From 159 Woodhouse Lane to Hull Streetlife Museum
Hull Museums complied with Mr Castelow's wishes. In 1976, after a team was despatched to take detailed photographs of every shelf, drawer, bottle and jar on the premises the shop was carefully packed up and transported to Hull's Wilberforce Museum on High Street.
Reconstruction
It was reconstructed exactly as it appeared during Mr Castelow's ownership, everything down to the smallest detail was replaced; the shop even retained its distinctive smell. The shop was eventually re-housed in the more fitting environment of the Hull Streetlife Museum street scene.
The reconstructed shop offers an intriguing insight into the Victorian world. The shelves are full of concoctions which are simply unobtainable today, such as Blood Purifiers and Liver Rousers. The shelves abound with medications from throughout the twentieth century, including some recognisable brands offering a chance to see which ailments have troubled people throughout the past one hundred years.
Some are recognisable and continue to inflict us to this day, such as, headaches, diarrhoea, flu, colds and coughs, some ailments such as typhoid no longer figure so predominantly in modern British life.
Attraction
During Mr Castelow's ownership the pharmacy attracted visitors from all over the world, intrigued to see the chemist shop from a different age. That atmosphere was so unique that one American visitor offered to buy the shop off Mr Castelow in the 1960s and have it shipped in it's entirety to the United States. Mr Castelow politely refused, he was adamant his shop would stay in Yorkshire. Now safely housed in Hull Streetlife Museum, it continues to be a major attraction and is still a visitor favourite.
