Families segregated, the mentally ill restrained and unmarried mothers forced to wear special clothing. Bev Hutchinson was unsettled, but fascinated, by a tour of Ripon Workhouse Museum and Gardens

IF, 150 years ago, you had pushed through the large metal gates of Ripon workhouse and passed beneath the entrance arch, it meant you had fallen so deeply and irretrievably into poverty that your final humiliation was now complete.

Today, if you step through the gates and under the light suspended from the arch, you enter a museum which is regarded as one of the best preserved of its kind in the country and which gives a startling insight into how the Victorians dealt with the more vulnerable members of society.

The workhouse is largely unaltered since it was built in 1854 – the date of its founding screeching from the stonework at you as you cross the threshold – so it is easy to imagine that you have fallen upon hard times, that you can’t find work, that you can’t afford to feed or house your children and you’re your last humble possessions have been taken away by the bailiffs to cover your debts.

Or that you are a young, pregnant woman, unmarried and scorned by society. You've been forced from your job, ostracised by your family and are afraid to venture outside for fear of verbal and even physical abuse.

You have no alternative but to enter through those dreaded gates and climb the stone staircase up to the main body of the workhouse – its stone steps poignantly worn down by the feet of hundreds of sad souls.

At the top, inside the imposing office of the Board of Guardians, a gruelling and shameful interview would take place to see if you could be accommodated. Now there was no way back – the stigma of having to enter the workhouse stayed with you forever.

Once admitted, the men, women and children of a family would be separated. This added to the trauma of falling on hard times because important family bonds were broken and children suffered the distress of being torn away from their parents except perhaps for an hour’s visit on a Sunday.

Unmarried mothers were forced to wear a yellow jacket immediately upon entering the workhouse which marked them out as fallen women. As communication between the sexes was banned, this appears to have been nothing more than a punishment, forcing women to carry the shame of what was then a serious social crime.

The mothers-to-be were put into the infirmary until their babies were born. Once the babies were weaned, they were taken away to be looked after by matrons while their mothers joined the other working women.

But one of the positives of the workhouse was that its children had to receive a basic education, something that most working class children, who went to work at an early age, didn’t receive on the outside.

Surprisingly, meals were nourishing if a little monotonous and sparse. James Etherington, director of Ripon Museum and Gardens, explained: “There was a good balanced diet of bread, meat, vegetables and cereal but it was kept to minimum quantities and without variation in order to deter people from applying to the workhouse on the basis that it was an easy life.”

And so the work was hard and tedious. The men broke rocks for road works and picked oakum – pulling apart old ropes so that the fibres could be mixed with tar or grease and used to repair ships. The phrase “money for old rope” comes from this, although it was hard – oakum-picking fingers quickly became sore and infected.

Chopping firewood and tending the workhouse gardens were also jobs for the men. The women would pick oakum, do the laundry, sew uniforms and help in the kitchens and the infirmary.

One of the most disturbing items in the museum is the restraining chair. In the middle of the 19th Century, there was no real provision for people with mental health problems. The lunatic asylum was reserved for severe cases, but simply not being able to cope because of depression or illnesses like epilepsy or conditions that we would call “learning difficulties” today meant people became vagrants or entered the workhouse. But there were strict rules in the workhouse which some people found difficult to comply with. If they became agitated, they would be restrained in the chair with leather straps that were tied around the head and wrists.

The museum has recently received £402,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund so it can take over the rest of the buildings on the Ripon Union Workhouse site, including the gatehouse, Master's House, male and female dormitories, dining hall, kitchen garden and kitchen block.

Richard Taylor, chairman of the museum trustees, said: "This exciting development means we will be able to tell the whole workhouse story in the proper place, have space so that more of the collection can be on show in order to help us to present the stories of the past in new and varied ways."

We have come a long way since the days of the workhouse, and after a fascinating visit of a couple of hours, it is good to know that you can step back under the arch and through the gates and leave the workhouse behind – 150 years ago, many people were not so fortunate.

  • Ripon Workhouse Museum and Garden is open daily from 11am to 4pm. For more information, go to riponmuseums.co.uk