LONG-LOST treasures owned by Lord Nelson, including the blood-stained silk purse he carried during the Battle of Trafalgar, fetched £2.1m at auction yesterday.

The purse, with its pear-shaped splodge of blood, sold at Sotheby's in London for £270,650 after surfacing among an impressive collection of mementoes in a North-East attic.

Nelson's scimitar, which reached £336,650 - or four-times the expected price - was passed to the naval hero's descendant, Alexander Davison, of Morpeth, Northumberland.

Both purse and scimitar were bought by unidentified private collectors and it was unclear whether they would remain in Britain.

The purse still contains the 21 English gold coins that Nelson placed in it on the day of his death in the midst of glorious victory on October 21, 1805, after a musket ball struck him in the chest.

The purse - the most intimate link with Nelson to have surfaced in modern times - has remained untouched by the Davison family.

The family, although aware that an ancestor was in some way connected to Nelson, had no idea of the significance or the value of the forgotten treasure.

The £2m archive - the finest to surface in more than a century - included revealing and previously unseen letters from Lady Nelson and the admiral's mistress, Lady Hamilton, as well as notes by Nelson.