About
The Yorkshire Museum of Farming at Murton Park, on the eastern edge of York, documents eight thousand years of farming in Yorkshire — from the first Neolithic settlers who began clearing the forests of the Vale of York to the mechanised agribusiness of the present day. The site combines an extensive indoor collection of agricultural machinery, vehicles, and rural life material with an outdoor complex that includes the Danelaw Living History Village — a reconstructed Viking-age settlement that brings the agricultural and domestic life of tenth-century Jorvik to life in a working farmyard setting.
The museum's agricultural collections are among the most comprehensive in northern England. Hundreds of items of horse-drawn and early mechanised farm machinery — ploughs, cultivators, harrows, threshers, seed drills, reapers, and binders in every stage of development — trace the mechanisation of Yorkshire farming across two centuries. The working horse in agriculture is particularly well documented: the harness, the tools, and the horse-drawn vehicles that formed the backbone of farming before the internal combustion engine are preserved in exceptional variety. The progression from horse-drawn implements through steam traction engines to the great diesel tractors of the mid-twentieth century is represented by a collection of vehicles maintained in working order and demonstrated at the museum's regular event days.
The Danelaw Living History Village is the museum's most distinctive and popular attraction. A reconstructed Viking-age settlement — longhouses, animal pens, a smithy, and domestic buildings — is staffed by costumed interpreters who demonstrate craft skills, explain the daily life of a Scandinavian farming community in Yorkshire, and bring the world of the Danelaw to life for visitors of all ages. The site incorporates both the domestic architecture of a Viking farmstead and the agricultural landscape — fields, stock enclosures, and kitchen gardens — that would have surrounded it. School groups are particularly well served by the living history programme.
Murton Park is managed by a charitable trust as an educational and heritage resource for the York region. The site hosts regular special events throughout the year — ploughing matches, steam working days, threshing demonstrations, and seasonal celebrations that reflect the traditional agricultural calendar — that draw specialist audiences from across the north of England. The combination of indoor collections, outdoor machinery, and immersive living history makes the Yorkshire Museum of Farming one of the most complete agricultural heritage sites in the country.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Check the events calendar before visiting — the working event days (steam days, ploughing matches, threshing demonstrations) are qualitatively different from a standard visit and are worth planning around specifically.
- Allow at least two and a half hours: the indoor machinery collection alone takes an hour, the Danelaw Village needs 45 minutes, and the outdoor farmyard and animals deserve unhurried attention.
- The Danelaw Living History Village is outstanding for children of primary and junior school age — the costumed interpreters are skilled and patient, and the hands-on elements (entering longhouses, meeting animals) work very well for families.
- The site is largely outdoors or in open-sided buildings — wear appropriate clothing for the weather, especially wellies in autumn and winter if the ground is wet.
- Combine with a York city centre visit: Murton Park is 15 minutes by bus or car from the city, and the Jorvik Viking Centre (in the city centre) makes an excellent complementary visit for the Viking context.
- Free parking on site, making this one of the most accessible sites in the York area for families with young children.
- The museum cafe serves hot food throughout the day — worth planning a lunch stop here, especially on working event days when the site gets busy.
Highlights
The Danelaw Living History Village
The museum's most immersive attraction is its reconstructed Viking-age settlement — a Danelaw farmstead of the late ninth and tenth centuries, complete with longhouses, animal pens, a smith's forge, and domestic buildings, staffed by costumed interpreters who demonstrate the skills and daily routines of Yorkshire's Scandinavian settlers.
Visitors can enter the longhouses, observe craft demonstrations, interact with farm animals, and experience the sights, sounds, and smells of a Viking farmyard in the Danelaw period.
The village is the most complete Viking living history experience in the York region outside the Jorvik Viking Centre.
Horse-Drawn Farm Machinery — The Pre-Mechanical Age
The museum holds one of the most comprehensive collections of horse-drawn agricultural machinery in northern England — hundreds of implements spanning two centuries of horsepower farming.
Wooden ploughs with iron shares, cast-iron swing ploughs, seed drills, cultivators, harrows, reapers, binders, and horse-drawn carts of every kind tell the story of farming before the internal combustion engine. The collection includes items from major Yorkshire agricultural implement makers alongside nationally produced equipment, and many items still carry paint and marking identifying the farms that used them.
Traction Engines and Early Tractors
The transition from horse power to mechanical power in Yorkshire farming is documented through a collection of traction engines, steam-powered threshing machines, and early tractors. Several of the traction engines are maintained in steam and demonstrated at the museum's regular working event days. The sight and sound of a full-sized agricultural steam engine working a threshing drum in a farmyard setting is one of the most spectacular and authentic experiences in heritage agriculture.
The tractor collection ranges from early Fordson and Massey-Harris models of the 1920s to the large diesel tractors of the 1960s.
Eight Thousand Years of Yorkshire Farming
The museum's permanent gallery traces the history of farming in Yorkshire from the Neolithic clearance of the first wildwood to the present, using archaeological evidence, documentary material, and farm artefacts to build a narrative of continuous agricultural change.
Prehistoric farming tools — flint sickles, quernstones — sit alongside Roman agricultural technology, the open field systems of the medieval period, the enclosure movement of the eighteenth century, and the agricultural revolution of the nineteenth. The continuity of the farming landscape as the defining human achievement in Yorkshire's environment is the gallery's central argument.
Collections
The Yorkshire Museum of Farming holds one of the most extensive agricultural heritage collections in northern England, spanning the prehistoric period to the twentieth century. The machinery collection — horse-drawn implements, steam traction engines, and early tractors — is nationally significant in depth and completeness.
The Danelaw Living History Village is the most complete Viking-age farm reconstruction in the York region.
Domestic and farmhouse collections document rural life and women's work in the farm economy. The museum holds rare breed animals, working agricultural buildings, and an active events programme that keeps the collections in practical use.
Eight Thousand Years of Yorkshire Farming
Permanent gallery tracing agricultural history in Yorkshire from the Neolithic to the present.
The Danelaw Living History Village
Reconstructed Viking-age farmstead with costumed interpreters and craft demonstrations.
Horse Power to Steam Power
Permanent collection of horse-drawn machinery and steam traction engines.
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.
Nearby Museums (5 within 6 miles)
Yorkshire Air Museum & Allied Air Forces Memorial
Military Aviation
Elvington — ~55 min walk (2.9 mi)