York Castle Museum

York

4.25

4 reviews

Review this place

RockLaCasMar

06 May 2026

Welcoming with lots to learn

Date of visit: April 2026

I am a disabled person. I have experience of challenges around: accessing toilets and moving around.

I use or have experience of: disabled toilet, walking aid, wheelchair

Replicas of Victorian posters on a brick wall. Long text, which is generally not legible, but the biggest headline reads 'School Board Election'

Entrance into the prison rooms - shows me sitting in my standard width manual wheelchair. A child's wheelchair might fit through the gap, but there is also a small step.

Overall Rating

Good

I visited as a user of a manual wheelchair, with my 11 year old who is not disabled. The front desk staff were very helpful and clearly trained to explain what we needed to do and how it might be different from other people's experience. They accept the Access Card for concession tickets + carers, and all tickets are valid for a year. This is a standard policy but particularly useful for fatigue issues as you could come and see a little bit a day over the course of a few days. They didn't ask to see my access card as they could clearly tell I am disabled on account on my wheelchair! They described it a '75% accessible' so I think I missed parts that were up steps, but we still spent 3 or 4 hours there over the course of 2 days. There are some doorways that are too narrow to get through using a wheelchair (see photos), which they didn't specifically mention. But I won't blame them for the doorways themselves, given that it's a museum and they are prison doorways built hundreds of years ago! You can still peer into the rooms and get through the main sections. There were videos playing in those rooms which were tricky to watch, but to be honest by that point I didn't want to stop and watch everything. (The documentation of how prisoners were treated etc was also quite upsetting)