Museum steps in as Wallace and Gromit mania grips Preston

A museum has been forced to restrict access to a Wallace and Gromit exhibition after visitors were left queuing for hours due to a surge in popularity over the Christmas holidays.

Queues of hundreds have been forming outside the Harris Museum in Preston, Lancashire, for a chance to see original sets and models from the animated stop-motion franchise by Aardman Animations.

The recent boom in visitor numbers led the museum to stop anyone joining the lines from 13:00 GMT each day until the exhibition shuts on Sunday.

Morgan Clossick, who works at the museum, said the unprecedented demand had “just carried on each day, it’s brilliant”.

The Harris Museum was itself reopened by Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park in his hometown earlier this year.

Storyboards, sketches from Aardman’s archives and workshops are on display in the “A Case at the Museum” exhibition, which will move on to London after 4 January.

Mr Clossick said he thought the surge in demand was caused by people looking for a fun distraction over the Christmas break.

He said the first queues began to form on Monday.

He said it was “a bit of a shock walking out the door” to see the queues first amassing.

“I think it’s just the snowball effect of people saying ‘oh let’s go and have a look’, and then we’ve had multiple days where people have been like ‘we didn’t expect a queue like this’.

“Everyone’s in good spirits and everyone’s just waiting their turn at this point.”