The main gallery will soon be filled with an array of sculptural pots created by Gordon Baldwin, for our new show, Gordon Baldwin: Objects for a Landscape.

At the moment the pots are being unpacked and stored in the South Gallery next door which is being redisplayed with three groups of paintings from our permanent collections, Early Religious paintings, Dutch and Flemish Still Life and Georgian Painting and Old Masters.

Some interesting contemporary pieces are also being included in these displays.

In among the altarpieces and alabasters are two contrasting pieces:

Christ Beckham, by Philip Eglin,  shows Christ on the cross with a picture of David Beckham appearing like an apparition on his body. Either side are alabaster panels that date back to 1450 – 85.

Father with Dead Son, Bam, 2004 is a copper sculpture inspired by a photo taken in the aftermath of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, which is reminiscent of a ‘pieta’ – an image of the Madonna holding the dead body of Christ.

In the middle section dedicated to Dutch and Flemish still lifes, are two works by Liza Dracup from 2010 and 2011 called The Pheasant and Mistle Thrush.

These were actually commissioned for an exhibition of works by John Atkinson Grimshaw in Harrogate, but now provide a contrast to two still lifes called Wild Fowl and The Cockerel from our own collection which have not been out on display for some time.

Displayed alongside our Old Masters and Georgian portraits is a work called Shadows, Reflections and All The Sort of Thing #47, 2009 by Jorma Puranen, which appears to have a reflection worked into a portrait picture.

The newly-displayed South Gallery is due to open at the same time as the Gordon Baldwin exhibition on 11 February .

Guide Jack Gann mixes up some Georgian mincemeat

The festive season means it’s time for York Castle Museum’s guides to roll up their sleeves and get back into the Kitchen Studio for a bit of Christmas baking.

This year the focus is on historic mince pie recipes, one from Tudor times, one from the Georgian era and an up-to-date meat-free recipe from Nigella Lawson.

Denise Hamilton, deputy senior guide, says: “Staff love cooking in the Kitchen Studio – it is one of the highlights of the Christmas period. We have one guide making the mince pie recipes for visitors to watch and another talking about the old recipes and answering any questions.”

Jack gets a Tudor pie out of the oven ready for glazing

The Tudor recipe, from A book of Cookrye Very necessary for all such delight therin (1584), is made from the usual fruit and sugar, but is mixed with beef mince, an unusual combination these days, but Denise says visitors usually enjoy it.

“People are quite suprised they quite like it!

“Visitors usually want to listen to a bit of history, but then they want a taste  – they enjoy tasting the difference between the recipes.”

Brushing the meaty Tudor pie with a rosewater, sugar and butter glaze

Both the Tudor recipe and the Georgian recipe, from Elizabeth Moxon’s English Housewifry (1764), contain rosewater, a popular ingredient dating back as far as 8th century Arabic recipes and a popular remedy for depresssion during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The final recipe from Nigella Lawson’s 2000 book, How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking, misses out suet altogether, adding chopped apples to the mix.

You can come and see the pies being made, and if you’re lucky, get a taste, every Saturday and Sunday from 26 November – 18 December and every day from 19 – 23 December.

For more on Christmas at the Castle, see our website.

The Georgian mincemeat mixture

The Tudor mince pie before being glazed

As the nights draw in, York Castle Museum’s Dave Cree, pictured, is preparing for this autumn’s torch-lit tours in October.

The tours are run after-hours by Dave and fellow senior guide Denise Hamilton and include stories about the museum buildings and their former life as prisons – including a section on infamous highwayman Dick Turpin – as well as fascinating facts about objects on display and the occasional ‘ghost’ story.

Dave says: “We always stress that this isn’t a ghost walk – it’s more a tour which aims to tell visitors things they might not realise or notice during an ordinary daytime visit.

“We enjoy doing it and we don’t use a script. We meet so many people from different walks of life and usually get a good response and a really appreciative audience.”

