This is small but very nice gallery and art gift shop. There are lots of great pictures in here as…read morewell as prints and ceramics. They also have a continuous series of visual arty jokes - interative models that have a funny punchline when you turn the handle or slide the switch etc. Exceptionally nice people run this place too. It used to called Godfret and TWATT but the owners dropped the 't' in the name. It was just as good back then and had a humourous side too (I'd have given it 5 stars if it had still been called that!).

I'm going to get all Picasso on your mother now. Well not literally or else I'd probably be locked…read moreup for whopping off an ear or something. Hold on a minute was that Van Gough? Anyway, culture vultures pay attention. Let's do the Mercer Art gallery. With such a fine history and elegant buildings, Harrogate is indeed the place to go for some visual delights. The Mercer Art gallery taps into that. It is the home of some 2000 works of art, mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries. The collection includes works by William Powell Frith, Atkinson Grimshaw, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Dame Laura Knight and Alan Davie. It's an excellent space and has so much to look at. What's more, they do change the exhibitions quite regularly so it's a place you can go back to again and again. It won't be to everyone's tastes though. There isn't much in the way of Andy Warhol or Dali type paintings; it's more traditional than that. Less Pop Art and more portraits. I must confess you are more likely to find me being blown away by some Surrealism or contemporary sculptures but as someone who struggles to draw match stick men I can't help but marvel in the talents of these painters.