PERSONAL photographs, sketches and jottings charting a century in the history of a stately home have gone on show.

Between the Covers - 100 years of Kiplin Family Scrapbooks looks at the stories of some of the people who lived and worked in Kiplin Hall, near Scorton, North Yorkshire.

The house was built in the 1620s for George Calvert, Secretary of State to James I, later the first Lord Baltimore who founded Maryland in the US.

It has been owned by four families, the Calverts, Crowes, Carpenters and Talbots, and houses artefacts including the library chair from Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory.

The new exhibition contains many of the 70 scrapbooks created by the owners of Kiplin Hall and their extended families.

The books feature details of the hall's heyday during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, its decline when it was used as a billet for RAF officers during the Second World War and its narrow escape from demolition in the 1950s.

The albums are studded with photographs and invitations which show how people spent their days and the circles in which they moved.

Hosts and their guests went riding, hunting, shooting, boating and fishing, then returned for tea in the garden and a game of tennis or croquet.

Kiplin Hall's curator, Dawn Webster, put together the exhibition along with a small group of helpers.

She will give a talk in the hall's library at 7.30pm on Thursday, April 26. Tickets are available by calling 01748-818178.

Kiplin Hall is open between Sunday and Wednesday, from 2pm to 5pm, until the end of September.