York Castle Museum

Gardens

The ten-acre botanical Museum Gardens, around the Yorkshire Museum, stretch from the River Ouse up to the back of York Art Galley, and from Marygate on one side to Museum Street on the other.

They were planted in the 1830s, but many of the historic buildings within them date back much further to Medieval and Roman times.

The Museum Gardens

The Museum Gardens date back to the 1830s when the Yorkshire Philosophical Society opened the museum.

They appointed landscape architect, Sir John Murray Naysmith, to draw up a design for the gardens which was subsequently laid out in the Gardenesque style to show off the buildings and plant specimens as they were introduced.

A conservatory was constructed to house tropical plants such as sugar cane, coffee, tea, ginger and cotton as well as orchids and epiphytes. A pond was built to contain a large rare water-lily, the Victoria Amazonica. A charge was made to the public to view the gardens on certain days.

Although the pond and the conservatory have now gone, the ten-acre gardens are still a listed Botanical Garden and contain many varieties of trees, deciduous and evergreen, native and exotic.

We have many lime, yew and holly trees, as well as oak, beech, elm, silver birch and walnut trees.

Rarer varieties include a Cut Leaved Alder, three Cut Leaved Hornbeams, a Red Horse Chestnut, a Monkey Puzzle tree and an Indian Chestnut.

Look for our Common Pear tree, close to the river, which is thought to be the oldest of all the trees in the gardens. Or examine the trunk of our magnificent Oak Barked Beech, planted in the 1840s/50s, and see where the bark changes from a smooth grey to a rough pear bark texture.

The buildings within the Museum Gardens

St Mary's Abbey

The ruins of St Mary's Abbey, first built in 1088, are all that remains of one of the wealthiest and most powerful Benedictine monasteries in England.

The abbey estate occupied the entire site of the Museum Garden and the abbot was one of the most powerful clergymen of his day, on a par with the Archbishop of York.

The monks would spend their days working in abbey administration, copying books, trading with merchants, providing food and supplies for the monastery, managing the abbey’s estates and helping the poor.

Visitors can see the remains of the walls of the nave and crossing of the abbey church, where the monks prayed and sang, and the cloister, where the monks washed their clothes, contemplated and were allowed to speak.

King Henry VIII banned all monasteries in England in 1530s. The monks at St Mary's were pensioned off in 1540 and the abbey buildings were converted into a palace for the King when he visited York.

Gradually they fell into ruins and were used as agricultural buildings before being excavated by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in the 1820s.

Abbey Walls and Gateway

The stone walls that surrounded the abbey were built in the 1260s and they remain the most complete set of abbey walls in the country.

They were built to defend the abbey and were used several times when the city and the abbey came to blows over land ownership and taxes.

The gateway on Marygate, next to St Olave’s Church, was the main entrance into the abbey. It was here that the poor could come and claim alms. The building is now the headquarters of York Museums Trust.

Hospitium

The ground floor of this timber and stone building is medieval and would have served as a guest house or barn within the monastery.

The first floor was substantially rebuilt in the 20^th century to accommodate the ever-growing archaeology collections of the museum. Between the two periods it was used as an agricultural building.

It is now used as a conference and wedding venue by York Museums Trust.

St Leonard's Hospital

St Leonard's was the largest medieval hospital in England and cared for the ill and infirm of York. The hospital also fed the poor and the condemned, providing meals for the prisoners in York Castle.

Remains of the hospital's undercroft, next to York Central Library, can be accessed from the Museum Gardens, to the right of the Museum Street entrance, and contains some of the museum’s Roman and Medieval stonework collections.

Roman Fortress

A thousand years before the abbey estate was built, the Romans arrived in York and a fortress was built in 70AD to house the 5,000 men of the VIth legion. This fortress was rebuilt in stone in the 3^rd or 4^th centuries.

The corner tower of this fortress stands in the Museum Gardens and today is known as the Multangular Tower on account of the many angles of its design.

The York Observatory

Click here for more information on our observatory.