Over the past seven weeks Conlon construction have been working on the first stage of the gallery project and have been conducting the enabling works which will allow us to progress to the main contract works in September. The enabling works entail stripping back and getting to know the building. Allowing the architects, engineers, and project team to investigate and assess whether their initial investigations and surveys are correct. It also allows us to look at the building much like blank canvas and get a feel for the space and protect the areas that are specific to the grade II listed building.

Behind the hoarding façade the gallery has changed so much in a matter of weeks. Layers of the gallery are gradually being stripped back to reveal some pretty impressive details such as these magnificent columns in the reception area.

Gone is hulking great behemoth of air handling unit in the picture store that made me weep some days!

The floors have been removed in the main gallery to clear the asbestos.

To make way for the huge web of scaffolding that has been erected to gain access to the 1950’s glass ceiling.

Which has now been removed to reveal the true magnificence of the secret gallery.

…not so secret anymore as this will be the Centre for British Studio Ceramics.

The 1950’s block to the rear of the building that used to be the rabbit warren of offices, library and our friendly mess room has also been stripped back to it’s bare bones and has revealed itself to be a huge bright space ready for the changes to take place in the next phase of the redevelopment.

We are on the verge of taking down the little gallery to reveal the view from the reception area to the secret gallery and works will be starting in the archives in July. This will clear the space and make way for the new North wing to the gallery.

Watch this space…

York’s Ouse Bridge – photographed by Google

York’s Old Ouse Bridge – painted in the 19th century

With the help of a dedicated group of volunteers from the Friends of York Art Gallery, YMT’s Digital Team has been taking all the topographical artworks from York Art Gallery’s Evelyn Collection and pinning them to a map of York.

Here are all the images pinned to the map so far!

Click here to go to the Historypin website and see all the works uploaded so far. By clicking on the small images on the map you can navigate around the collection.

With a few clicks you can travel to High Petergate

Find out what it looked like in 1849

And find out more about who painted this picture

We currently have just over 100 images pinned to the map and we plan to get around 700-1000 uploaded. The volunteers have been working really hard. As well as locating the images, they have been adding additional information to our catalogue records by leaving comments.

This project is still in its early stages, but we are going to expand the number of volunteers soon, so watch this space as YMT’s Historypin site develops.

Last week, our Finance, Human Resources, and Health and Safety departments moved in to new offices on York’s most famous street: the Shambles, known for its timber-framed buildings, traditional cobbles and butcher’s shelves (originally called ‘Fleshshammels‘).

After much banging and knocking, lifting and shifting, the offices are now fully occupied, and I’m daily indulging in lunchtime trips to my new neighbours – a butchers, sweet shop and bakery.

Having spent years looking after collections, it feels like the Shambles has collected us – a place with so much history, you can’t help be enveloped by its unique charm.

We are collaborating with local artist, illustrator and general magpie, Mark Hearld, who is fresh from his wonderful exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

An exhibition of his illustrations from A First Book of Nature is currently on display in the Yorkshire Museum.

Mark is working with all of YMT’s collections to create new work and develop an exciting exhibition at York Art Gallery using our collections in fantastic new ways.

Over the next few months, Mark will be visiting the YMT stores, seeking inspiration (which is not hard to find) and generally getting very excited about the “stuff” that we have here.

Here he is at one of the social history stores enthusing over some carousel horses.

We will be tweeting and blogging over the next year with images and interesting discoveries and Mark will maybe even post the odd sketch as his new work develops. So stay tuned!

What an interesting year 2012 has been; a year that finishes with me temporarily employed by York Museums Trust.

In the preceding months there have been all manner of events in what has been a very exciting time for York and its residents.  York 800 has had it all - including unexpected double sporting successful for York City FC.

As a Digital Marketing volunteer for York Mystery Plays 2012, it is probably unsurprising that this remarkable project will be what I best remember the year for.  The combined forces of the York Museums Trust, York Theatre Royal, Riding Lights Theatre Company, and York Council – not to mention a few thousand volunteers and other local companies - produced an epic piece of theatre in a stunning location.

