Permanent King Richard III avatar goes on display

An exhibition has been in place temporarily in York since 2024

A permanent exhibition showing a state-of-the-art avatar of King Richard III has opened in Leicester.

The display, which features a digital image of the medieval king speaking in a Yorkshire accent, opened at the King Richard III Visitor Centre on Sunday.

Richard ruled England from 1483 until he died at the age of 32 at the Battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire.

The remains of the king were discovered under a council-run car park at Greyfriars in the city, 527 years after his death.

The avatar has been created by experts from the Face Lab team at Liverpool John Moores University following a decade of research.

A sister avatar has been on display in York, but a second will now be a permanent feature at the Leicester museum.

Vocal coach Yvonne Morley-Chisholm, who has organised the project, said the new avatar would recite the personal prayer of Richard III from The Book of Hours.

She said he used the prayer as relief from afflictions, temptations, grief and sickness.

The speech will be different from the one spoken by Richard in York, which was more upbeat, she said.

"The project has achieved more than I ever dared to imagine it could," Ms Morley-Chisholm said.

"Experts from a range of fields including craniofacial reconstruction, forensic psychological profiling, dentistry, physiotherapy, ethology, genetics, research-based history, have worked in this pioneering collaboration.

"We bring a long-dead king back to a kind of 'life' and learn more about him as we do so.

"With state-of-the-art motion-capture technology, CGI animation and the like, I hope that - for those who find history a little dull - this 'cool' project can spark their interest."

The University of Leicester confirmed remains found under a city car park were those of Richard III

Ms Morley-Chisholm said the team had "personalised and refined" the avatar that would be displayed in Leicester.

Unlike the York exhibition, the Richard avatar will not wear a crown, which meant researchers had to find images so they could accurately recreate the shape of his head.

His voice has again been recorded by West End actor, Thomas Dennis.

Philippa Langley, who helped find Richard III's remains under the car park in 2012, said she was "honoured" to be involved with the project.

"To help bring Richard to life, research into his character focused on contemporary descriptions from his own lifetime," she said.

"These included private letters and a diary.

"The results corresponded directly with similar public descriptions offering a probability bordering on certainty of his recognised character from his lifetime."