Rachel Duffield (Norfolk Museums’ Live Interpretation Officer) Life as an interpretation officer at Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse working with more than 10,000 Norfolk schoolchildren a year is never dull. I spend most of my time in costume inhabiting a Victorian wash-house, farm kitchen or workhouse schoolroom, teaching students about rural domestic life 150 years ago. Now I am preparing for a bigger challenge: living the workhouse diets of more than 100 years ago for three whole weeks. From 26 April, I’ll
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Slums, Shopping and Spectacle: The Kirkgate Victorian Street
I have always relished stepping onto Kirkgate, the replica, indoor Victorian street at York Castle Museum. When I first visited six years ago, the street had recently undergone its first major redevelopment project. Last year, it received a further £300,000 reworking, focussing on creating more authentic shop spaces, a new slum area, and incorporating more of the city’s chocolate heritage. Fig. 1. The grocer’s shop at the updated Kirkgate street, York Museums Trust. The street was originally created by and
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