Mansfield Museum is offering a free exotic taste of the seaside from Saturday, 9th July to Saturday, 3rd September.

This year it has been exploring ways of deploying items from collections normally kept in storage.

Since Christmas it has filled the Baily Gallery with Mansfield Museum in 389¼ Objects.

The choice of objects for that exhibition was influenced by requests from older visitors wanting to re-acquaint themselves with items remembered from the museum as it was years ago.

As an extension of that idea it is to display the remainder of its tropical bird collection in Castaway Cove.

A spokesman said: “Rather than place them in a traditional display like ‘Objects’, however, we thought something more whimsical might set them off more strikingly.

“Hence Castaway Cove which, in this year of the Rio Olympics, might allow our visitors to indulge in a little armchair travelling and capture a tiny bit of the tropical spirit.

“So it’s off to the South Seas for a desert island chill-out complete with pirates, parrots and sand. Lots of sand…

“Besides opportunities for sandcastle building, Castaway Cove is supported by a full programme of tropically-themed events, from a Pirate Week to a Rio-style carnival.

“Once the school holidays begin, each day will have its own simple craft activity, allowing your little and not-so-little ones to make and take anything from a crafty crab to a beach-in-a-bottle.”

For more information go to www.mansfield.gov.uk/museum for a full list of activites.