Visitors to Sunderland's museum and winter gardens will be able to see more than 100 paintings and drawings by the Lancashire artist.

BBC: Lowry's vision of the North East

The Beatles were back in town in November at Bournemouth's Winter Gardens.

BBC: Irene Draper with Beatles recording

For more than a moment on Monday, Blackpool's Winter Gardens looked more like the setting for Jurassic Park III than the Labour party conference.

BBC: 'Dinosaurs' savage New Labour

The Winter Gardens has hosted the annual British Homing World Show of the Year, dubbed the Crufts of the pigeon world, for the last 36 years.

BBC: Pigeon fanciers flock to the fair at Blackpool

Like many hotels and bed and breakfasts around the Winter Gardens, the Ruskin Hotel on Albert Road is packed with pigeon fanciers and their feathered friends.

BBC: Pigeon fanciers flock to the fair at Blackpool

But the latest, designed to regenerate the heart of Sheffield by building new squares, a gallery and winter gardens, is being financed largely by the private sector.

ECONOMIST: Local politics

Leisure Parcs, a company which owns many of the local attractions, including the famed tower and Winter Gardens, thinks the solution to Blackpool's problems is to turn it into Las Vegas.

ECONOMIST: Blackpool as Las Vegas

"If I could have held my own early on then I'd have stood a chance, but Phil is just incredible, " said the world number five after his crushing final defeat at the Winter Gardens.

BBC: Is Taylor the greatest sportsman ever?