Easter eggs uneaten for 90 years go on display at York museum

Collections Facilitator at York Museums Faye Prior holds a wrapped Terry's chocolate Easter egg, believed to be more than 90 years old and one of the oldest wrapped Easter eggs in the world, at York Castle Museum in York.

The seasonal treats, one a Terry’s chocolate egg and the other a Rowntree’s egg, have both been left uneaten for more than 90 years and are on show at York Castle Museum.

The Terry’s egg was donated to the museum after the boy it was intended for sadly died before Easter arrived in the 1920s and the Rowntree’s egg was bought by a 14-year-old boy for his mother in 1926 who kept it as a keepsake.

Katie Brown, assistant curator at York Castle Museum, said: “At over 90 years old these eggs are extremely rare.

“They are also in incredible condition, with the chocolate amazingly left untouched for decades.

“The Terry’s egg has an incredibly sad story about how it came to be in our collections– the short note which accompanied it simply says the boy who owned the egg had passed away.

“Unfortunately we aren’t able to say who he was and where he lived and this information is probably lost forever.”

The Rowntree’s egg has just been donated to York Castle Museum by Jacqueline Harvey, from Amersham, Buckinghamshire. It was given by her father, Geoff Walker, when he was 14 to his mother as a present in 1926 when they lived in Holloway, London. He had bought it for 2/6d. Mrs Harvey said: “I don’t know why my grandmother did not eat it at the time but I am just so pleased that she didn’t! I am planning to come to York and I am looking forward to seeing the egg on display.”