ONE of the region’s leading attractions has closed its doors to the public - for work to begin on a £2m transformation.

The interior of the Yorkshire Museum in York will be totally changed during the project.

And if all goes according to plan the museum will re-open next year on August 1 - Yorkshire Day.

Then the museum will have three brand new galleries, a learning level and an audio visual History of York in the Tempest Anderson Hall.

The refurbishment will completely change the current interior, with walls being removed and blocked up windows once again bringing light into the museum.

The new galleries will represent the museum’s internationally important Roman, medieval and natural history collections.

The natural history gallery will be entitled Extinct and take visitors on an adventure through hundreds of millions of years of life and death on earth.

Highlights from the gallery will be the chance to walk in dinosaurs’ footprints, the museum’s six foot skeleton of the giant extinct bird called a Moa and a 30ft skeleton of an ichthyosaur – the biggest in the country.

Hundreds of the museum’s star objects are now being transferred to the York Museums Trust stores.