Gloucestershire

In November, Spink of London will offer a Spitfire pilot’s Battle of Britain group of eight awarded to Warrant Officer (later Squadron Leader) Ernest Mayne, No 74 (Tiger) Squadron, RAF.

Prices are on the rise for Yorkshire-born painter Anne Brooke (1916-2002).

Mary Tudor’s personal copy of Vergil’s history of England comes to auction in Gloucestershire this month.

The first section of the Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) Historic Textiles & Antiques auction on July 26 contained 33 lots of textiles from the collection of the Quaker antiquary Martha Spriggs and her descendants.

A striking pair of William IV silver open salts by Paul Storr (London 1835) came for sale at Chorley’s (28.2% buyer’s premium inc VAT) latest biannual sale of Fine Jewellery, Silver, Gold and Watches.

Pair of rare and early French examples offered separately create a bidding frenzy despite condition issues

Show held for the first time last year returns at same location and is fully booked

Stephen Switzer (1682-1745), gardener, author, landscape designer and seedsman, was apprenticed in 1699 to George London, the senior partner of Brompton Park Nurseries.

“It was no surprise that a single-owner sale of noble provenance and with royal connections was such a success”, said Thomas Jenner-Fust.

Found in a country house in Gloucestershire, this letter written by Lord Byron (1788-1824) to Major John Cartwright (1740-1824) sold for £6000 at Chorley’s (28.2% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on March 20.

The well-known miniature portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh by Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547-1619) in the National Portrait Gallery was painted c.1585, the year after Raleigh was knighted.

Pictured here are two lots of seat furniture that impressed bidders in recent auctions in Gloucestershire and Cheshire.