CUMBRIA’S troubled relationship with water will be the focus of an art installation on the shores of Windermere this spring.

Wray Castle, near Ambleside, is to host the internationally acclaimed Museum of Water by Amy Sharrocks on May 6.

It is a collection of more than 700 bottles of water donated by people across the world who answered the artist’s call to provide a sample of water that had a particular resonance with their own lives.

The museum is a live artwork and visitors will be taken on a guided tour around the collection and encouraged to interact with, and explore the stories behind, the bottles. They include water from a holy river in India, 129,000-year-old water from the Antarctic, a new-born baby’s bath water, tears of grief, tears of joy, three types of wee and many more.

The exhibition will run for three days in Wray Castle’s historic boathouse, which is usually closed to the public but is being opened specially by The National Trust to host the event.

The Museum of Water event is part of the Lakes Culture's spring arts programme Lakes Ignite, which last year saw a paper bridge installed in the Grisedale Valley at Patterdale.

As part of the exhibition, Cumbrians are being asked to contribute a brand new bottle to the collection in answer to the question - What water would you bring?

The idea comes in the wake of the devastation caused to the county by Storm Desmond in December and is being seen as a way of reflecting on the floods but also as a way for people to move on from the flooding which caused widespread damage and misery to tens of thousands of people.

One bottle will be chosen by Amy as the last UK donation to be added to the collection.

The museum’s appearance at Wray has been commissioned by Kendal’s Brewery Arts Centre and chief executive Richard Foster said the event would be a powerful and cathartic look back on the Cumbrian floods. He added: "Water is inextricably linked to life in Cumbria. It is the lifeblood of the Lake District and one of the main reasons millions of people come here from all over the world, however our relationship with water has in recent years often been a troubled one.

“We are delighted to attract the museum to the Lake District. It offers a challenging, yet inspiring, look at the way we are connected to and affected by water and this is a unique invitation to ponder our precious liquid and how we use it.”

Amy Sharrocks began collecting bottles for the museum in 2013; it has been nominated for this year’s prestigious European Museum of the Year Award.