The tours take place at the end of October to coincide with the Illuminating York festival, as well as the half-term holiday and, of course, Halloween…

They start with a walk around the north side of the museum, a former women’s prison, including a look at Kirkgate, the recreated Victorian street, where grafitti left by former prisoners can be seen on the walls and one section used to be an execution chamber.

Upstairs visitors find out more about childbirth and fatality rates in Victorian times in our From Cradle to Grave exhibition.

A few ghost stories and reported ghostly sightings are thrown in as well, but Dave always stresses he personally doesn’t believe them!

The second half of the tour takes visitors around the south building of the museum, the former Debtors’ Prison, with a look at prison life. There’s a visit to the former shackling area, stories of executions and the cramped conditions and claustrophobia of life in the cells are brought to life.

The tour culminates with a look at the life of former prisoner Dick Turpin and the stories and legends associated with him.

Tickets for the torch-lit tours, on 28 and 29 October, cost £10 and can be booked by telephoning 01904 650333.

 Outside, the old Prisoners’ Exercise Yard is now a medieval jousting arena, decked out with brightly-coloured shields and banners.

Here Geoff Hutchinson and Andy Wilson are pictured putting some of them in place:

Children will be able to play as knights practising their jousting on our wooden horse, which has been carefully constructed and painted by Andy.  See if you can aim your lance into the wooden hoop target!

Andy at work making the wooden horse

The completed horse ready for action

There will be also be a professional armourer showing off his skills every Friday and Saturday during the school holidays.

Every day there will also other games and stalls to explore – weather permitting…

Inside you will be able to try on helmets and handle swords in our Military Studio.

Little ones will be able to play in our new Castle Playroom, at the end of the Toy Stories gallery.

This has also been decorated in grand, medieval style. Children will be able to play giant medieval board games or play with our castle-themed toys and dressing-up clothes!

Lynda Withers puts together a toy castle in the Castle Playroom

Lynda and Lucy Knock show off some of our fancy dress clothes in the Castle Playroom

For more details of dates and times visit our website or download our Summer Fun Leaflet 2011 about all of York Museums Trust’s summer holiday activities for families.

We’ve got a new display in our Extinct Gallery called Insects in the Gardens, together with trails which visitors can take away to make their own exploration of the ten-acre botanical gardens.

Gaby Lees, learning manager, said: “We’ve been delighted with the group of students who worked on this project - another group from the University have created some stories about Roman children for us which we also hope to include in the galleries soon.”

Find out more about the students’ projects at the University of York website.

Or download the trail and see if you can find ants, bees, butterflies, moths, slugs and snails!

David Hockney’s Bigger Trees near Warter has now closed and is being taken down, canvas by canvas, from the wall in the Main Gallery.

It’s been extremely popular and gallery guide Julie Redpath, for one, is sad to see it go.

“I’ve got used to seeing it every day and am feeling quite sad now it’s going!” she says.

Curators Laura Turner and Jenny Alexander have been busy checking over the canvases before the giant picture moves on to its next host gallery, the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull.

Meanwhile paintings for our new exhibition, William Etty: Art and Controversy, which opens on 25 June, are already going up on the wall in the next-door South Gallery.

This huge exhibition will be the first for years to take up both ground-floor galleries – it really does aim to show as many works as possible so people can make their own minds up about Etty and the controversy his nude paintings caused at the time.

Julie’s colleague Tony Dunnington already likes the look of it – and prefers it to the departing Hockney: “Look at that wall of Old Masters – it’s great!” .

He is pointing at one end of the South Gallery which is covered in paintings by different artists, displayed in the style of 19th century exhibitions.

Laura Turner explains: “This Old Master hang gives a flavour of how paintings were displayed in Etty’s day and they are similar in style to some of the Old Masters which Etty looked to for inspiration. The rest of this section will be filled with Etty’s paintings “after” the Old Masters, or inspired by them, including Etty’s prized copy of Titian’s Venus of Urbino which the artist considered to be the best copy he had ever produced.”

