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• York Museums Trust

What our Visitors think?

“Thank you so much. The day was amazing. We both loved every minute of it. Thank you for all the work that you did to help the day to be as special as it was.”

Wedding reception client at the Hospitium

Future Plans

One of the main issues we faced during the year was the need to make all our museums accessible to all our visitors. This year (07/08) we aim to improve access to York Art Gallery with a new lift and install a new ramp at York Castle Museum to give access to Kirkgate. We also have plans to create a 1960’s Experience at York Castle Museum which we hope will be popular with our visitors who grew up during that decade as well as being of interest to younger people. We will be organising an exhibition on China and creating new spaces for practical activities around the social history collections. We would like to improve the Exercise Yard to offer a breathing space for families and in the longer turn create an 18th century prison experience.

We are keen to expand our conferencing and corporate hospitality business as a way of increasing our income and so we are refurbishing the Hospitium in Museum Gardens as the Trust’s conference centre. This listed building is already used for hospitality, conferences, weddings and meetings but the work will mean it will be accessible to all. It will involve the installation of a new lift, the relocation of the staircase, and the creation of new toilets and a new catering area.

The Hospitium project is the first stage of the St Mary’s Abbey Precinct project that involves our plans to refurbish the Yorkshire Museum with new displays and better visitor facilities and the opening up of the gardens to York Art Gallery. We are planning to appoint a Head Gardener in 2008 to lead on the improvement to the Gardens both as a place of relaxation and as a botanical garden for the city. The development of St Mary’s Abbey as a destination in its own right is a long-term ambition for the Trust and is a central part of the ambitions of the city to create a cultural quarter. In the shorter term we will be refurbishing the South Gallery at York Art Gallery this autumn (2007) with new improved displays and lighting.

All of these plans are dependent on raising substantial funds from a variety of sources, some of which are in place already. More information about our plans until 2013 is available from the Trust’s office.