[1] The use of the building as a corn exchange declined significantly in the wake of the Great Depression of British Agriculture in the late 19th century.

[8] A major feature is several galleries where actual artefacts (found in the region) are displayed in tableaux showing life in a particular time, and includes up to full-size rooms or buildings.

[9][10] Visitors enter to see a giant woolly mammoth with other extinct animals from the region and some interactive displays including fossils which can be touched.

A humorous feature is the Latin graffiti Romani ite domum ("Romans go home") on the wall of a building.

[18] The museum displays a number of mosaics which were found at the sites of Roman villas at Rudston, Brantingham and Harpham in the East Riding, and at Horkstow in north Lincolnshire.

[19] These depict life in East Yorkshire from the end of Roman occupation (AD 410) to the outbreak of the English Civil War including the Saxons, the Vikings and Mediaeval Hull.