A HUGE collection of women’s fashion from the 1960s and 1970s is to be exhibited in early May in North Yorkshire, prior to a sale, and the organisers are seeking local fashion stories and photographs.

The exhibition at Tennants saleroom in Leyburn includes more than 1,000 pieces that have been collected by an 85-year-old great-great-grandmother from Lincolnshire, Audrey Watson, who admits that she was a fashion addict. Together they show the evolution of fashion in the 1960s and 1970s, from miniskirts and psychedelic prints, with their garish colours and headache-inducing swirls, to the swashbuckling jumpsuits and flares of the glam rock era.

As well as the clothes, the exhibition will have memorabilia from the auction house’s other departments, including a Penny Mini – a mini covered in pennies to celebrate the success of The Beatles 1967 hit, Penny Lane.

To give the exhibition, entitled The Fashion Revolution: Vintage Fashion and Design from the 60s and 70s, a local feel, the organisers are appealing to all 1960s chicks and 1970s rockers to send them photographs and memories about what North Yorkshire was wearing when London was swinging.

If you have anything that might be appropriate, email harriet.hunter-smart@tennants-ltd.co.uk or call on 01969-623780.

The free exhibition, with a suitable soundtrack, runs from May 2 to May 8, 9am to 5pm, with the sale on May 9.

LAST year, archaeologists, local people, American students and 225 schoolchildren crawled all over the grounds of Kiplin Hall, between Scorton and Northallerton.

The 1,001 items that they found form a new exhibition which opens this Easter weekend.

Kiplin is a grand, and curious, country home which George Calvert began building as a hunting lodge in the 1620s. His family hailed from the area, but he had risen to become James I’s Secretary of State. James rewarded his service by making him Lord Baltimore, and then he sailed to North America to found the state of Maryland.

Kiplin, though, was occupied for centuries before the Calverts – indeed, the name of the exhibition is Charting Chipeling, as the area is referred to as “Chipeling” in the Domesday Book of 1086.

The Heritage Lottery funded archaeology project found objects on the site spanning 12,000 years, from Mesolithic stone tools to a 1930s carburettor cap from Morris car.

The project also discovered two roads on the site, which show how the hall grew and how its occupants grew to love their privacy, and routed the medieval road away from their front door. Now, the B6271 runs straight and true a safe distance from the property, which his hidden behind stone walls.

One of the stars of the new exhibition is a gold torque bracelet which was found in the Kiplin grounds in the 19th Century but which has recently been dated by the British Museum to the late Bronze Age (roughly 1,000 years before the birth of Christ). The bracelet has been controversial because it was given/loaned to Richmond council in 1965 by the last private owner of the hall at a time when the hall’s future was in doubt. It has since been worn by the Richmond mayor.

Happily, the dispute about whether it was given or loaned has now been resolved, with the original returning to the hall for the exhibition and the mayor wearing a replica.

Charting Chipeling: 1,001 Finds is open today (APRIL 4) from 2pm to 5pm and then every Sunday to Wednesday at the same times until October 28. It is included in the admission to the hall and gardens, which is £8.30 for adults, £7.30 concessions, £4.30 child and £24.50 family.

MANY thanks to everyone who got in touch following last week’s Memories – more on subjects including Arnold Cockburn’s coaches in future weeks. Many people spotted the deliberate, ahem, mistake. The newly-opened cinema on Darlington’s Northgate in March 1938 was the Regal whereas the Regent was in Cobden Street nearly a mile away, as any fool knows.