The famous Cottingley Fairies photographs and cameras are set to go on show in the village where the legend was created, the Telegraph & Argus can reveal.

The items will return to Bradford by the end of this month and there are already plans to display them in Cottingley in September.

They will be handed over during the Festival launch ceremony in Centenary Square at 12.15pm on Friday, June 26 to Lord Mayor of Bradford Coun Tony Miller and the head of the National Museum of Film, Photography and Television, Amanda Neville. Coun Miller said: "I was very apprehensive when it seemed they might be going out of the country. They are part of our history and I am very pleased they are going to be at home in Bradford where they belong. I will be looking forward very much to the day - and hopefully I will start seeing them at the bottom of my back garden!"

It is due to the Telegraph & Argus and Amateur Photographer magazine that the cameras are finally coming back. Together we launched an appeal fund in February on the eve of the premiere of the movie Fairytale - A True Story, based on the Cottingley legend, to save them from going abroad.

Geoffrey Crawley, the Southend collector selling the items, had intended to dispose of them at auction but he agreed to sell them to our fund which raised £14,000. This was despite a much higher bid by actor Mel Gibson whose company had made Fairytale.

Ms Neville said: "It's wonderful news that the cameras are finally coming home and we have this wonderful opportunity to thank everyone in Bradford and beyond who have done so much to make this magical moment possible.''

In addition to the lunchtime ceremony the museum has arranged a special free screening of Fairytale at 4pm in the NMPFT's Pictureville Cinema. The cameras and associated memorabilia will go on temporary display there until the museum reopens next spring.

The collection comprises six photographs of the fairies; watercolours of them by Elsie Wright, one of the two little girls who started the legend; a letter written by Elsie admitting the hoax; the two cameras used by Elsie and Frances Griffiths; a first edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1922 book The Coming of the Fairies in which he argued they were real; and Mr Crawley's complete Cottingley Fairies archives, including all the articles he has written about the hoax.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.