The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) has awarded grants totalling over £850,000 to help save items from the Cassel Silver collection which experts have praised as one of the most important additions to the nation’s silver collection.

Six UK museums – The Ashmolean Museum, The British Museum, The Geffrye Museum, The Museum of London, The Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Museums and Galleries, Wales – purchased eight items using the grants, alongside their own funds.

A further three museums acquiring four items without grants from NHMF. The entire collection was valued at £5m but acquired for £1,687,916 with the aid of tax exemptions.

The pieces were first put together by Sir Ernest Cassel, but it was his granddaughter, Lady Pamela Hicks, who has sold the collection.

In addition to NHMF funding, a further major grant of £404,445 also came from the independent charity the National Art Collections Fund.

Culture minister David Lammy said: “The National Heritage Memorial Fund has done a fantastic job of saving some of our very best heritage over the last 25 years. It is particularly fitting to celebrate this legacy in the year of our sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II.” Details: www.nhmf.org.uk