collections of truncheons and biscuit moulds are surely unsurpassed.