The Workhouse Museum

The Workhouse Museum

The Workhouse Museum Allhallowgate
Ripon
North Yorkshire
HG4 1LE

Tel: 01765 690 799
E-Mail: info@riponmuseums.co.uk

Web: The Workhouse Museum

About The Workhouse Museum

'Hush-a-bye baby, on a tree top. When you grow old, your wages will stop. When you have spent the little you made. First to the poorhouse and then to the grave.'
This rhyme tells the story of many a working man's life in the 19th Century. The rather elegant building in Allhallowgate, standing in grounds graced with flower beds, trees, lilacs and even a passion flower, seems far removed from the dreaded Workhouse in Oliver Twist.
A feeling of doom or at best hopeless resignation must have fallen on many passing through the Gatehouse arch and hearing the door shut behind them. They knew they would leave only in the regulation coffin, 'with two handles, name of the person with the year of their decease inscribed'. Coffins were ordered in bulk.
Nor was it only labourers who entered. In 1861 the 'former master wheelwright', 'former gentleman's servant', 'master shoe-maker', butcher, farmer and many who had known better times found themselves in old age, or when widowed, in a similar predicament; as did the 24 children under the age of 12, the youngest inmate being Matthew Colby aged two weeks.
Past Ordnance Survey plans and original accounting documents provide some insight into workhouse history.
A Workhouse has stood on this site since 1776. By 1832 there was nationa