Big movie glamour at Harrogate museums for Christmas

Helena Bonham Carter in the Oscar-winning The King's Speech, part of the Wonderful Women costume exhibition at Harrogate's Royal Pump Room Museum.

As well as Christmas crafts to make and take home, there’s a special Christmas trail for children at each venue.

And fans of famous movies and their glamorous costumes are tailored to by a show called Wonderful Women.

This mini exhibition at the Royal Pump Room Museum at Crown Place showcases stunning outfits from films and television productions including Helena Bonham-Carter’s dresses from The King’s Speech and items from Becoming Jane starring Anne Hathaway and Maggie Smith and The Hours starring Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep.

The museum also features stories of Harrogate people and a chance to step back to Ancient Egypt with dressing up costumes and discovery drawers.

Across the road at the Mercer Gallery at Swan Road, Yorkshire artist Sonia Lawson’s big, bright and colourful paintings are on display alongside works by one of Britain’s best loved artists, Sir Peter Blake, famed for his Sgt Peppers album sleeve for The Beatles.

His exhibition of prints and drawings are all inspired by Dylan Thomas’ famous play for voices Under Milk Wood.

Mercer Gallery, Harrogate: current exhibitions

Sonia Lawson RA: Paintings, Passions and Alarms

This major retrospective of paintings by the distinguished Yorkshire woman artist brings together paintings from the 1960’s to the present.

The exhibition runs at Mercer Gallery in Harrogate until February 7.

Sir Peter Blake: Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.

A collection of watercolours, prints and drawings inspired by Dylan Thomas’s ‘play for voices.

The exhibition runs until January 31, 2016.

Diane Saxon, Harrogate Borough Council’s Audience Development Officer for the Royal Pump Room Museum and Mercer Gallery, said: “Our museums are exciting, magical places at Christmas time and are a great source of fun and learning for all ages and all interests.”

Children are catered for, in particular, at the Royal Pump Room Museum where visitors are invited to seek out all the items on Santa’s list.

At the Mercer Gallery the trail involves the challenge of finding all the letters near the pictures and putting them together to spell a Christmas animal.

Entry to the Royal Pump Room Museum on Monday, December 28 and Tuesday, December 29 will cost just £1.