Gruel and graft: museum asks if you can survive a Victorian workhouse | Museums

VStudents at one of Britain’s only remaining Victorian workhouses are not allowed to undress and shower in someone else’s bathroom. But they can be tired, they can sweep the yard and there are dedicated “teachers” dedicated to telling the children how to behave.

“You will walk in the footsteps of people who have experienced this place,” said the director of Ripon. Museums Trust, Alexa Vernon.

“I’m not sure we can have a group dinner every day, but the kids can stick to sewing and hunting for mice and listening to his voice, and they can realize how lucky they are compared to Victorian kids.”

Vernon spoke before opening it again Ripon Workhouse Museum after a £2.8m renovation.

An important part of the renovation has been to make the event more immersive with volunteers who may be baking bread or putting clothes on the bike.

Visitors are asked if they can survive the Victorian workhouse. As they enter the nomadic arena, the sound of unpleasant coughing fills the air. There are showers, one-size-fits-all men’s nightgowns and a taped “de-infestor” that is used to spray the clothes of peasants and pilgrims.

“All their belongings will be taken from them,” said Laura Allan. “They were stripped, they were washed, if you were lucky you would be the first to enter the bath water, if you were not on purpose you would be the third.”

“It’s interesting that the reasons people became homeless in the past are very similar to today – so alcoholism, poor health, family breakdown, veterans coming back from war.”

At some of the more interesting museums, visitors can lock themselves in a nomad’s room, pick oakum from old ropes or take a family photo in their house uniforms.

The museum reopens to the public on Tuesday after a major maintenance and renovation project with the help of a National Lottery Heritage Fund.

It became a museum in 2017, it tells the story of the Victorian way to solve poverty and homelessness – to give people a bed and food, but make it as painful, uncomfortable and bound by the rules as possible.

The renovation of the museum was very important, Vernon said. “You can put a screwdriver in the rotting frames and it will stand up on its own,” he said.

The roof was leaking. Water was damaged everywhere. The wires were like a spaghetti junction. We had fragile pillars. Our architect said that technically the building should not stand.”

On top of this the museum experience was like walking around the council offices of the 1970s and interpreting it a bit, not surprising that it was originally a workplace. North Yorkshire social services.

“Some of our Tripadvisor reviews were along the lines of … it looks like they haven’t finished,” Vernon said. “It’s not over yet.”

Lottery money has made a difference, not just fixing the leaky roof and rotting windows and painting the walls in hideous – but original – taupes, pinks and greens.

Another pleasure, the caretakers say, has been the opportunity to open the basement, allowing visitors to see where the animals were killed and stored.

“This area, we think, was probably last opened in the 1930s,” Allan said. “Maybe this is what it would have looked like when it was a workhouse. It’s the only place that hasn’t been touched.”

The museum is about Ripon but much more than that, Vernon said. “This is a national issue,” he said. “Workhouses have an important story to tell about poverty, welfare and justice and there were workhouses all over the country.

“This was the Victorian answer to poverty.”

The restored museum is one of three in Ripon that tell vivid stories of Victorian life. There is also a courthouse museum and a prison and police museum.

They tell stories from the past, but their curators are interested in their belief that they have contemporary resonance.

“There’s still poverty, isn’t it,” Vernon said. “People can come here and think about poverty, think about how we treat people and think about whether we’re treating people fairly now.”

He hopes that visitors to the museum will leave feeling better, “and empathetic, thoughtful and connected to the stories of those who came before us”.