Yorkshire have been handed an early Christmas present in the form of a priceless collection of memorabilia belonging to the late great Wilfred Rhodes.

It has been donated to the club by Rhodes’ granddaughter, Margaret Garton, who is the sole surviving member of the family.

The collection has been described by an expert as “the crème de la crème of cricketing memorabilia”, and will no doubt take pride of place in the club’s new £300,000 museum, due to open in March.

It includes a large leather casket, shaped like a cricket ball, which was presented to the all-rounder by Lord Hawke, who was the county’s president at the time, when he retired from first class cricket at the Scarborough Jubilee Festival in 1930.

Filled with chocolates at the time, it was handed over on behalf of Rowntrees of York in appreciation of his great career.

Also preserved is the newspaper cutting and photograph of the event, which appeared in the York Evening Press on Saturday, September 13, 1930.

There are 293 items in all, including an autograph album with signatures from 45 Test and county teams the White Rose legend played against.

Ron Deaton, a Yorkshire member and memorabilia specialist, has prepared the items for the club’s archives committee.

He said: “I have never seen anything like this before, it is just a dream. It is an honour and a privilege to have spent six weeks sifting through it all, and it must be one of the most wonderful collections in existence.

“There are thousands of pieces of paper in all, and every item is an absolute treasure. For me, it is like looking at the crown jewels.

“The cricket loving community throughout the world will be fascinated by this collection, as will all Yorkshire members and fans. It is the crème-de-la-crème of cricketing memorabilia from the greatest Yorkshire cricketer of the 20th century.”

Rhodes played between 1898 and 1932, and remains the club’s leading wicket-taker with 3,598 victims.

The Huddersfield-born player started his career as a number 11 batsman, but worked his way up the order to face the new ball. He is still the club’s fifth leading run-scorer with 31,075 and 46 hundreds to his name.

Rhodes, who died at the age 95 and 252 days in July, 1973, played 58 Test matches for England. He took 127 wickets with his left arm spin, also scoring 2,325 runs.

Other items in the collection include five cricket balls significant to some of his most noteworthy achievements in the game.

They were the balls in use for his 100th Test wicket at Adelaide in 1922, his first-wicket record Test stand of 221 with Jack Hobbs at Cape Town in 1910, his hat-trick for Yorkshire against Derbyshire at Derby in 1920, his wicket with his very first delivery on England’s tour of Australia in 1903 – and his career-best figures of 18.4-10-24-9 for C I Thornton’s XI against The Australians at Scarborough in 1899.

There is also a photo album with snaps taken by Rhodes – who loved photography – during his career, some of which were captured in India in the 1920s.

Deaton added: “One of Wilfred’s great hobbies was photography. When he was married, he converted an attic into a photographic studio at his home in Huddersfield. This is where he would have developed all of the photographs he took.”

Garton, the donator, currently lives in Dorset.

David Allan, the chairman of Yorkshire’s archives committee, added: “We are extremely grateful for her generosity in letting us have this marvellous collection.”