Yorkshire Museums

Bracken Hall Countryside Centre and museum is situated on the edge of Shipley Glen, a popular beauty spot. The Centre has displays relating to the natural history, geology, archaeology and local history of the area. The colourful interactive wildlife exhibits delve into the lives of badgers, frogs and bats, and tanks contain a variety of local water creatures and mini-beasts. There are interactive displays about other animals and foodwebs.

The small charming garden attracts different kinds of wildlife throughout the year from tadpoles to butterflies and honeybees. The garden is designed to show how people can attract wildlife to their own gardens, and also features bee-hives, rabbits, guinea pigs and a pond.

Bradford's Industrial Museum has permanent displays of textile machinery, steam power, engineering and motor vehicles, along with an exciting exhibitions programme. You can enjoy the splendour of the Mill Owner's House, or visit the more humble Mill-workers' terraces. Moorside Mills is also home to the museum's team of working horses. Some of the horses may be out working on the streets of Bradford or even starring in a film or television programme, but there will always be at least one in the stables for you to meet. Weather permitting, you can also enjoy a ride in a horse-drawn vehicle.

Our Education team runs regular workshops schools and groups, along with special events and workshops accompanying the exhibitions programme.

Opposite the main entrance is the Victorian Job Master's Stables, home to the museum's team of working horses.

In the 1760s the architect John Carr of York was employed by the family to enlarge the Hall and redesign the interior. Subsequent alterations include the addition of the magnificent oak-panelled Ballroom in 1891.
The Tearooms are open at weekends and during school holidays for homemade light refreshments in the traditional setting of the kitchens and Servants' Hall. The Museum also has a shop stocking a range of greetings cards, local history books, confectionery and giftware.
Cannon Hall has a lively programme of events throughout the year and runs a temporary exhibition and education programme. Cannon Hall is licensed for civil wedding ceremonies, and also provides an ideal setting for conferences, business meetings and corporate hospitality.

Cartwright Hall is Bradford's civic art gallery and offers an exciting programme of contemporary exhibitions, with four permanent galleries displaying works from our art collections. The collections consist mainly of 19th and 20th century British art, with strong collections of international contemporary prints and contemporary South Asian art and crafts.
Our Education Team runs a programme of workshops and events for schools, groups and individuals, including media activities in the new Anim8ed Learning Gallery. With prior notice we may be able to arrange special activities tailored to your group's needs. Many of Cartwright Hall's facilities are available for hire and the Gallery is licensed for civil marriages. Cartwright Hall is set in the magnificent, Green Flag-awarded grounds of Lister Park, with a boating lake, adventure playground and Mughal Gardens. There is a cafe in the Lister Park boat house.

York Castle Museum is one of Britain's leading museums of everyday life. It shows how people used to live by displaying thousands of household objects and by recreating rooms, shops, streets - and even prison cells.
It is best known for its recreated Victorian street, Kirkgate, which combines real shop fittings and stock with modern sound and light effects, to evoke an atmosphere of Victorian Britain.
The street was named after the museum's founder, Dr John L. Kirk, a North Yorkshire country doctor who collected everyday objects and wanted to keep them safe for future generations.
The museum's room settings include a Victorian parlour, an 1850s Moorland cottage, Jacobean and Georgian dining rooms, a 1940s kitchen and a 1950s front room.

Cliffe Castle Museum was originally the spectacular mansion of the local Victorian millionaire and textile manufacturer, H I Butterfield. It stands in attractive hillside grounds with greenhouses and garden centre, aviaries and a childrens‚ play area.
The house is now a large museum with a wide variety of displays. These include an array of glittering minerals, local rocks and fossils (including a 2m long fossil newt!), mounted birds and animals, original furnished rooms with chandeliers, William Morris stained glass, old dolls, toys and domestic items and a programme of temporary exhibitions.
Learning activities and events take place throughout the year in the InSight room. Groups of all kinds can be catered for, from schools to senior citizens, and activities can be tailored to your needs.

The record breaking Clifton Park Museum is a day out with a difference! One of the most modern and user-friendly Museums in the country, the two time nominated Museum of the year features famous exhibits such as Nelson the Lion and the breath-taking Rhinoceros Vase, the first ever porcelain vase cast in one piece!

Recently redesigned with the help of a £3 million grant, Clifton Park Museum highlights the history of the borough in a way that appeals to all ages and helps to bring both our lives, and those of our ancestors, into sharp focus with the latest in high tech displays and interactive exhibits.

This delightful local history museum is located on the first floor of Skipton Town Hall. There is a gallery on the ground floor which has a changing porgramme of exhibitions related to heritage and the arts.

Visitors can discover more about the area’s past by exploring the small but varied collections on display. Geology and archaeology displays provide a glimpse into how the landscapes of today were formed. Agriculture, industry, lead mining and town life are just some of the themes of the social history collections.

