So, what have JORVIK done with that £5m grant? (Jorvik Viking Centre)

Member Name: collingwood21

Product:	Jorvik Viking Centre
Date:	11/03/02 (335 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great special effects, well explained, good shop, all proceeds to YAT

Disadvantages: Student discount is a bit stingy

As you may be aware, the famous Jorvik Viking Centre in York received a massive £5m grant as a "millennium" project for the north of England not so long ago. The centre was closed for several months of last year while this pot of cash was spent updating and improving the ever popular visitor attraction, and it has recently reopened to the public. Being the nosy little thing that I am, I took a trip down there last Sunday to see what had been done with all this money. For research purposes only, you understand.


●A bit of background
The Jorvik Viking Centre was first opened in 1984, on the site of an archaeological excavation that had taken place along Coppergate. York is a very archaeologically rich city, as people have lived on the same area for many centuries, and the naturally wet conditions of the soil mean that it is very good for the preservation of organic material as the bacteria that cause decay cannot live in such environments. It is well known that the city centre is built upon several metres of accumulated material from the many people who have lived in York in the past, so excavations there usually turn up an abundance of finds. The one planned for the newly cleared Coppergate site was to be no exception, and an estimated one million people came to watch the dig as it progressed between 1976 and 1981.

The excavation found a great deal of well preserved material dating from the Viking period (ninth & tenth centuries), when York was the capital of Danelaw (the Viking occupied part of England). Organic material such as original building timbers, leather, bone and antler artefacts had all survived, enabling the York Archaeological Trust (YAT) to reconstruct and understand the city in this period. The most spectacular find though, was the stunning Coppergate Helmet, found deposited in a pit (presumably for safekeeping) right at the end of the excavation. The helmet is now in the British Museum. Following th
e end of the dig, YAT and the local authorities collaborated to open the centre and capitalise on the massive public interest that had grown out of the dig and its finds.


●The new Jorvik Centre
After being open for nearly twenty years, YAT felt it was time for Jorvik to have a facelift - to add new attractions, new interpretation and get some new publicity to increase visitor numbers. Although the basic approach is still the same as in the original Jorvik, new technologies and ways of presenting the past have crept in. I have now been to Jorvik twice, the first time being the summer of 1998, so I have seen both versions of the centre.

I'm sure many of you will have visited Jorvik, or at least seen the queues of people outside it! (I was told by a guest lecturer on my museums course that queues can actually be desirable if they are controlled properly, as they make the attraction appear more popular than it actually is, therefore increasing visitor numbers - I'm unsure whether this works in practice though).

Upon entering the building and parting with your money, you descend a flight of stairs that take you through a reconstructed section of the actual layers found on site, until you reach Viking levels. Here, in an almost Disney fashion, you are herded in small groups through into a "time machine" to take you back to the ninth century - this is one of the new all-singing all-dancing bits of technology that has been installed. The basic idea is that you are in a motion simulator that shakes about and shows you a short film of you "going back in time" - which is all very well if you are five. I felt a wee bit patronised at this, but grudgingly accepted that many children visit and probably like such gimmicks. I don't.

Following your release from the time machine, you now move on the most famous part of the site - the dark ride through the reconstructed Viking York. This is the
bit that everyone remembers; the moving models, the sights, sound and smells of the city that help to bring it to life, and the reason children love it so much. I am pleased to report that this bit still exists, only with better technology, multi-language interpretation (including a child's English option that I thought was a great idea) and new bits that help make clearer how the archaeology works in building up this image of the past. Actual timbers in their original locations are used to reinforce this.

Getting off the ride, you move onto the museum part of Jorvik. Anybody who has been to the "old" centre will no doubt recall the section where you walk through a lab setting that help to show how the finds were analysed. This part has now gone - lets face it, it was hardly cutting edge! What replaces it is a pretty much standard exhibition space about the Vikings as seafarers, including topics such as shipbuilding, how we know about Viking boats, trading and raiding and some relevant finds from Coppergate. I wasn't overly enthused about the presentation - I felt that it lacked imagination and there wasn't really anything to appeal to children in it, which was a pity. The room felt pretty cramped too, as people were constantly entering at a steady pace from the ride, so this was a bit of a bottleneck and I felt I was being hurried through faster than I would have liked.

The second gallery was simply breathtaking though! Here, the traditional "objects in glass cases" approach has gone, and a lot of money has been spent making the archaeological objects that are a mystery to most people understandable. And not a word is written anywhere, so there are no language barriers and nothing to stop children getting as much out of it as adults. So what have they done? Well, imagine a darkened room with several large glass cases in it. Each case contains a selection of artefacts carefully laid out, and a quite inge
nious set-up of lights and mirrors in it. As you watch the items, the lighting in the case slowly alters so that a scene of a person using the items is projected onto the artefacts in a hologram-like style. What you see is the find as it came out of the ground, and the find as it would have been used in a slowly alternating sequence - you can see what the object was and how it would have been used without needing to know the name or technical description. It is quite beautiful and mesmerising to watch and a fabulous way of interpreting the past!

Leaving this room, you pass through the shop and café before returning upstairs to the city.

One strange thing that I have to remark on though. The Coppergate helmet - logo of the centre, part of the brand-image (yes, even museums have these now) and most famous find made there (there is even a plaque to mark the spot where it was dug up) - is absent. There used to be a really cool hologram of it in the main gallery (the real one being in the BM) which has now gone and nothing replaces it. No model, no reconstruction, no text, no digital image, not even a photo that I could see! Why have they done this? Answers on a postcard please...


●The good bits
- Intellectually accessible
- A lot has been done to tackle language barriers
- Well stocked shop, not too expensive
- Appealing and understandable to children
- The fantastic "lights and mirrors" display
- All proceeds go to YAT


●The not so good bits
- Entrance price is a bit steep, and student/OAP discount is not overly generous
- The "time machine"
- Parts felt a bit cramped and overcrowded
- I felt a bit rushed in places, which would be worse in high season
- Access might be a bit difficult for wheelchair users


●Other details
Jorvik is situated on Coppergate in the city centre, and is within a short walk from the r
ailway station. Other attractions in the locality are Clifford's Tower (English Heritage), Castle Museum, York Minster, the York Dungeon and the Yorkshire Museum. Maps are available from the Tourist Information and around the city, and it is well signposted and easy to find.

The centre is open daily 10am to 5.30pm, and queues are shorter first thing in the morning and from mid-afternoon onwards.

Entrance fees are £6.95 for adults, £5.95 for OAPS and students and £4.95 for children. A visit takes about one hour.

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