Summers Place Auctions

The sale at garden statuary specialist Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst on March 24 (the day after lockdown) was among the first conducted under new government restrictions on social distancing.

Extinct for 65 million years, dinosaurs continue to rule the world of children visiting the National History Museum, of multi-million dollar movie makers – and of bidders at the Evolution Sales at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

Always popular items, a Georgian lead cistern offered at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) was also rare in being circular. Usually they are rectangular, having stood against a wall connected to downpipes.

In market terms, ecclesiastical gates are not the subject of mass appeal but examples by major 19th century designers certainly had their devotees at two June sales.

Illustrated here are some of the oldest lots ever auctioned – three in the Evolution Sale at on November 20 at Summers Place Auctions (25/20% buyer’s premium) of Billingshurst, West Sussex, and the other from Fonsie Mealy (23% buyer’s premium inc VAT) of Castlecomer, Ireland, in a sale held on the same day.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Coalbrookdale cast-iron furniture, subject to ebbs and flows of fashion, has dipped a little in recent years, but this c.1850 occasional table is a rarity. It was surely made for the conservatory rather than the garden.

Taxidermy, having emerged in a few years from a dusty, rather unseemly subject to a rostrum hot topic, continues to flourish across the country.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Whether you’re in the market for mammoths or missiles, for 10 years Summers Place Auctions has been a likely destination. In 2008 SPA held its first auction, having been formed the year before.

Henry Wynne (fl.1654-1709), master of the Clockmaker’s Company, produced the finest and largest double-horizontal sundials of the Restoration period.

With species extermination very much in the news following the death of the world’s last male northern white rhino, there was added poignancy to a cased and stuff bird offered at Summers Place Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).