EXTREME weather conditions have forced a North Yorkshire museum to postpone its new exhibition - due to a fear of soggy cigarettes.

Young curators at Malton School were only one week away from the opening day of their first exhibition in the Gallery at Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole.

But a severe damp problem caused by the heavy January rain sparked concern for the safety of some of the exhibits - including the centrepiece - Willy, a garden gnome covered in Malborough cigarettes.

Gallery manager Andy Dalton said: "The problem we have had is that the recent rainfall has got into the under floor heating and gradually seeped upwards, so that on Monday we came into work to find a wet floor.

"It's not the spectacular flash flooding that we had in July, but it's affecting the humidity of the room and with all our exhibits having an insurance value of more than £100,000, it's not a risk we wanted to take."

The exhibition, called Unit 5, had been put together by Year 10 and A-level pupils at Malton School, who selected the work from the Arts Council Collection.

Andy said: "This was going to be the first time we'd had artwork from a national collection. It was quite a coup for an independent, rural gallery like ours.

"I'm most disappointed for the students, because they were finally going to see the fruits of their labour.

"We gave them full control of the project and they did everything from selecting the content of the exhibition to managing the budget and designing the catalogue.

"The exhibits had arrived ready for the exhibition to open on January 29, but we've had to send them all back."

The exhibition, which will now start on July 5, includes five sculptures that may be seen as rebellious and forbidden.

The most valuable of the exhibits is the sculpture of the gnome in cigarettes by Sarah Lucas.

Lizzie Docherty, of the Arts Council Collection, said: "These pieces have not been shown together as a group before and the selection makes for a provocative exhibition not least because they will expose the audience to works dealing with issues more commonly linked to a large city than a rural beauty spot."


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