A MYSTERY benefactor has provided a sea port with hundreds of historic objects dating back to the days when its Anglo-Saxon abbey was built.

For the past 75 years, the rare collection of about 700 items relating to Whitby, North Yorkshire, has been preserved in the British Museum.

Now it is to be returned to Whitby Museum, thanks to an anonymous donation which has bought the collection for an undisclosed sum from the estate of the late Lucy Strickland, whose family are successors to the Cholmleys as Lords of the Manor of Whitby.

Roger Pickles the museum's joint keeper, said "These are very exciting times for the Whitby Museum, coming hard on the heels of the news that we have won our bid for Lottery funding for the proposed extension.

"Without this benefactor, the purchase of the collection would not have been possible".

While the sum paid was confidential, it was "substantial" he said.

The relics include inscribed stonework from Anglican crosses and tombs, coins, pottery, fragments of pottery, bookmarks, rings, jet and glass ornaments.

Many of the artecafts were excavated at the abbey in the 1920s said Mr Pickles.

Some of the items will be put on display at the new English Heritage visitor centre at Whitby due to open next Easter.

Other objects will be loaned out by the Whitby Museum to institutions including the British Museum and the Yorkshire Museum in York.