THE Museum of Dartmoor Life has received a rare donation.

The museum last Friday was presented with a collection of vintage horse tack and artefacts, including a set of wooden hames bought in Okehampton, by Tony and Irene Betts.

Mr and Mrs Betts had the collection, which also includes a hunting horn, on display at their home in Hampshire.

Following the death of Mr Betts' friend, Colin Tancock, Mr and Mrs Betts decided to make the donation to the museum in his memory — Mr Tancock ran a guest house in Okehampton for almost 40 years with his wife, Sheila, and became friends with Mr Betts during their time together in the Royal Air Force.

Mr Betts said: 'Irene and I love the countryside and especially horses. We remember when they were in use on farms and in town, so we collected items over the years, many of them from Devon.

'We loved to call in at Tommy Trott's harness shop on Fore Street and chat about the old days, and we bought several items from him, including the wooden hames. The brass hames came from Okehampton too.

'When Colin died, we wanted to do something to commemorate his life, and after talking with the family and with museum curator Maurie Webber, we decided that donating our collection to the museum was the most appropriate thing we could do.

'We feel sure Colin would have been delighted.'

The display was set up by family friend Brian Courtier, and the display notice was made by Tancock family relation David Ware.