Mike Laycock and family walked the cobbled streets of Victorian England at Abbey House Museum.

Museum. The very word, redolent of dusty, don't-touch displays inside glass cases, would once have brought howls of protests from children simply wanting to enjoy an afternoon out.

But let them run around cobbled streets, put old pennies in Victorian slot machines and try on historic costumes, and you'll find a very different reaction.

Those are just some of the child-friendly attractions at Abbey House Museum in Kirkstall, Leeds, which I visited with my family.

This building was originally the gatehouse for Kirkstall Abbey, an important Cistercian monastery. But it then became a private residence before opening as a museum in 1927 to "preserve and display the history of the people of Leeds." A lottery grant helped pay for a major refurbishment last year to improve the way items are displayed.

The centrepiece of Abbey House is a series of re-constructed Victorian streets, rather like Kirkgate at York's Castle Museum. There are the pawnbrokers, ironmongers, chemists, haberdasher and pub, called the Hark to Rover Inn, complete with Queen Vic bust on the bar. There's also a one-up, one-down artisan's cottage, dating from 1830, which was dismantled in the Beeston area of Leeds and re-built brick by brick at the museum.

Leeds has long been a centre for England's woollen industry, and the museum looks after a large collection of 18th-20th century costumes and textiles, some of which are on display.

But the most interesting part for my eight-year-old daughter was the Childhood Gallery, where toys and games from over the past two centuries are shown, from doll's houses and model railways to cradles and board games.

The best bit for her was trying on some Victorian clothing and a hat, and putting pennies in some very old slot machines (including a saucy What The Butler Saw type of machine, which evoked screams of laughter, and a gruesome depiction of a French guillotine in action, complete with chopped-off head). We felt the museum had been well worth a visit, particularly as a family ticket had cost us just £5 (why is it that Leeds can provide so many leisure attractions at such reasonable admission prices, when their equivalents in York cost so much?)

After visiting the museum, we crossed the busy main road to have a look around the ruins of the abbey. (Admission to this was completely free, although its dilapidation meant visitors could walk only around the perimeter for fear they might be hit by falling masonry).

The abbey, built between 1152 and 1182 by Cistercian monks, was one of the finest early monastic sites in Britain and remained a great abbey until Henry VIII closed it in 1539 and it fell into ruin. They present a distinctive but somewhat mournful picture today, blackened by the soot of Victorian and 20th-century Leeds, but it was worth a walk around the abbey grounds to go down to the banks of the River Aire, where the daffodils were in full bloom during our visit.

Fact file

Abbey House Museum, Abbey Walk, Kirkstall, Leeds.

Open Tuesday-Friday and Sunday 10am-4pm and Saturday noon-4pm.

Admission: adults £3, children £1. Family ticket: £5.

To get there: take A64 to Leeds, turn right on to outer ring road and follow around Leeds until A65, then drive into the city until you reach Abbey House.

Further information: 0113 230 5492.

Updated: 08:56 Saturday, May 04, 2002