An introduction to the spaces, places, and
publics of the Abbey Precinct and Museum
Gardens
by Martin Watts, YMT
What is the site?
It has so many names: Museum Gardens, Yorkshire Museum Gardens, the gardens, St Mary’s
Abbey precinct, NZ 123456, and within the area we are considering the gardens are the
setting for a raft of other big brands: the Yorkshire Museum, City Library, Art Gallery, the
Archives, as well as emerging brands: the Hospitium, the Observatory.
People who visit these do not know and perhaps some don’t care that they are also visiting
something bigger and more exciting - they are like beetles on a Roman mosaic.
How we cope with the complexity of the site is therefore one of the key strategic decisions
we have to make. How are we going to manage this? A bit at a time or through some
overarching scheme? And struggling first to define it and secondly to give it some hierarchy
and priority is one of the things we are trying to do today.
That complexity is not only a source of delight, it is also one of the problems: it can get in the
way. So, how about turning some of these things on their heads:





The Yorkshire Museum is a great visitor centre for St Mary’s Abbey
The Museum Gardens are the finest outdoor eating place in York.
The trees are homes for small rodents that continue to play a vital part in driving to
extinction our historic wildlife.
The ruins are a significant trip hazard but they make great seats.
The ruins are great plinths for art.
Before we move on to audiences, just a couple of reminders of some of the other non heritage
issues:



The Gardens are the largest green open space in the City Centre.
They are also a botanic garden.
Just as we need to relate to the historic collections in the Yorkshire Museum, so we
have to relate to the scientific collections.
Who are the audiences?
Let’s look at some figures:
Table One: The average Numbers of visitors using the Museum Gardens between 9.00am
and 5.30 in June
per day
per month
439
13,187
10%
children
696
20,880
15%
students
2,823
84,719
64%
adults
496
14,900
11%
seniors
4454
133,686
total
The numbers visiting our other sites in June contribute approximately 10% of the total annual
numbers to those sites. Bearing in mind that our counts do not include all those people
coming into the gardens between 7.30 and 9.00am and between 5.30pm and 8.30pm. the total
number of visitors to the gardens for the year will therefore be in excess of 1,300,000 people.
The Gardens are the most visited site in York.
As well as a good cross section that really changes as the weather changes and the day moves
along, and which confirms our own observations, we also seem to have a wide socioeconomic mix of regular users that would be the envy of any government department bent on
diversity.
But there are other audiences who we are only partially or not all aware of:




The conducted tours of the city.
The people who tie their boats up on the river have a tremendous interest in our WCs.
It is the location of choice through June for York College Students on revision, a
place where you have peace, quiet, space, no hassle from authority and where you can
also meet your mates.
It is a short cut that allows you to spend 5 more minutes in bed every morning.
But what are they doing now?
A diary of the day
Now let’s look at a list of things that all these people are doing without our help:
Table Two: Times and numbers of visitors to the garden
time
children
students
adults
seniors
total
10:00
12:00
13:00
14:00
15:00
17:00
total
% of
total
1
12
42
27
17
12
111
2
15
35
42
33
30
157
32
56
102
154
113
72
529
4
9
16
23
11
8
71
39
92
195
246
174
122
868
13%
18%
61%
8%
total
for day
234
552
1170
1044
732
732
5,208
What are the visitors doing?
The following activities were logged:
Eating, sleeping, sunbathing, reading, walking, cycling, talking, drinking, sitting on a bench,
visiting other sites, painting, ball games, walking the dog, playing music, revising for exams,
feeding the pigeons, feeding squirrels, playing music, climbing trees, taking a short cut,
commuting , smoking, skateboarding, bowling, picking the flowers, climbing the ruins,
begging, Japanese martial arts, guided tours.
What is just as interesting are the activities the visitors are not doing. At present the historical
content of the gardens appears to be of interest to a very small minority of visitors. Hardly
anyone is leaping out of bed thinking ‘Yippee I am off to see the Roman fortress/the ruins of
the abbey/the special fern collection/the historic champion trees/the hospital of St Leonard.’
What attracts them at the moment is location, location, location. And grass. And that goes for
corporate users, the army, individuals, drug addicts, school groups looking to eat their lunch,
the Lord Lieutenant, and the homeless.
We, the site historians and managers, if you like, of the stories of the site are the ones with a
hang up about the history of the gardens. The majority of people think they are fine and,
judging by the newspaper comments, their issues are around litter and visitor behavior; they
are not about the interpretation of the space. So, for us it is sometimes like watching visitors
to the Sistine chapel, none of whom look up.
Every different layer of the gardens has a core of interested people who consider it important
but the majority of visitors appear pretty much disconnected from the heritage elements,
partly because we make little effort to engage them and partly because they are busy doing
other things.
But perhaps this is not the whole story, and it is not as simple as this.
The historic or heritage elements are much loved, often unconditionally, and are appreciated
as being part of the identity of the city and of what makes York such a great place to live, and
this is evidenced by the strong reaction we get to anything that is 'done' to gardens.
And the heritage experience for many visitors is not necessarily one we as heritage
professionals, or the government normally measure. For all those commuters it may be no
more than the reassurance of seeing a familiar old building, an experience of 15 seconds. And
what about all those thousands of visitors who instinctively reach for their camera as soon as
they clap eyes on the Abbey church?
Is there is a need for a critical filter to determine what is of interest? What the visitor might
like to know about, or what the visitor would interact with? We are still at the classic
dilemma of audience consultation: yes we can, will, and do ask what people want, and we
can, do, and will provide some of it.
But what about all the stuff they don’t know about but would want if they did? There is a
tremendous responsibility on us, the research/heritage/cultural community at YMT and all the
occupiers of the site to keep offering up new experiences and activities for the public to
sample.
Final thoughts
One of liberating factors in managing the garden is its size: it can surely continue to be
something for everyone, particularly if any one provision works on a number of different
levels.
There are a number of key relationships that we need to think about:



That between the Garden and the Museum.
That between the Garden and the Art Gallery.
That between the Garden and the King’s Manor.
Everyone I have met has a good story and memory of the museum gardens. Our experience
of activities like Wild Wednesdays makes it clear that if you make an offer in the gardens
then there is a really big demand and one that not only adds visitor numbers to the Yorkshire
Museum, but also delivers great dollops of quality of life to York residents and visitors alike.
At present, it is a venue and like so many great venues hardly anyone goes to see the venue;
they go to take part or watch or do something in the venue.
What we know for certain is that this venue is more than that.