York Castle Museum

Plans

The plans outlined below run until 2013 and are part of a long-term strategy which has already seen us achieve much within our various sites, using our own resources and with support from City of York Council, Renaissance, Arts Council England, trusts and foundations and local businesses.

Please get in touch if you would like to help us.

Yorkshire Museum and Gardens

One of our long-term aims has always been to open up the area surrounding St Mary's Abbey and in 2011 we hope to start this process by improving the area between the back of York Art Gallery and the Museum Gardens.

We hope to gain planning permission for a landscaped garden and arts space in this area to open in 2012. We plan to introduce more signage in the gardens, to run a programme of events and to link pathways through to the new open space.

In 2012 the gardens will host the York Mystery Plays in partnership with York Theatre Royal and the Riding Light Theatre, supported by City of York Council.

Meanwhile the main event at the Yorkshire Museum in 2011 will be a celebration of the 1800th anniversary of the death of the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus and in 2012 a celebration of the 800th anniversary of York having city status.

York Art Gallery

We are in the early stage of a £6million plan to extend the interior of York Art Gallery, opening up hidden roof space above the main gallery, which is currently closed off, and exposing an original glass roof in the process.

We already have some funding in place, thanks to a private legacy we received, and will be fundraising during 2011 and 2012. If all goes to plan we hope to close in late 2012 and re-open in 2015.

This work would follow the recent refurbishment of the Burton Gallery, which reopened in January 2011, two major exhibitions of works by Hockney and William Etty in 2011 and a touring exhibition of ceramics by Gordon Baldwin.

York Castle Museum

Work has begun on a "Castle Vision" for the future of this museum and more details will be included in our long-term plan for 2013-18.

In the shorter term, we plan to invest in our famous recreated Victorian street, Kirkgate, by extending it into the current Barn Gallery and into another area currently used for storage.

These new areas will focus on life for the poor in Victorian England and about how harsh conditions were, using evidence from Seebohm Rowntree's famous report on poverty.

We also plan to open up and improve the external green spaces around the museum by creating a new path along the River Foss and restoring Raindale Mill as an operational mill at the back of the museum.

At the front of the museum we plan to extend the York Castle Prison experience with an outdoor prisoners' exercise yard.

York St Mary's

This site has been the only dedicated venue for contemporary art in York for the past few years and we plan to continue to commission site-specific installations for York St Mary's in 2011 with Thirty Pieces of Silver, by Cornelia Parker.

The longer-term vision for York St Mary's has yet to be decided and will be included in our plans for 2013-18.