The City Walls Experience at Micklegate Bar is located in the southern gatehouse of the historical

city walls A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, England. It is operated by the Jorvik Group (part of

York Archaeological Trust The York Archaeological Trust for Excavation and Research Limited (YAT) is an educational charity, established in 1972 in the city of York, England. It carries out archaeological investigations, fieldwork, excavation and research in York, Yo ...

) and uses maps, display screens and video presentations to tell the story of the fortifications surrounding the city.

History

Before 2014 the Micklegate Bar Museum had covered a wide historical range, telling the story of York from Roman times through to the 20th century. Exhibits included replicas of the heads of historical figures, such as

Richard of York Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (21 September 1411 – 30 December 1460), also named Richard Plantagenet, was a leading English magnate and claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses. He was a member of the ruling House of Plantage ...

and Sir Henry Percy whose heads had been displayed on Micklegate Bar. When the Jorvik Group took over the Richard III Museum in February 2014 the names of both museums were changed and the contents replaced and updated, to create two complementary museums: the

Richard III Experience at Monk Bar The Richard III Experience at Monk Bar (formerly known as the ''Richard III Museum'') was located in Monk Bar, the tallest of the four gatehouses in the historical city walls of York, England. It described the life of Richard III, the last kin ...

and the Henry VII Experience at Micklegate Bar. Both reopened in April 2014 using the tagline "Two Kings, Two Bars, One City". The museum at Micklegate Bar explored the early life of Henry VII as a Lancastrian in exile, his reign as king after the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

and the impact of the establishment of the Tudor royal dynasty on the city of York. It did this through a combination of interactive exhibits, multimedia presentations, displays of items such as suits of armour and 'grisly facts' from

Terry Deary William Terence Deary (born 3 January 1946) is a British children's author of over 200 books, selling over 25 million copies in over 40 languages, best known as the writer of the ''Horrible Histories'' series. Since 1994 he has been one of Britai ...

(writer of

Horrible Histories ''Horrible Histories'' is an educational entertainment franchise encompassing many media including books, magazines, audio books, stage shows, TV shows, and more. In 2013, Lisa Edwards, UK publishing and commercial director of Scholastic Corpora ...

). In October 2014 and February 2018 the Henry VII Experience was awarded the 'Hidden Gem' accolade by

Visit England VisitEngland is the official tourist board for England. Before 1999 it was known as the English Tourist Board and between 1999 and 2009 as the English Tourism Council. In 2003, it merged with the British Tourist Authority to form VisitBritain bef ...

. In 2015 it was a finalist (with the Richard III Experience) in the Visit York Tourism Awards in the Visitor Attraction of the Year (Under 50,000 Visitors) category. York Archaeological Trust closed the museum, along with its other visitor attractions, in 2020 at the onset of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. When its larger sites reopened in July 2020, both the Richard III and Henry VI experiences remained closed owing to their limited capacity for

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disea ...

. The Henry VII Experience was replaced by the City Walls Experience which opened in April 2022.

References

External links

*
Jorvik Group website
Museums in York History museums in North Yorkshire York Archaeological Trust Micklegate {{UK-museum-stub