Museum staff will painstakingly examine a thousand items from its clothing and textile collections after an infestation of moths.

Horsham Museum employees discovered the insects had completely eaten their way through two fur stoles and an ermin dating back to the Twenties and Thirties, which had been stored out of sight in boxes.

Other items in the extensive fabric collections, built up over 100 years, such as an 18th Century Tudor linen nightcap, 1860s corsets, 1870s ball gowns and Twenties clothes, could also have been struck by the moths.

Over the next few weeks every single item from the 1,000-strong clothing and textiles collections will be examined in the museum's education room.

Curator Jeremy Knight explained moths lay eggs in dark recesses and the pupae feast on stale sweat, which can still be found on clothes even if they have not been worn for hundreds of years.

He said: "The moth likes eating protein from fibres such as silk, fur and cotton.

"They also like eating protein from human perspiration.

"We can't use biological cleaners on our textiles, so they can't be 100 per cent clean and there will always be a residue of perspiration."

As each item is reviewed the moths will be removed by hand while gentle vacuum cleaners will suck out the eggs from the discarded casings.

Moths multiply rapidly. While they can be killed by chemicals, this can be more harmful to the fabric than the creature itself.

In the past, museums have used moth balls to keep infestation at bay but conservators today fear these may also cause more damage to fine silks, wool and furs than the moths themselves.

Modern practice is for any infested costume or textile to be kept isolated for up to a month to stop the moths from reappearing.

Highly infected items will be starved of oxygen for five days.

The moth infestation will give the museum a chance to repack clothing with new techniques that have been developed in recent years.

Visitors will be able to see the ongoing work in the education room which has been laid up with operating tables and other equipment such as gloves.

The museum's temporary exhibitions, including one on Horsham's Victorian dinosaur hunter George Bax Holmes from July 17, will still go ahead.