The Hull and East Riding Museum is located in the Museums Quarter of the Old Town in

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east ...

, England. It dates back to 1925 as the Museum of Commerce and Industry in a former Customs House but acquired its present name in 1989 with a major refurbishment and new entrance, with the transport section moving to a separate museum. It displays items from prehistoric to medieval in the area, many of them in life-size tableaux or reconstructions of rooms and buildings.

History

Building number 36 on the High Street was a

customs house A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting ...

. It was replaced by a new building, Hull

Corn Exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchange. Such trade was common in towns ...

, in 1856, but later fell into disuse and disrepair. The structure was refurbished and opened as a museum in 1925, being the Museum of Commerce and Industry. It was damaged by bombs during the Second World War but renovated and reopened as the Archaeology and Transport Museum in 1957. In 1989 the museum was given its present name, and was refurbished as the transport collection moved to a new adjacent museum called

Streetlife Museum of Transport The Streetlife Museum of Transport is a transport museum located in Kingston upon Hull, England. The roots of the collection date back to the early 20th century, however the purpose-built museum the collection is housed in was opened in 198 ...

. The museum underwent a further major makeover between 1998 and 2003 as part of the creation of the Museums Quarter, with the main entrance transferred from the High Street to the central courtyard. During the

COVID-19 pandemic in England The COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to England with two cases among Chinese nationals staying in a hotel in York on 31 January 2020. The two main public bodies responsible for health in England are NHS England and Public ...

the museum closed to the public on 20 March 2020. It remained closed for over a year until it was able to reopen on 17 May 2021.

Galleries

A major feature is several galleries where actual artifacts (found in the region) are displayed in tableaux showing life in a particular time, and includes up to full size rooms or buildings.

Fossils and Early Animals

Visitors enter to see a giant

woolly mammoth The woolly mammoth (''Mammuthus primigenius'') is an extinct species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with '' Mammuthus subp ...

with other extinct animals from the region and some interactive displays including fossils which can be touched.

Prehistoric Man

This includes a tableau of a woman as a gatherer and explanations of the diet and technology of early humans. There are stone tools and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

pottery, metal goods and wooden carvings. Many of these were collected by notable archaeologist

John Robert Mortimer John Robert Mortimer (15 June 1825 – 19 August 1911) was an English corn-merchant and archaeologist who lived in Driffield, East Riding of Yorkshire. He was responsible for the excavation of many of the notable barrows in the Yorkshire Wolds ...

(1825–1911).

Celtic Worlds

This includes a reconstruction of substantial parts of an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

village and its people talking in ancient

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

. A translation is available at reception."The Iron Age in East Yorkshire: a guide to the audio heard in the gallery" undated, Hull City Council, obtained July 2018

Boat Lab

This shows the

Hasholme Logboat Hasholme logboat is a late Iron Age boat (750-390 BC) discovered at Hasholme, an area of civil parish of Holme-on-Spalding-Moor in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire. It is now on display in the Hull and East Riding Museum, in ...

, some and carved from a single oak tree, dating back to about 300 BC. There is also part of one of three

Ferriby Boats The Ferriby Boats are three Bronze-Age British sewn plank-built boats, parts of which were discovered at North Ferriby in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire. Only a small number of boats of a similar period have been found ...

from about 2000 BC, the oldest known sewn plank boats in Europe.

Roman World (AD 43–410)

This includes a reconstruction of part of the Roman settlement of

Petuaria Petuaria (or Petuaria Parisorum) was originally a Roman fort situated where the town of Brough in the East Riding of Yorkshire now stands. Petuaria means something like 'quarter' or 'fourth part', incorporating the archaic Brythonic *''petuar'', ...

(modern day

Brough, East Riding of Yorkshire Brough ( , locally ) is a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is part of the civil parish of Elloughton-cum-Brough with the neighbouring village of Elloughton. Brough is situated on the northern bank of the Humber Estuary, appr ...

). Large (actual)

mosaics A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

are displayed as they would have been within houses. A

Roman bath house Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

contains not only an original mosaic, but also a life-sized bather. There are also a workshop, office and shop, in which artifacts from the time are displayed as if for sale. A humorous feature is the Latin

graffiti Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

Romani ite domum "" ( en, Romans go home, italic=yes) is the corrected Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber a ...

'' ("Romans go home") on the wall of a building. The museum displays a number of mosaics which were found at the sites of

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...

s at

Rudston Rudston is a small village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated between Driffield and Bridlington approximately west of Bridlington, and lies on the B1253 road. The Gypsey Race (an intermittent stream) ru ...

Brantingham Brantingham is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, about north of Brough, west of Hull and north of the A63 road. The 2011 UK Census gave the parish had a population of 370, marking a decrease from the 2001 ...

and

Harpham Harpham is a small village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is located just south of the A614 road, approximately north-east of Driffield and south-west of Bridlington. The civil parish ...

in the East Riding, and at

Horkstow Horkstow is a village and civil parish in North Lincolnshire, England, south-west from Barton-upon-Humber, south from South Ferriby and north from Brigg. It lies on the B1204, and east from the navigable River Ancholme.

in north Lincolnshire. They are considered to be the best collection of late Roman mosaics to be seen in Britain.

Upper galleries

These depict life in East Yorkshire from the end of Roman occupation (AD 410) to the outbreak of the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

including the Saxons, the Vikings and Mediaeval Hull. This includes coins, weapons, stone carvings and everyday objects. File:Hull mammoth 6 July 2018 1.jpg, Woolly mammoth File:Woman gatherer 6 July 2018.jpg, Woman the Gatherer? File:HullMuseumStoneAge (2).JPG, Stone age items File:LateBronzeAge EastRiding (2).JPG, Bronze Age wood carvings File:LateBronzeAge EastRiding.JPG, Bronze Age swords File:Hull Iron Age 6 July 2018 1.jpg, Iron Age village File:Hasholme boat 6 July 2018 1.jpg, Hasholme log boat File:HER Museum 6 July 2018 Petuaria 1.jpg, Part of Petuaria "Romans go home" File:Hull bathhouse 6 July 2018.jpg, Roman bath house File:HER Museum Roman sitting room 6 July 2018.jpg, Roman room File:MedievalHull.JPG, Pottery from Mediaeval Hull File:MedievalHull (4).JPG, Mediaeval Hull stone carvings

References

{{Commons category, Hull and East Riding Museum Museums in Kingston upon Hull Museums established in 1989 History of the East Riding of Yorkshire