William Heath Robinson, Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, near Helmsley, until August 29

IMAGINE a world run by William Heath Robinson rather than Donald Trump and Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Ken Livingstone.

Heath Robinson, book illustrator and gadget king, 1872-1944, would have an ingenious answer to London's traffic jams and it would not be a congestion charge. Instead he would invent a solution guaranteed to have you smiling all the way to work on a madcap contraption.

Nunnington Hall's exclusive exhibition of works by this beloved 20th century London illustrator has many an example of his inspired lunacy in his How To...series.

Head towards the upper floors and the sound of laughter can be heard, not a ghost of the Clive family's past in the hall but the contented running commentary of exhibition visitors delighting in Heath Robinson's remedies to all manner of problems.

The exhibition poster, shown below, is a typical example. In the march of a cramped urban world of high-rise flats he envisions ways to continue those great British sporting pursuits of golf, fishing, tennis, butterfly hunting and, most important of all, afternoon tea. Part of the joy with this detailed work is noting the concentration on each resolute face; part of it too is discovering another reason to smile each time you return to the illustration.

If you think you know Heath Robinson's work - and judging by the heavy exhibition traffic on a wretched Thursday afternoon, many do - the chances are you will be surprised by the breadth of his craft. He was an advertising artist, a serious magazine and book illustrator (for adults and children), and a cartoonist whose wit could be gentle yet waspish too, not least in his wartime work.

His solutions may be humorous, whether problems are large (crowded modern living) or small (a man irons his trousers with a lawn roller), but that humour is rooted in a wish for improvement, for a better world.

If you need an answer to How To Enjoy A Blissful Hour, see this show.

William Heath Robinson, Nunnington Hall, Nunnington, near Helmsley, until August 29. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 1.30pm to 5pm. All work is for sale, prices from £500 to £22,500.

Updated: 16:34 Friday, July 29, 2005