GWENT Police have been digging up some old classics ahead of the Antiques Roadshow visit to Newport this weekend.

A 'tipstaff' from the reign of William the fourth and a decorative Victorian truncheon are just two of the items the force will be submitting for valuation at the BBC show's visit to Tredegar Park tomorrow (Sun).

CSO Caroline Doidge, and colleagues from the Pill neighbourhood policing team, will also be at the roadshow with a special 'vintage' police tent.

CSO Doidge said: “The antique truncheons have been on display for some time at police headquarters in Cwmbran, but we’d like to know a bit more about their history. We know the tipstaff was used to knock on people’s doors to demand taxes, which was part of the job years ago.”

PC Mark Jones, who will also be on the stand, said: “We’re also taking an old police lamp from the Rhymney valley, and a century old leather and cork truncheon which has just been donated to the force by the descendants of PC Walter Cornelius Flory, who was born in 1885 and died in 1959.

“We believe Walter served in Risca but we’d like to know more about him, as we would other officers who died during the First World War, because it is the centenary of the start of the Great War in August.”