The Gissing Centre Heritage Open Days

Explore The Gissing Centre as part of Heritage Open Days 2025.

Opened in the 1990s, the Gissing Centre is a small museum housed in a suite of rooms on the first floor of 2-4 Thompson’s Yard in central Wakefield. It is run by the Gissing Trust, staffed by volunteers and financed by donations. The house is the childhood home of the renowned Victorian novelist, George Gissing.

His father, Thomas Gissing, a chemist, had the Westgate frontage shop, and the Centre celebrates the stories, interests and achievements of all members of this family. Although George Gissing’s many novels and short stories continue to be the main literary focus, the Centre encourages knowledge and appreciation of our many other local writers of all genres past and present.

Gissing’s Wakefield, that of the mid-nineteenth century, is well explored in the Centre’s literature, and the team can offer guided walks around places with connections to the activities of the family. Thompson’s Yard and the surviving adjacent yards have their origins in the town’s medieval burgages, providing evidence of the development of the town over many centuries.

Event Times

• Saturday 14 September, 10am – 4pm
• Sunday 14 September, 10am – 4pm
• Saturday 20 September, 10am – 4pm
• Sunday 21 September, 10am – 4pm