HAMPSHIRE archivists are sorting through tens of thousands of valuable historic documents that have arrived in Winchester after 60 years' exile in the US.

Among the vast collection at the Hampshire Record Office are more than 100 deeds dating back to the 13th century which shed light on local life in the Middle Ages.

For the historians at the record office, the sorting of the 15-20,000 documents, dating from the 13th-19th centuries, is thrilling.

Many of the medieval documents refer to the Tylney Estate at Rotherwick, near Basingstoke, and estates in Michelmersh, near Romsey, and Hinton Ampner, near Winchester.

The collection was sent to the US in mysterious circumstances in 1939, where it was held at the Library of Congress.

Caroline Edwards, a senior archivist, said: "It is always very exciting to find a collection of medieval documents. They are very rare. The more we have about any one place the deeper our knowledge will become. It may be these documents will fill gaps in the jigsaw.

"For me personally it is very exciting. I love the medieval deeds. The very clear writing in Latin is often about different fields that are probably still there," she said.

The collection is enormous, filling some 500 boxes. Record office staff are currently sorting the documents into county order and preparing to send many of the documents across Britain. The long task of cataloguing the information is also beginning.

The record office wants to encourage local people to let it know about caches of documents, particularly if they are in danger of being destroyed or lost.

It has applied for National Lottery funding to digitise its vast photographic collection and make it available over the Internet.