However, it won’t be the action that appeared on stage that will remain at the top of my mind, though it was certainly extremely impressive; it is the effect that the overall project had on me, the people involved and the wider community of York.

The amount of time and effort that people committed to ensure that the Mystery Plays were successful - which they undoubtedly were - was phenomenal.  The great thing is that that investment has not gone unrewarded as they have now formed friendships and bonds that look set to last a long time.

It also gave people a real sense of community and of belonging to something bigger then anything else in their normal, everyday lives.  There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t meet someone who was involved in the Mystery Plays or had some affiliation with it.  The Mystery Plays had a wonderfully wide reach, a reach that wasn’t just confined to the city walls.

Of course, the splendid setting made a lot of the magic too and many people will have been delighted to see a return to St Mary’s Abbey for a large scale, fixed stage production - it had been too long and hopefully the wait to return once again will not be so long this time.

The renewed interest in the York Mystery Plays must to be built upon and momentum maintained.  The city needs to throw its support behind keeping the Mystery Plays going, in all their forms - from the Waggons to huge events like that in 2012.  They give so much back to the people of York and add something more, if it were needed, for those visiting our wonderful city to enjoy.

There are moves afoot to establish a new supporters group for the York Mystery Plays so that is how I will be spending some of my time in 2013.  Aside from that, who knows what the future holds?  If 2013 is half as exciting as 2012, it’s going to be a fantastic year.

Six of our finest museum and gallery staff  have cast down their razors during the month of November to grow some very impressive moustaches.

York Museums Trust’s Lee Clark, Chris House, Geoff Hutchinson, Adam Parker, Jon Peters and Graham Thorne joined the annual Movember campaign to raise funds for research into men’s cancers.

So far, the team have raised £323 and would love to get to £500 by the end of November.

They got together today to have their photo taken in the Yorkshire Museum next to Mars, the Roman God of War, who has also been taking part in the campaign.

If you agree they’ve produced a superb crop of facial hair,  you can donate to the team here.

Thank you!

For the past week, I have been stationed in the York Museums Trust marketing office, acting as an in-house photographer. As a Photojournalism student at Staffordshire University, I am required to experience the real world of work once in a while, and to participate in a stint of ‘work experience’.

Whilst a little nervous at first (I was, after all, just a student in a place full of professionals!), I’ve found that this week has been both educational and very enjoyable.

Everyone seemed to want something photographed, and I’ve been kept very busy this week, documenting everything from Tansy beetles to WW1 machine guns! Here are some of the highlights…

John Hoyland poses for a press photograph with a First World War machine gun outside York Castle Museum

A Tansy Beetle in York Museum Gardens. The rare species has been introduced to the gardens recently and the local press were invited to a photo call

Natalie McCaul holds a rare silver boar badge, worn by supporters of King Richard III, which has been acquired by the Yorkshire Museum

A sunny shot of York Museum Gardens taken for the marketing department's publicity materials

This picture of a shell comes from Lily's trip to the trust's natural sciences stores

Lines of neatly arranged butterflies - another shot taken during the trip to the store

Volunteers at work in the York Observatory, taken by Lily for our the trust's Volunteers Co-ordinator

Another volunteer hard at work, this time in the Yorkshire Museum's library

I want to thank everyone in the marketing department for making me feel welcome and giving me the opportunity to learn about what will (hopefully) one day become my field of work!

It takes a good book to make people turn up to a book club in the snow, or, in the case of this, a book to provoke debate about the less pleasant people from history.

As Meat Loves Salt, by Maria McCann, is set in the 1640s and starts out leading you to think it is going to be a political thriller, although it soon takes a darker turn. It becomes clear that the narrator of the story, one Jacob Cullen, is a deeply unpleasant man who has committed murder and rape before the book is even half way through.

He abandons his new wife on their wedding day after realising that he is being chased for being part of a group who publish political pamphlets, and joins Cromwell’s army to escape.  There is some lovely description of the duties of a pikeman (although we all felt it was possibly a little too descriptive) and of the battles that ensue.