The rest of the South Gallery will include at a selection of Etty’s paintings and sketches from the Life Class, and a display of his portraits. 

The partially-completed wall of Old Masters

This painting of a male nude holding a staff is a study from around 1816 from the life studio, and is mounted alongside a sketch of a male nude, to show how Etty experimented with different poses

This painting showing a male nude with his arms up stretched is typical of Etty's work in the life studio

Guide Tony Dunnington looks at some of Etty's portraits which have started to go up on the walls

This large portrait of two sisters is called Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball and dates from 1835

Once the Hockney painting has gone, the Main Gallery will be repainted before being filled with a spectacular array of Etty’s major historical works, loaned from galleries across the UK including the Tate and the Royal Academy.

Watch curator Sarah Burnage explain more about the Etty exhibition in a special film on our website.

Michael Portillo comes face to face with the York Helmet

Staff were very excited to welcome Michael Portillo and his party of Art Fund Prize judges to the Yorkshire Museum on Friday.

We are one of ten museums and galleries across the country now competing for this prestigious £100,000 prize – the short list will be announced on May 20 once the judges have visited all ten.

We’ve been nominated for the £2million refurbishment of the museum which took place last year and the team which met the judges represented all the staff who pitched in to help – including our curators, education team, front-of-house and marketing staff, as well as managers, directors and trustees – and not forgetting the project’s building supremo, Geoff Hutchinson.

The judges were given a warm Yorkshire welcome, before watching a presentation about the refurbishment and then taking a guided tour around the new-look galleries.

Andrew Morrison, head curator and project leader, said he was pleased with the way the day had gone.

“They seemed to have a good time and their comments were all very positive. We were left with a feeling that we should be optimistic and we were pleased with the way we were able to present the project and the innovative way it was completed.”

Don’t forget you can help us by voting for us on the Art Fund Prize online poll. Many thanks to all those who have already done so!

The Art Fund Prize judges standing on our map of the Roman Empire. From left, Lars Tharp, Charlotte Higgins, Michael Portillo, Jeremy Dellar and Cathy Gee

Our team with the judges

But back in the 1800s many homes were lit using only rushes picked from nearby rivers.

These “rush lights” were so common that an industry sprung up making special holders for them. We have examples of these at York Castle Museum and during the half-term week visitors will be able to see daily demonstrations of how rush lights were made in our Kitchen Studio.

It wasn’t very complicated – they were stripped, then dipped in melted meat fat, then clipped in their holders and lit.

They only lasted for about 15 minutes, and it was often the child of the family’s job to keep checking on the rush lights, replacing them and relighting them where necessary, while the adults of the family got on with jobs like sewing and mending.

Rush lights saw a surge in popularity when a new candle tax was introduced in 1709 and they were very popular in the North Yorkshire countryside around York. Families would pick large numbers of rushes in the summer and autumn so that they had enough to see them through the winter.

Ironically the very poor still had to shell out for candles for their homes as they couldn’t afford the meat that provided the rush light’s coating.

Find out more about our half-term events on our website.

Natalie Kingston strips a rush ready for coating

Coating the rush with melted fat

Emma Burbidge lights the finished rush light in its holder

Guide Chris House, working on reception, had a shock when Hockney walked in with his assistant and pointed him in the direction of the main gallery, where the painting has just been mounted.

Our chief executive Janet Barnes and curator of art Laura Turner just happened to be in the gallery doing an interview with local journalist Elly Fiorentini, co-ordinated by our press officer Lee Clark.

Hockney agreed to chat to Elly, from BBC Radio York, before talking to our staff about how his painting looked. He stayed for about 20 minutes then went back home to Bridlington.

The painting, made up of 50 canvases, took three days to mount in a jigsaw-puzzle style process (see pictures below) and will be revealed to the public on Saturday. Don’t miss it!