Treasure trail leads to London as the jewels in our crown take a trip south

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All that's missing is a White Rose on the door.

York's most prized archaeological possessions stand proudly in a ground floor room of The British Museum. A whole section is taken up with exhibits transported from the Yorkshire Museum which has closed for a multi-million pound revamp.

A visitor wanders over enthused at having seen the Olduvai stone chopping tool, which, dating back some two million years, is the oldest object in the museum.

The stone, which featured in the second episode of Radio Four's A History of the World in 100 Objects, sits in the same room as the exhibits from the York museum and is a clear sign that the collection, having travelled down the M1, is not being treated as an afterthought, but occupies pride of place.

"It's wonderful that the exhibition is here in the front of the room, not tucked away at the back. It's the first thing that people see when they come in," says Janet Barnes, chief executive of York Museum Trust.

The British Museum attracts more than five million people through its doors every year. People come from all over the world to see its artefacts, and until now it has never shown the collection of another museum.

The current exhibition from Yorkshire, including the York Helmet, the Middleham Jewel and the Ormside Bowl, represents something of a coup for both museums and is the culmination of an informal link stretching back decades.

Experts at the British Museum often help when important archaeological discoveries are made in Yorkshire and last year the relationship was cemented when the two organisations worked together to help buy the Vale of York hoard.

The thousand-year-old chalice, full of silver coins and jewellery, was discovered in a remote field near Harrogate by father and son metal detector enthusiasts David and Andrew Whelan last August and has been since described as the most important Viking find for 170 years.

Having worked so closely on buying the hoard, when the Yorkshire Museum decided to close its doors for a major 2m refurbishment, instead of putting its artefacts in storage, it made sense to move them down to London and in the process hopefully attract a new audience.

"The museum's displays haven't changed for 30 years and our visitors were getting tired mentally going round the museum," says Andrew Morrison, curator of archaeology at York, who travelled to London to see the prize exhibits.

Back in Yorkshire, he has been leading the trust's refurbishment project, which instead of relying on Arts Council cash has been impressively self-funded through charitable donations, foundations and money from the city council.

"It's a very ambitious project and it's been an interesting experience. The museum is built on abbey ruins and when builders were excavating a drain, they discovered what could well be a medieval skeleton alongside some large fragments of Roman ceramics.

"In York, they say you can't dig anywhere without disturbing some ancient artefact and they're probably right."

The modernisation project began last year and Morrison says it is on track to reopen on Yorkshire Day, August 1. However, while the major works continue in York, 200 miles away, British Museum curators are making the most of having a new collection of objects to pore over.

"It really is a first for us here," says Jonathan Williams, who is head of the department of pre-history and Europe at the British Museum.

"It's the first time we've ever put together a show based around one of the great collections of England outside London. We borrow things and lend all the time, but we've never done this before. We have been so lucky to have our pick of a collection during the York

refurbishment. It's a huge thrill for us."

As excited as Williams might be to have the York collection, there is no denying that the exhibition is a huge boost for God's Own County. Having the name of Yorkshire seen by the millions who visit the British Museum is the kind of publicity and, as the marketing experts would call it, brand recognition, that could not really be paid for.

"For us to be able to say 'in partnership with the British Museum' is really quite a significant thing," says Barnes.

"The British Museum is a brand that people understand and the fact that they are willing for us to use their name shows they have a lot of trust in us and we can use it to raise our profile."

It's all well and good to allow the artefacts to travel out of the county to raise the profile, but does it really benefit Yorkshire audiences to have the collections in London?

Barnes is insistent that the benefits will be long term and manifold: "It means we develop new audiences. Millions of people visit the British Museum from all over the world, so if you think of it in terms of advertising Yorkshire to people, it is really quite something."

Williams believes that the benefit is not all one-way. Even though the British Museum's reputation is global, he says there is much to admire about and learn from Yorkshire.

"We realise more than we perhaps did before a generation or so ago that not all the great stuff is here in London," he says.

"Ten years ago, all institutions were much more stand-alone, but there has been something of a sea change. It's not because we thought the stuff from York wasn't good enough – we've always known how wonderful the Coppergate Helmet is – it's just that I'm not sure we would have known what to do with it.

"For our academics to get the chance to get their hands on the helmet, which everyone who studies that period knows about, is just amazing. Who wouldn't want to do that? It's every curator's dream.

"Our colleagues in Yorkshire realise it's good for them – but it's good for us, too," he says.

"This is stuff that would belong in any museum in the world. There are great things here from the York collection that we would love to have and any museum in the world would want to have. It's why we've given it such a prominent space in the gallery. It's quite easy to be generous when that's what you're getting."

When the collection comes home on August 1, expect lots of green-eyed curators waving a tearful farewell.

HERITAGE ON THE MOVE

The Middleham Jewel

Discovered in 1985, metal detector Ted Seaton originally thought he had found nothing more exciting than an old compact. However, when the object was cleaned, it turned out to be a gold pendant inset with a blue sapphire stone, dating back to 1460. Engraved on one side with a scene of the Holy Trinity, the Yorkshire Museum raised 2.5m to acquire the now world-famous jewel, which has been described as one of the most important pieces of English Gothic jewellery found in the last 100 years.

The York Helmet

This iron and brass helmet was found in 1982 during building work in York's Coppergate. The nose-piece is decorated with animals and the crest is engraved with a Latin inscription which translates as "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and God; and to all we say amen Oshere". The mid to late eighth-century helmet may well have belonged to a member of the Northumbrian royal family, the most

powerful dynasty in England at the time.

Ormside Bowl

The bowl was discovered in the churchyard of the Cumbrian village of Ormside in the early 19th-century. The site of an ancient Viking burial ground, the decorated bowl is one of the finest pieces of Anglian silversmithing found in England. Experts believe it was probably made in York before being seized by a Viking warrior.