A COLLECTION of letters and papers of major historical importance has been donated to the Lancashire Record Office.

The collection incudes personal correspondence between 1850 and 1861 from acclaimed 19th Century authors Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Bronte to Lady Anne Elizabeth Kay Shuttleworth, who lived at Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote "Wives and Daughters," currently the subject of a blockbuster BBC costume drama starring Francesca Annis.

The collection has been donated to the Lancashire Record Office by the current Lord Shuttleworth.

It also includes estate records from Gawthorpe Hall from the 13th Century and papers relating to East Lancashire's coal mining industry in the 1800s.

Assistant county archivist Jacquie Crosby said the collection was a "very exciting deposit."

"We have a lot of treasures relating to life in Lancashire, but the letters from Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Bronte are particularly exciting and of major national interest," she said.

The collection is to be permanently displayed to the public at the Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston.

The office is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9am to 5pm, Tuesdays from 9am to 8.30pm and Fridays from 9am to 4pm.

Anyone interesting in viewing the collection should note the record office closes the first full week of every month.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.