Royal stockings to be auctioned

Queen Victoria is believed to have worn the stockings in the 1870s

A pair of Queen Victoria's stockings are to go under the hammer, an auction house has revealed.

The rare stockings were discovered after auctioneer Charles Hanson sold a pair of Queen Victoria's bloomers for £4,500 in July.

Mary Youings, 82, a former teacher from Ripley, Derbyshire, inherited the black-and-white stockings from her mother.

The stockings are expected to fetch £200 when they are sold on 3 September.

Mrs Youings said: "Quite how the stockings came to rest in my family in the early years of the last century we do not know.

"But it is likely they came from the Marr or Harland family in north Yorkshire and were given to my mother in around 1910."

Hanson's Auctioneers believe the quality of the hand stitching, the black-and-white, two-tone silk finish and the fact that they include the Royal crest, would mean they were worn by Queen Victoria in the 1870s.