Georgian and Victorian York
York has a few gorgeous Georgian buildings. We went into a couple of them, as we mentioned in another blog post. They were large with advanced (for their time) amenities and stunning craftsmanship. There were tons of houses from the Victorian and more modern eras, as well. However, not everyone in York was fortunate enough to live in large mansions or even townhouses. In Victorian times, one-third of York was in extreme poverty. There were slums where people lived in desperate conditions.
These slums have since been razed to the ground and Victorian/more modern townhouses built in their places. But there is part of the York Castle Museum that has replicated what these houses and conditions would have been like. Though they still look much nicer than I’m sure they did back in the day.
The York Castle Museum has tons of fascinating displays, and we went there many times. The building itself is also unique. It was the former prison. There’s a wing that was the women’s prison and another wing that was the general prison. In the general prison, you can see authentic jail cells that have been left intact, including the cell for condemned prisoners where they would spend their last hours before execution.
Many of the prison rooms had videos with actors playing people who spent time in those jail cells and their stories. These included some infamous residents such as Dick Turpin, to the more everyday housewife, to the man who had debts he could not pay. We listened to each story, sometimes more than once, and did a guided tour where we were given more information.
The girls are still so sweet and innocent and naïve. They could not understand corruption in these jails. The need to bribe your jailor to get food, the need to suck up to your jailor so you could have a blanket, being beaten to death by the jailor because you said something he took offence to, etc. The woman who staved off execution by getting impregnated by the jail warden and hiding behind her pregnancy (they would not execute a pregnant woman until after the baby was born and old enough to be weaned from their mother, usually around 2-ish years of age) went right over their heads. It was harder to explain to them the rationale of a debtor’s prison. I, like them, fail to understand how putting someone in jail because they can’t pay their debts and only letting them out once they pay said debts makes sense. How are they supposed to raise money they don’t have if they can’t work and are in prison?
Another section of the museum that’s interesting is the period rooms. There’s a middle-class Moorland cottage, an upper-class Victorian parlour, an upper-class Georgian room, and an upper-class dining room from the late 17th century. The girls think the upper-class period rooms are beautiful. We had to break the news to them that we weren’t upper-class and would have all been living in the middle-class one-room cottage. Which they found cute and cozy, but not a home they would want to all live in together!
By far our favourite part of the museum is the Victorian street, called Kirkgate. It’s named after a wealthy, eccentric doctor, Dr. Kirk. He was independently wealthy and didn’t need to charge his patients money for his services. I mean, he did charge many patients. But, not having money was not a hindrance to him. He was perfectly happy to take your valuable items. In fact, he was known to request specific valuables that caught his attention instead of money. Eventually, his would-be patients learned to hide their more treasured items before the doctor showed up!
What items did he like? The better question is what didn’t he like? He loved all things big and small. One particularly interesting and quirky obsession of his was fire marks. Probably because of my job doing fire investigations and scopes of repairs. But essentially, if you wanted to insure your house against fire, there were various insurers. Once you bought insurance, you got a fire mark from your insurer, which you proudly installed in a prominent place outside your house on the exterior wall. If your house caught fire, people would look to see if you had a fire mark on your house. If yes, great! They called the corresponding fire department to come attend and put it out. No fire mark? Well, sucks to be you, because no fire department is coming!
Eventually, these fire marks became defunct. There were tons and tons of different ones, including some rarer ones. I’m not sure a rare one would be great in practical terms since it seems to me that it might be harder to identify and contact the correct fire brigade. But, maybe that’s not true and there was some cross-over with the various brigades. I’m not certain. What I am certain of is that Mr. Kirk loved to collect these rarer fire marks most of all, even stopping to ask random homeowners if he could have theirs once they were defunct.
He collected everything from small trinkets to equipment to entire buildings. You’ve got a building you’re demolishing? Hold up! He’ll send his crew to dismantle the entire façade and take that, thank you. Prison gates are being demolished? Hold up! I’d take those! He collected so much and became a borderline hoarder. Eventually, his wife left him, and I’m guessing his collection may have had something to do with it!
Eventually, even the good doctor realized he needed somewhere to house his collection because it was getting out of control. He put it out there and someone in York noticed and jumped on the opportunity to bring his collection to York. They were about to or had just closed the prison and had a huge, empty building and didn’t know what to do with it. And here was an eccentric collector looking to donate his entire collection for preservation. He was an eccentric man in his time but managed to preserve a lot of valuable items from the Victorian era. Valuable being subjective, as these were mostly common, everyday items rather than high-end merchandise.
What came about was that the former women’s prison exercise yard was turned into a re-created Victorian street with truly authentic items, including the reclaimed and preserved building facades and the cobble street! It is a truly impressive street, and I marvel to think how he managed to store this entire collection in his house!
We were worried because we had only been to the museum twice when the entire women’s prison wing where Kirkgate is located had to close due to structural concerns with the roof. Thankfully, it opened again in December and we got to go back to its opening weekend to see Kirkgate set up for Christmas. We got to meet Father Christmas and hear about Christmas traditions from long ago, buy traditional candy from the candy shop, and we got to watch a re-enactment of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol on Kirkgate, both of which were amazing! Jon even got in on the action, assisting the performer by enacting the role of Tiny Tim!
Other areas of the museum showed working conditions, including jobs that were commonly done by young children their age or even younger, including being a chimney sweep. They were appalled at the idea of having to climb inside a chimney and get dirty.
We also did some digging for treasures at DIG in the Victorian archeological recreation and saw some artifacts from this time. The girls got to learn all about toothpaste from those days, which they were appalled by! Toothpaste was made from charcoal, soot, fish bones, and honey, among some other ingredients. They were very grateful for the toothpaste they have today! LOL They were also shocked to hear that smoking was encouraged and that by their age, they would be smoking as it would be considered healthy!
York also has a carousel that we have seen the city break out from time to time. It’s gorgeous and the girls loved riding on it. I read the plaque and was surprised to read that it was originally built in 1887 and was steam-operated. It has travelled the world, and I’m sure has seen its fair share of interesting stories. It’s since been retrofitted and updated to be electric, but retains its Victorian charm.
The girls again gained an appreciation both for the past and the fascinating things they learned, but also for all their current comforts. Especially their stuffies. They were horrified to learn they would have been lucky to have had one stuffy back in the day, but likely not had any. Gasp! The horror! Thankfully for them, they have plenty of stuffies in today’s modern era!