MUCH of York's history is perfectly evident, from the fine buildings to the museum collections on show.

But much more is locked away in storerooms dotted about the city. If an ambitious new plan succeeds, all this hidden history will be put in one secure place.

Heritage partners including City of York Council, the National Railway Museum, York Archaeological Trust, English Heritage and York Minster are planning a new building, costing up to £20 million, which could house artefacts now kept in some 20 anonymous stores.

The benefits are clear and twofold.

Firstly, these unseen exhibits would be kept in one safe, modern space in the correct conditions for their preservation.

Secondly, and excitingly, this massive store would amount to a new museum, where items previously kept out of sight would be made accessible to the public.

The present stores are inadequate and in some cases unsuitable. This city's long and rich past is not safe in such conditions.

The new store would put that right, while allowing historians to have a clearer idea of what the stores contain. At present, no one can be sure how much of York's heritage is locked away for safe-keeping.

The new store would blow away the dust and find a proper home for artefacts which are, in a sense, the city's hidden attic, stuffed full of interesting objects from the past.

Just one of the Castle Museum's three stores, an anonymous warehouse near the city centre, contains all sorts of hidden gems. Chocolate eggs from the Thirties are stored near wooden flutes and recorders dating back to the 1700s; antique police truncheons jostle for space next to old cooking implements and ancient bicycles.

Much of this is the history of the everyday, the wonderful 'ordinary' history on which the Castle Museum was founded, thanks to the collection of Pickering GP Dr John Kirk.

And this one warehouse is just a snapshot - there is much more out there and it is right that a special place should be found for such a valuable collection.

Updated: 10:10 Monday, September 10, 2001