ANYONE interested in local history, particularly Cornish history and the Cornish language, should make a beeline for Tavistock's Oxfam Bookshop.

The shop has received a large donation of books from Susan Johnson, a London photographer. The books belonged to her aunt, Miss F Audrey Hosier, an active local historian who at the age of 93 has moved to a residential home and needs to find a home for her extensive library.

Miss Hosier was born in Grampound, Cornwall. She taught in Plymouth and from 1970 she lived in Tavistock.

She wrote regular articles for 'Old Cornwall', the magazine of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, her contributions going back to the 1960s. Audrey Hosier was also a Cornish Bard, called 'Ponsmur', the old name for Grampound and meaning big bridge in Cornish, being awarded this honour in 1948.

Bardships are awarded the title by the Gorseth Kernow for 'meritorious work for Cornish culture'.

The donation is made up of some very rare and out of print books by such authors as Charles Henderson, A K Hamilton Jenkin and E F Halliday. There are books with beautiful colour facsimile maps from John Norden and a large number of past editions of the 'Old Cornwall' magazine.

The books went on sale yesterday (Wednesday).

The bookshop's Val Sharpe said: 'The donation is extremely generous, the books are so interesting, we have learnt a lot just by checking into them to assess their value and they are in such great condition.

'It seems Miss Hosier was a great amateur local historian and a lot of the books in the donation date from the 1950s and 1960s and are now out of print.

'We owe a great debt of thanks to Susan Johnson for bringing the books to us.'