This summer, York Castle Museum will host time-travelling characters lost in different centuries. Join Phineas FickleTickle with his imaginary enchanted hot air balloon as he travels around the museum to help his friends return to their own time using magical tinctures. They’ll visit Medieval, Georgian and Edwardian periods and the 1960s, so there’s plenty to discover and learn. These promenade performances last 30 mins and run at 11 am, 1 pm and 2.30 pm on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 3rd to 31st August.

Continue to be transported through the rest of the galleries including Kirkgate, the famous Victorian street, with places named after local shops and businesses of the time. Visitors will be able to meet people in costume to find out about life in Victorian York or dress up in Victorian hats. The Period Rooms, World War One, 1960s Gallery and the prison cells, where the infamous highwayman Dick Turpin was held, will also be open to explore, welcoming back new and returning visitors. A family-friendly Time Traveller’s Trail will help families explore different spaces.

There will be even more to explore as the Shaping the Body galleries with its fashion displays have now reopened. Discover many different outfits through the ages, from a dress worn by Queen Victoria to a Vivienne Westwood designer outfit.

On Sunday 18 August and 1 September, visitors can enjoy unique entertainment from The Ran Tanners; a pair of roving miscreants who (when not doing hard labour in chokey or dodging the press gang), will be playing some traditional music from Georgian and Victorian England using fiddles, bagpipes and squeezeboxes.

Victorian-style Stilt Walkers will perform in the museum on select Sundays in August (4, 11 and 25 August). These charismatic stilt walkers will be here to celebrate their idol, ‘Queen Victoria’. They are full of facts about their ‘best friend’ and will quiz the audience to test their knowledge. They will perform twice a day between 11am and 3pm in the Exercise Yard.

There’s lots more going on, too, so visit the York Castle Museum website for details. Don’t forget that York children visit for FREE! Just take some proof of residence.