Picturing Pontefract: access information

Access information

This section details specific access information for the Picturing Pontefract exhibition space at Pontefract Museum.

Moving around Picturing Pontefract

The Picturing Pontefract exhibition is fully level access. It is wheelchair and pushchair accessible.

The exhibition is in the special exhibition gallery. This space can be accessed by a door from the entrance foyer and a door at the back of the main gallery. These are both single manual doors. They are wide enough to fit wheelchairs through. Please ask a member of staff if you need help opening the doors.

The exhibition space is a rectangular room with smooth parquet flooring. Most of the artworks are fixed to the walls at varying heights. Most of the artworks are framed with matte glass to reduce reflections. A couple of artworks are in their original frames with slightly reflective glass.

There is a large structure in the centre resembling a church building made out of building blocks. It is in an L shape, and is around 2m tall (near 3m at the top of the ‘spire’). It is fixed to the ground. There is frosted glass in some of the building blocks. 3D models of places in Pontefract are fixed onto some of the sides of the central structure. They are beneath panes of perspex.

There is a smaller, waist-height structure towards the door leading to the main gallery. This has a large collection of magna-tiles to recreate your own mini buildings with. There is also a waist-height, narrow, wheeled trolley next to this structure containing more magna-tiles. The brakes should be kept on this trolley, but visitors may move it occasionally.

There is ample wheelchair access around each of these central structures.

Along the main walls at ankle height are some 0.5 metre cardboard silhouettes of buildings. These are fixed to the walls and protrude a couple of cm from the walls.

You can download a sensory map of the Picturing Pontefract exhibition.

Seating

There are some collapsible, portable stools as you enter the exhibition from the entrance foyer. They are kept under the ledge containing the Braille transcription on the left hand side. There are also two more portable stools available in the main gallery.

Lighting levels

There are low lighting levels in the Picturing Pontefract exhibition gallery. This is to protect the artworks on display from light over-exposure.

Video projection

There is a silent video projection above the main artworks, on the wall that connects to the main gallery. This is around 3m off the ground. It is a series of slowly panning images showing different maps and manuscripts from the wider collection.

Audio elements

There are no audio elements in the Picturing Pontefract exhibition. Some audio may bleed into the special exhibition gallery if a visitor has pressed play on a video in the main gallery.

Audio description

There is an audio description guide to accompany the Picturing Pontefract exhibition. It gives creative descriptions of some of the key artworks on display. It can be accessed by scanning the QR code with the audio description symbol by the door to the entrance foyer. You can also pre-load the audio description guide or listen to it from home.

If you do not have a smartphone or tablet that can scan QR codes, we have a version of the audio description guide on a tablet at Pontefract Museum. Please ask a member of staff to borrow this tablet to use when you are in the gallery.

Braille

There is a Braille transcription booklet of the Picturing Pontefract exhibition. The transcription contains the gallery information panels and the creative audio descriptions. The booklet is kept in a free-standing holder on a ledge just inside the main door to the exhibition gallery (by the large painting of Pontefract Castle). It has Braille on the front cover to help you identify it.

Hands-on elements

In the Picturing Pontefract gallery there is a structure by the door to the main gallery with a large selection of magna-tiles. These are colourful, magnetic tiles in simple shapes to build your own structures.

There are also a series of handheld coloured viewfinders you can use when exploring the exhibition. These are kept on hooks on the large central structure.