This fascinating museum, managed by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, tells the story of the people and landscape of the Yorkshire Dales past and present, and stimulates vistors to think about its future. Displays interpret the development of the Dales from prehistoric times to the present day. Themes include: school days, home life, leisure time, religion, transport, communication and tourism, farming, local crafts and industries.

The Museum itself is housed in an exciting and imaginative conversion of the Hawes railway station in Wensleydale in the north of the Park. It is designed to be fully accessible for wheelchair users and a wheelchair can be borrowed on site.

Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery depicts various aspects of natural history, archaeology, local history, and fine and decorative art.

Located on the ground floor of the Museum, "By River and Road" tells the story of Doncaster and its region through the twin routes of the River Don and the Great North Road, in an exciting and innovating way. The gallery was awarded a Commendation in the Interpret Britain Awards, run by the Association for Heritage Interpretation. This is a prestigious award which covers all the UK. We were the only winner from this region and there were nine awards in all.

The Bram Stoker Dracula Experience is a uniquely different, most interesting, brilliantly, entertaining, interactive, educational and very scary adventure based on the life of Bram Stoker his great vampire creation (Dracula) and horror in general.

Launched in the mid-1980s, this walk-through experience is one of the many reasons people visit Whitby. A 'Come to Britain' award winner in 1988, as seen on ITV's 'Wish you were here', the experience was at one time owned by the same people who owned the Friargate Wax Museum in York

Filey Museum is in Queen Street, in the old part of the town, away from the shopping areas and near to the 12th century St Oswald’s Church. The museum buildings themselves date from the 17th century, one having been a fisherman’s cottage and the other a farm cottage. The buildings were saved from demolition in the late 1960s and first opened to the public as a local history museum in 1971. The buildings are Grade II listed.

Filey Museum has won The Small Visitor Attraction of the Year Award in The Discover Yorkshire Coast Awards 2006.

This is a small volunteer-run museum showing the social, agricultural and commercial history of Guisborough. The museum displays a wealth of artefacts and photographs unique to the town and its people.

The Museum currently displays over a thousand objects each of which represent some facet of Guisborough's social history. Displays are changed each year so that different themes can be showcased.

The house was built in 1780 during the reign of King George III and extended in 1919. originally the private residence of John Harrison and his family. The building was associated with the family for almost 100 years (1780-1876).

King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Museum (Regimental) Doncaster, South Yorkshire

The displays include uniforms, weapons, badges, photos, a model of the Pontefract Barracks, and the Roll of Honour of the 5th Bn. Also included is one of the most extensive medal collections in this country.

An excellent collection of regimental memorabilia, uniforms, uniforms, pictures and silver dating from the raising of the Regiment in 1755 to its amalgamation into The Light Infantry in 1968. It includes an extensive medal collection.

Kirkleatham Museum is the local history museum for the Borough of Redcar & Cleveland. It was opened on 5th October 1981, after the rationalisation of the Museums Service. The Service was originally based at the Chapel Beck Gallery, Guisborough and the Redcar Museum of Shipping and Fishing, now the Zetland Museum on the seafront in Redcar. Kirkleatham Museum became the Service's headquarters and in 1986 a new building, the Pavilion, was opened to provide an exhibition hall and office accommodation.

This delightful, red-brick house, built in 1660, was home to the Taylor family who were cloth merchants and manufacturers.

Mary Taylor, daughter of the house in the 19th Century, was a close friend of Charlotte Bronte, who visited often, featuring the house as 'Briarmains' in 'Shirley'. Her fondness for the house is evident: "There was no splendour but there was taste everywhere."

Red House still looks very much as it would have in Charlotte's day. Each of the rooms brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its Yorkshire range, jelly moulds and colourful crockery.

Call in at the museum shop. With its period toys, books, gifts and preserves, you'll be more than tempted to take home a taste of the past!

One of England's most charming historic houses.

This beautiful Elizabethan manor house has delighted visitors for centuries. Visiting in the 19th Century, Charlotte Brontë featured it as 'Fieldhead' - the home of the heroine in 'Shirley'. Built in 1583, the hall is now set out as it would have been in tht 1690s, when it was the home of the Batt family. A mixture of authentic and reproduction furnishings provide a real insight into late 17th Century life.
Explore the 'Discover Oakwell' exhibition. This unique, interactive display, just off the courtyard, introduces children (and grown-ups, too) to the ecology of a country park.

Located in Rotherham Arts Centre, the museum brings the Regiment's story vividly to life using a unique collection of military objects and personal memorabilia. There is no better place to experience more than 200 years of military history from the Seven Years War to the late 20th Century.

Since 1985 Rotherham has been home to this magnificent Regimental collection. Over 200 years of military history from 1758 - 1968 are vividly brought to life, from the Seven Years War to the Somme, from Nive to Normandy .