Yorkshire Museum, in the Museum Gardens

The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It is the home of the Cawood sword, and has four permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology and astronomy. It underwent a major refurbishment in 2010, with major structural changes and a re-development of all existing galleries.

The Museum was founded by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society to accommodate their geological and archaeological collections, and was originally housed in Ousegate, York until the site became too small. In 1828 the society received by royal grant, ten acres of land formerly belonging to St Mary’s Abbey in order to build a new museum. The main building of the museum is called the Yorkshire Museum and was designed by William Wilkins in a Greek Revival style. A condition of the royal grant was that the land surrounding the Museum building should be a botanic gardens; this was done in the 1830s, and they are now known as the Museum Gardens. On 26 September 1831 the inaugural meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held at the Yorkshire Museum.

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Yorkshire Museum, Plaque

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Yorkshire Museum

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Yorkshire Museum

This large stone structure was part of the shrine to St William of York, situated behind the high in York Minster.

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Yorkshire Museum

'The first thing you see as you come through the front door is the imposing sculpture of the Roman god Mars.

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