A box of chocolate figurines given to a little girl as a Christmas gift more than a century ago were so precious to her that she kept them until her death.

The Edwardian gift, thought to date to between 1910 and 1914, was presented to Eileen Margaret Elmes when she was a little girl and will go under the hammer at auction.

Bought from Pascall’s Chocolates, a shop off Oxford Street in London, the ‘Little Red Riding Hood Pascall’s Chocolate Novelties’ contained four chocolate figures dressed in crepe paper outfits inside a decorative box.

Eileen, who died ten years ago aged 99, was besotted with the chocolates - including Little Red Riding Hood, wearing a cape and bonnet made from red crepe paper.