A CELEBRATION of female achievement is set to take place at Muncaster Castle on Monday August 19.

Muncaster's newest exhibition "The Three Graces" opens next Monday until September 2 and there will be a grand unveiling on the castle grounds.

It explores the achievements of three "remarkable" Victorian women, the Sheridan Sisters. Thomas Sheridan and Caroline Henrietta Callander had three daughters who have been honoured by the exhibition for their "beauty, wit and accomplishments," Caroline, Helen and Jane Georgiana.

And the official opening will be accompanied by a tea party with Ross Belson, author of 'The Selected Letters of Caroline Norton'.

The exhibition includes songs and poems by Helen Sheridan, a dress worn by Georgiana Sheridan at the Eglinton Tournament. Celestina Mahovic is sewing a replica of Georgiana's Queen of Beauty dress for Isla Frost-Pennington, the daughter of current castle owner, Iona Frost-Pennington.

Caroline Sheridan, later Norton campaigned for women's legal rights despite the efforts of her abusive husband. Her successful challenging of inequality in law created a ripple effect through history.

Their mother Caroline Henriette Callander was herself a successful novelist, writing 'Carwell, or Crime and Sorrow' on unjust sentences being given for minor crimes.

The exhibition is a celebration of strong women, many of which can be found in the Frost-Pennington family tree, the castle's owners. The sisters' grandfather was Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a playwright who owned the London Theatre Royal for a time and he is five time great grandfather of Iona, the castle's current owner.

Entry to the exhibition is included with a General Muncaster Entry Ticket. Doors to the castle will be open at 10am for a ribbon cutting at 10:15.