Yorkshire Museum

The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England, founded in 1830 by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. It holds five permanent collections covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics, and astronomy, and is recognized as one of the longest established museums in England. The museum is housed in a Grade I listed Greek Revival building designed by William Wilkins, situated within the Museum Gardens on land that formerly belonged to St Mary's Abbey. Its collections hold English designated collection status, signifying pre-eminent national and international importance.

The Yorkshire Philosophical Society established the museum to accommodate its geological and archaeological collections, which had outgrown their original home in Ousegate, York. In 1828, the society received a royal grant of 10 acres of land formerly belonging to St Mary's Abbey for the purpose of building a new museum. The main building was designed by William Wilkins in the Greek Revival style and officially opened in February 1830. A condition of the grant required that the surrounding land serve as botanic gardens, which became the Museum Gardens in the 1830s. On 26 September 1831, the museum hosted the inaugural meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Tempest Anderson Hall was added in 1912 as an annex, notable as an early example of reinforced concrete construction. During the Second World War, the museum was narrowly missed by a bomb on 29 April 1942 during the Baedeker Blitz; the explosion damaged the roof and windows. Curator Reginald Wagstaffe oversaw the subsequent cleanup, during which seven large bath-tubs of broken glass and geological specimens were discarded.

Financial difficulties from 1956 onwards led the Yorkshire Philosophical Society to transfer the museum and gardens to the citizens of York on 2 January 1961, commemorated by a plaque on the building's front. The York Corporation operated the museum until 1974, when municipal boundary changes transferred it to North Yorkshire County Council. It returned to City of York Council control in 1996. The York Museums Trust was established in 2002 to manage the Yorkshire Museum, York Castle Museum, York Art Gallery, and the Museum Gardens.

The museum closed in November 2009 for a £2 million refurbishment largely carried out by its own staff, reopening on Yorkshire Day, 1 August 2010. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it closed on 23 March March 2020, received an £18,000 Culture Recovery Fund Lifeline grant in March 2021 for façade and roof repairs, and reopened on 9 July 2021 with an exhibition featuring a portrait of King Richard III from the National Portrait Gallery. It closed again on 31 October 2021 for winter repairs and reopened on 8 April 2022 with an exhibition of the Ryedale Roman Hoard.

The museum's five permanent collections all hold English designated collection status. The biology collection contains 200,000 specimens, primarily insects, with notable holdings including two specimens of the extinct great auk, an almost complete moa skeleton, passenger pigeons, and a substantial Quaternary collection from the Yorkshire region featuring remains of elephants, cave bears, and hyena from Kirkdale Cave. In 1866-67, the museum received Dodo bones discovered by Harry Higginson.

The geology collection comprises over 112,500 specimens of rocks, minerals, and fossils, with fossils numbering over 100,000 and including significant Carboniferous, Mesozoic, and Tertiary material. The archaeology collection contains nearly one million objects dating from approximately 500,000 BC to the 20th century, with particular strength in Roman, Anglo-Scandinavian, and medieval material from York and Yorkshire. The astronomy collection is housed mainly in the observatory in the Museum Gardens, with some telescopes at York Castle Museum. The numismatic collection completes the five permanent holdings.

The museum possesses numerous objects of exceptional archaeological and historical significance. From the Roman period, these include the Overton Hoard (3rd century), the Heslington Hoard (4th century), the Wold Newton Hoard (4th century), and the Knaresborough Hoard (4th or 5th century). Early medieval highlights encompass the Ormside Bowl (8th century), the Coppergate Helmet (8th century), the Gilling Sword (9th or 10th century), and the Bedale Hoard (9th or 10th century). Later medieval material includes the Cawood Sword (12th century), the Bootham Hoard (14th century), the Middleham Jewel (15th century), and the Ryther Hoard (15th century), alongside the Middleham Hoard (17th century).

Prehistoric holdings include the Star Carr Pendant, the oldest Mesolithic art in Britain, and the Star Carr Frontlets, a group of Mesolithic red deer headdresses. The York Hoard of Neolithic flint tools and the Towton torcs, a pair of gold Iron Age torcs, represent other significant prehistoric material. The geology collection features the Middlesbrough meteorite and Alan the Dinosaur. Cartographic holdings are highlighted by William Smith's geological map, the subject of the permanent exhibition 'William Smith: The Map That Changed The World'.

The Yorkshire Museum building was designed by architect William Wilkins in the Greek Revival style and is a Grade I listed building. It stands on the site of the former St Mary's Abbey, with remains of the abbey visible at the lower levels of the museum. The building is situated at the heart of the Museum Gardens, which originated as botanic gardens created in the 1830s as a condition of the royal land grant. The Tempest Anderson Hall, built in 1912 as an annex, is an early example of reinforced concrete construction and serves as a conference venue and lecture theatre. The astronomy observatory, located in the Museum Gardens and staffed by volunteers, houses the main astronomy collection.

The Yorkshire Museum is located in York, in the United Kingdom, within the Museum Gardens. Its official website is http://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk. The museum is managed by the York Museums Trust, which was established by City of York Council in 2002 to oversee the Yorkshire Museum, York Castle Museum, York Art Gallery, and the Museum Gardens. The museum's permanent exhibitions as of 2018 included 'Roman York, Meet the People of the Empire', 'Medieval York: Capital of the North', 'Yorkshire's Jurassic World', 'After the Ice: Yorkshire's Prehistoric People', and 'William Smith: The Map That Changed The World'. The Dutch Wikipedia source also notes a 'Viking North' exhibition. The museum's opening hours and specific access arrangements may vary seasonally, particularly given its pattern of winter closures for building maintenance and resource conservation.