For school groups with a sweet tooth, a new exhibition has just opened at York Castle Museum which looks at sweets and chocolate from the past.
The exhibition called Chocolate: York's Sweet Past, is now open and will be running until 5th January 2018.
On display will be a sweet and chocolate collection which includes rarely seen before advertising and packaging for brands such as Kit Kat, After Eight, Yorkie and Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
The exhibition will also feature sweet making moulds and tools and even a tin of cocoa which went on Shackleton’s expedition to the Antarctic.
The exhibition will cover the sweet decadence of the Georgians to the obscure delicacies of the Victorians, up to the swinging sixties.
Discover sugar highs throughout history
The experience will allow schools to explore the ways in which different generations have satisfied their sweet tooth.
Pupils will start in the museum’s Period Rooms where the Georgian, Victorian and the Jacobean rooms will be filled with sweet delicacies.
Groups will then head to the Toy Gallery to find a sweet making machine before entering the Chocolate Factory where you can discover what it was like to work in York’s factories, as well as the skills required to do certain jobs in chocolate and sweet production.
A sweet shop will also open on the recreated street, Kirkgate, showing chocolates and sweets from Terry’s, Rowntrees and Craven’s. And a World War One exhibition called 1914: When the World Changed Forever will look at how the Rowntree’s family were affected by war.
For schools
The York Museum Trust, which owns York Castle Museum, offers workshops and resources for school groups at each of the museums.
A workshop that can be linked to the new exhibition is Rowntree and The Chocolate Factory, suitable for KS2 pupils.
For more information, visit www.yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk.
