Ripon Museums Trust tasked Cause & Effect PR to help launch their renovated Workhouse Museum experience.
We helped shape the messaging around the museum, and put together a PR strategy to launch the £2.8m Heritage Lottery revamped museum at a Media Call on 20 July, 2026, in time for it opening to the general public on 21 July.
Cause advised on photography, and commissioned photos for marketing and press use, in time for the Press Release, which was issued on the day of the Media Call.
We enticed media to attend with the challenge: Would you survive an hour in the Workhouse?
The story was elevated to national (and international) interest by focussing on its unique USP as one of the UK’s most complete surviving Victorian workhouses.
It also gained relevance with its focus on using the past to help visitors think about fairness, dignity, welfare and opportunity in Britain today, and how lessons of the past might help build a fairer future.
Media were invited to experience Yorkshire in all its grimmest grit: Indulge in a complimentary bowl of gruel. Feel rejuvenated with a Victorian workhouse bath and fumigation. And spend a penny in the tramps’ privy, as well as ‘Eat like its 1853’ and ‘Get stuck in to a bit of hard labour.’ The invite warned, hawkers and drunkards will be sent straight to the sister museums: Ripon Prison & Police Museum.
We lined up broadcast media to attend an exclusive tour of the museum during the Media Call, and take part in activities (with actors and volunteers staging workhouse scenes).
The media turn out was huge, with national press and photographers (The Guardian), regional magazines, (Yorkshire Living), and newspapers, including the Northern Echo and Yorkshire Times, with broadcast including Greatest Hits Radio and BBC Look North, and trade press with the Museums Association.
Work involved lining up numerous magazine features on the new experience to coincide with its opening, with stories secured in Yorkshire Life, Yorkshire Living, Living North, Mag North, and the Yorkshire Post Saturday magazine.
The result?
A full page three feature in The Guardian newspaper (and online), the museum director interviewed on BBC Radio 4 PM, BBC Radio York, a feature on BBC Look North and BBC online, in-depth reviews of the experience in the Yorkshire Times, and multiple regional magazine features. It also ran in the Museums Journal, Yo1 Radio reported the story had 100,00 views across all its platforms, and ITV Calendar posted the story on their socials.
The story then went international, with the Guardian Australia edition printing the story, and The Smithsonian magazine in America running the feature: ‘Kids Can Try Out the ‘Oliver Twist’ Lifestyle at This English Museum Revealing Conditions for Poor People in a Victorian Workhouse.’
Coveragebook (a PR tool) metrics calculated the online reach of the media we’ve seen to date has 1.66m Estimated Views, with a 214m Audience, over 833 social media shares, and 40+ meaningful media stories – with more coverage to come…
Museum director Alexa Vernon said “I’m so thrilled with all of the coverage….this is such a remarkable achievement!”
You can read the full Press Release for the launch, here: Would You Survive the Victorian Workhouse? | Cause UK