The tale soon becomes a love story between the narrator and a fellow soldier, who abandon the army to set up with others in a Diggers colony before we see the nasty side of Jacob rise to the surface again.

Although it could not be said to be a book that we all enjoyed, it definitely provoked a lot of discussion!

Pikeman’s pot helmet – a good defence against strikes from above as any hits were deflected by the shape on the top.

Following the review, we took time to look at some original English Civil War items including armour and a basket hilt sword, before going onto the Military Gallery and feeling the weight of the armour chest plates worn at the time.

The YMT book club is led by Vicky Hoyle. Each month we also look at relevant objects from the YMT collections. 

Every session is free and all are welcome; we just ask that you phone in advance on 01904 650333 to book a place. The next book is Dry Store Room No 1 by Richard Fortey meeting on 10 March at the Yorkshire Museum at 3pm.

Unlike the pies however, the book we were discussing was not to everyone’s taste. Pompeii by Robert Harris is a blockbuster of a novel, which at times feels more like a disaster movie than a book.

Each chapter was dated and began with a brief, scientific description of the progress of the volcano which we all felt worked well and helped to crank up the tension.  The main characters however were not hugely convincing, and the love story, which held the narrative together, seemed highly unlikely. 

We could not fault Harris’s research, which appeared extremely thorough, and the setting he created was impressive. We could see parallels between the political and financial intrigues in the book and recent political and economic events, but we did not agree with those critics who had suggested that this was Harris’s post 9/11 novel.

 If anything, it seemed more of an indictment of current policies on carbon reduction, highlighting man’s insignificance, and his egocentric view of the world; convinced that he can control the power of Nature.

Of course, we all knew where the story was going, so the author had set himself a difficult task, but everyone felt the ending was quite abrupt and some, the postscript a little saccharine.

So a mixed reception for Pompeii the novel, although clearly this was an event in history which intrigued us all.

Tempest Anderson in Colima, Mexico circa 1900. He is sitting next to a volcanic rock known as a 'breadcrust bomb'.

We went on to look at the photographs of Tempest Anderson. Anderson was born in York in 1846. He trained as a doctor but was a keen traveller, amateur photographer and volcanologist. He documented active volcanoes across the globe and took part in a Royal Society expedition to the Caribbean in 1902 to record the aftermath of volcanic eruptions on St Vincent and Martinique. 

The Martinique disaster had a number of similarities with Harris’s Pompeii. When Mount Pelee erupted on the morning of 8 May 1902, almost the entire population of St Pierre perished.

Despite increased volcanic activity in the weeks leading up to the disaster, local politicians, keen to maximise the turn out to an election on 11 May, had encouraged people to stay in the town. They had promoted its safety so effectively that people in surrounding villages had arrived, swelling the population to around 28,000. Only 2 people survived.

The YMT book club is led by Vicky Hoyle. Each month we also look at relevant objects from the YMT collections.  Every session is free and all are welcome; we just ask that you phone in advance on 01904 650333 to book a place.

The next book is How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall. We will be meeting at York Art Gallery this Saturday, 14 January, at 3pm.

1950s room at York Castle Museum

A healthy group of seven turned out on Saturday at York Castle Museum to discuss this month’s book.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson sparked a lively discussion with regards to family attitudes, sibling rivalry, keeping up appearances, changing York, war and attitudes to death amongst other topics! 

The group then handled objects from York Castle Museum’s collection such as a Victorian tea set and propaganda documents distributed throughout the Second World War with tips of how to make your food go further with suggested recipes for stale bread and the like in order to reduce wastage (or pig food). 

They were then shown around the museum, looking at certain exhibitions including the 1950s period room that linked to the themes of the book.

The book club will meet again at the Yorkshire Museum on Saturday 10 December 2011 at 3pm to discuss the book Pompeii by Robert Harris.

• If you would like to read more about the writing of Behind the Scenes at the Museum and its links to York read this Guardian interview with Kate Atkinson