Wakefield Museums and Castles

You can download a floor plan of the museum.

You can download a sensory map of the main galleries before your visit.

You can download a sensory map of our Cynthia Kenny: a city framed feature exhibition.

Copies of both sensory maps are available in the Pick and Mix station in the Welcome Space.

All of the videos in the Seeing Double temporary exhibition are subtitled in English. The film in the Before Wakefield gallery also has subtitles (no sound plays from this video). The Charles Waterton films are subtitled in English.

There are audio elements in parts of the exhibition spaces. In the main gallery, these are touch-activated and play out loud. There is one audio element in the main gallery which is triggered by someone moving into the space by the Wakefield Prison door and plays audio of children singing ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush’.

In the Front Room, there is a 1940s wireless radio interactive which plays audio from Second World War oral history interviews when the tactile buttons are pressed.

The Cynthia Kenny exhibition includes a soundscape inspired by the paintings on display. It lasts for around 15 minutes. The soundscape plays on the hour and half past the hour. After it finishes there is around 15 minutes before it starts again. The soundscape never gets overly loud but the volume does differ throughout. At one point a couple of minutes in there is construction drilling and high-pitched noises. There is occasionally the sound of people speaking and general hubbub (but you can’t make out any of the words). There is also traffic noise, buzzing, birds tweeting, cathedral bells ringing and music. The sounds often overlap each other.

There is also a large audio-visual screen in the Cynthia Kenny exhibition. This will play a video featuring people talking about Cynthia when the raised button is pressed. The button is on the bottom left of the outer frame of the screen. The video is subtitled in English. The audio plays through headphones, which are attached to the screen. For the first 20 seconds of the video there is ambient music overlaying footage of Cynthia’s paintings. The speaking starts with Mabel’s (Cynthia’s friend) interview. It lasts around 6 minutes. A faint bit of the audio bleeds into the main gallery from the headphones when it is playing.

There is another smaller digital screen in the far corner of the Cynthia Kenny exhibition. This plays a slideshow with no audio. It is not touch-screen and plays automatically.

The fire alarms in the Wakefield One building are tested every Thursday around 11am. They will sound from one to three times. There will be a tannoy announcement shortly before the alarms are tested.

There is a transcription of the creative audio descriptions of the paintings used in the audio description guide. This is with four other transcription booklets on hooks on the open door to the exhibition.