Victorian workhouse museum reopens with a question: could you survive it?

Ripon Workhouse Museum reopens July 21 after a £2.8 million update. Workhouses were places where poor Victorians had to work for food and shelter. Curator Laura Allan says the reasons people lost their homes back then — alcohol, mental illness, family breakdown, war veterans — are much the same today. The museum asks visitors whether they could survive the experience.