Cumbria

Books, catalogues, ephemera, pictures and other material from the collections of the Shorthorn Society of the United Kingdom & Ireland formed a significant part of a recent Carlisle sale.

Maud O’Reilly (1886-1971), a key figure in Queensland’s Arts & Crafts movement and a student of the LJ Harvey school, showed her pottery at a number of British exhibitions in the mid 1920s.

An historic archive belonging to the engineer who oversaw the design of the Mulberry Harbours in the Second World War comes to auction in Cumbria later this month.

Battered and dust-engrained when found in a basement during a Lake District house clearance, an early unsigned brass lantern clock generated great excitement at Penrith Farmers’ & Kidd’s (18% buyer’s premium).

Frankly catalogued as in need of restoration and ‘sold as seen’, a late-17th century walnut and marquetry chest had the inherent quality to attract phone and internet bidders from across the UK to the Carlisle rooms of Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Comics played a significant part in a recent held by Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) of Cockermouth, undoubtedly helped by the presence of some 30,000 Marvel comics from one private collection.

Modestly estimated at just £100-150 in a recent Carlisle sale, an 18th century manuscript notebook offering ‘An Account of the Improvements in the Gardens & Park at Cannonhall’ proved a major attraction.

A harbour view of Maryport in Cumbria by Victorian artist William Mitchell (1806-1900) topped the lots at local saleroom Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium).

Linda and Stephen Marsh, trading as Marsh Vintage Salvage, are among the dealers at Fairfield House Antiques Centre in Cockermouth in the Lake District.

Originally medieval drinking vessels, wassail bowls became highly decorative status symbols by the 19th century as this large silver-mounted walnut example shows.

Focus on two shops launched in a former bank in Wiltshire and restaurant in Cumbria

Although the Hugo Lonitz factory produced a range of domestic tablewares and small collectables, it is best known for its naturalistic majolica groups, particularly animal and bird examples modelled in lifelike size and detail.

This rare oak Slazenger tennis racket press featured in the Vintage & Antique toy sale at Mitchells (20% buyer’s premimum) of Cockermouth on July 20.

The prolific artist Percy Kelly (1918-93) was averse to the limelight and only a few of his paintings were shown publicly during his life. But a major retrospective at the Tullie House gallery Carlisle in 2015 and a birth centenary last year has helped raise the Cumbrian artist’s profile.

Entered by a vendor who hated them, a pair of 6in (15.5cm) long 19th century nutcrackers reflected in their way two different aspects of auctioneering today: how smaller country firms see their future and what will happen to antique ivory items when most of the trade in them is banned.

A fine Victorian building in the town of Cockermouth in the Lake District which was built in 1868 for the founder of Mitchell’s Auctions – whose saleroom is still in the town – is now home to the Fairfield House Antiques Centre.

Did a watch offered for sale in Carlisle at the end of July once belong to Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)? Two centuries of provenance suggest it did.

Shown below is a spread from a 120pp manuscript collection of Scottish songs with accompanying musical notation, on paper watermarked 1799, that sold at £600 in a Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale.