TREMADOG-BORN Lawrence of Arabia’s iconic relics have been saved after grant funding of over £100,000 was secured to buy the items.

Earlier this year, robes and a dagger worn by Thomas Edward (TE) Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, were at risk of being lost abroad.

Culture minister Ed Vaizey placed two separate temporary export bars on the items in a bid to keep the items in the UK.

The items have now been secured by The National Army Museum, thanks to two grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) totalling £113,400.

Lawrence, who was born in Tremadog in 1888, in a house named Gorphwysfa, now known as Snowdon Lodge, was given the dagger, known as jambiya, by Sherif Nasir in 1917 after the victory of the Arabs at Aqaba in modern-day Jordan.

It had been sold to an oversees buyer in 2015, but an export licence bar was made on the recommendation of the Reviewing Committee earlier this year.

The dagger was secured by the National Army Museum with a £78,400 grant from NHMF.

Both the robes and the kaffiyah have also been acquired by the museum following a further NHMF grant of £35,000.

Read the full story in this week’s Arfon/Dwyfor edition of the Cambrian News