Murton Park

Murton Lane, Murton, York, Yorkshire YO19 5UF

Tel: 01904 489966

website: www.murtonpark.co.uk

Murton Park. is your gateway to the Yorkshire Museum of Farming, Danelaw Dark Age Village, Brigantium Roman Fort, the Tudor Croft and the Home Front Experience. Based just outside York. Education programmes at Murton Park are designed to provide realistic Living History experiences for adults and children both on site and in schools. Murton Park now offers a Celtic Settlement, a Roman Fort, a Dark Age Village, Tudor Experience, the Home Front Experience and Farming Museum all of which are used as large classrooms.

Farming Museum

The Museum opened in 1982 to house a range of exhibits from Burton Constable, collected by East Yorkshire Farm Machinery Preservation Society. The Museum holds a fantastic regional agricultural collection. The collection includes many thousands of objects, photographs and archival material dedicated to the tools and techniques that have produced our 'daily bread for over 250 years. The Livestock Building concentrates on the farming of animals, including sheep, cows, pigs and the uses of heavy horses. This complements the wide variety of rare breeds raised and kept on site.

Roman Fort

Brigantium is a large outdoor classroom cunningly disguised as a Roman auxillary Fort of the 1^st Century AD. Designed to take up to 65 children a day as trainee soldiers in the Roman army. Equipped with their uniform, helmet, spear and shield, the young recruits are put through their paces by our centurion.

Dark Age Village

Danelaw Dark Age Village is a unique educational environment that is designed to allow children to become Vikings or Saxons for a day. Costumes are provided and children carry out activities as the villagers of a Dark Ages Settlement. Grinding wheat, weapons training (with blunt, dummy weapons, guard duty, pottery, field and house work are some of the tasks children will undertake. Various visitors arrive to create role play scenarios and on a full day a banquet lunch is included.

Tudor Croft

The Tudor Croft forms the backdrop to a half day of activities for up to 30 children. Whilst in Tudor costume children will learn various skills such as candle dipping, calligraphy and making pomanders. The session is nicely rounded off with a period story told in front of the fire.

The Home Front Experience

The children arrive as evacuees and carry out a range of activities including baking on a ration, taking cover in an air raid and visiting the ARP Warden's observation post. Role play, craft activities and scenarios will be used to create a realistic, unforgettable experience for children. ID cards and evacuation labels will be sent prior to you school visit. An authentic pack lunch is provided.

Derwent Valley Light Railway

The Derwent Valley Light Railway officially opened on the 19^th July 1913; it ran for a distance of nearly 16 miles from Layerthorpe Station at York to the village of Cliffe Common near Selby. Although passengers were carried in the early years, this discontinued in 1926 and the railway remained predominantly agricultural throughout the rest of its history. The DVLR was never nationalised and remained very much a "light" railway until its closure on the 30^th September 1981. The only section of the railway still in use comprises of the half-mile section within the Museum grounds.