PREHISTORIC fossils and Stone Age relics have been handed into a hospice which is hoping to donate them to a school.

A bag containing about 50 fossils and stones were anonymously donated to St Helena Hospice, in Dovercourt, by a resident.

Volunteer Brenda Dierkx, 68, wanted to discover more about the donation and asked her manager if she could take the pieces home for her husband Jacob, 71, to inspect.

Brenda, who lives in Dovercourt, said: "When I brought them home to my husband, who is interested in history, he thought we had some little treasures amongst the fossils and stones.

"I contacted the manager of the hospice and took them all up to Colchester Castle Museum where a fossilist looked them over."

The fossilits told Brenda the pieces from the donation included ammonites which lived in the seas between 240 and 65 million years ago, when they became extinct along with the dinosaurs.

Teeth of the extinct prehistoric giant shark - called a Megalodon - were also in the donation.

Stone Age arrow heads and rocks used as tools from the period.

Brenda said: "I couldn't believe what the fossilist was telling me and was so interested.

"There are about 50 pieces and there has even been a rock the fossilist does not know about which he thought could be from outer space."

Brenda had to take the relics back home as she did not have a licence to sell them.

She said: "As I could not sell them I thought I could donate them to a school."

Brenda's granddaughter Rebecca, who is a teaching assistant at Spring Meadow Primary School, in Dovercourt, said she would like to have the fossils at the school to teach her students.

"If school cant have them then we will keep the fossils in the shop for customers to look at," she added.