Yorkshire Museum of Farming

Yorkshire Museum of Farming
Established	1982
Location	Murton Park, York, England
Type	Farming Museum, Living History Centre
Website	http://www.murtonpark.co.uk/

The Yorkshire Museum of Farming is located in Murton Park near York in England. It is housed on a grass field site of approximately 14 acres (5.7 ha), and is the only museum in the district specifically dedicated to the subject of farming. In the autumn of 2010, the museum was awarded full accreditation status by the Museums Libraries and archives Council (MLA). Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

The Four Seasons Gallery looks at the farming year, and the different practices and tools which are used across the four seasons. There is also a granary display and a recreated Victorian ironmonger's shop.

The Livestock building considers the rearing and farming of a variety of types of livestock. This also includes a display of the contents of the James Herriot's (Alf Wight) veterinary surgery.

The museum is also home to a large manuscript archive which can be viewed on appointment. Subjects covered in the archive include: manorial documents, agricultural machinery manufacturers' accounts, the Women's Land Army, the Derwent Valley Light Railway, the Cleveland Bay Horse Society, and a huge array of miscellaneous accounts, correspondence, certificates, photographs, maps and prints. There is also a sizeable library on-site which contains numerous historic journals, manuals, text books, and magazines. This can be accessed by appointment.

Farming families

During 2007-2008, a project which involved interviewing a number of different farming families was completed. This provides an audiovisual display of different types of farms from around Yorkshire, including Dairy, Sheep, Pigs and Arable crops, both organic and those using Agrochemicals, an artificial inseminater and some subsistence farms. A new audiovisual room was built as part of the project.

Derwent Valley Light Railway

The museum lies on the trackbed of the Derwent Valley Light Railway - a privately-owned standard-gauge railway which ran from Layerthorpe on the outskirts of York to Cliffe Common near Selby. This closed in 1981, but a small section has been restored as part of the museum. It opened in 1993, and incorporates a station building formerly located at Wheldrake. There is approximately 0.75 miles (1.21 km) of track running along the original trackbed towards York.^[1]