South-west England

Modern British sculptures were the main attraction at Wotton Auction Rooms’ (18% buyer’s premium) recent sale at Stouts Hill Manor.

Many of the unsung British heroes of both world wars served in the royal and merchant navies carrying and protecting supplies to Russia or the USSR.

On May 6, 1954 - the day British middle-distance athlete Roger Bannister (1929-2018) ran the first ever sub-four-minute mile - there were five official timekeepers plus a sixth watch manned by race commentator Norris McWhirter (1925-2004).

An artist’s painting of his wife turned heads at a recent David Lay (18% buyer’s premium) auction in Penzance, selling over 10 times above estimate.

In 1946 the artist Laura Knight (1877-1970) was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to create a painting of the Nuremberg Trials.

A copy of Richard Hakluyt’s 'The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation' takes a six-figure sum at Devon sale.

Two Banksy prints donated to charity set high prices for their respective individual editions at a Bristol auction.

This late 18th century Channel Islands silver coffee pot has marks for the Jersey silversmith Jacques Quesnel I.

The Anglo-Croatian sculptor Oscar Nemon (1906-85) first met Sir Winston Churchill when holidaying in Marrakech in 1951.

There has been a weekly Friday antiques and collectors’ market in Cirencester’s 19th century Corn Hall in Market Square for more than 40 years.

“Our December event is always a busy one and we’ll be inside the Showering Pavilion and outside at the showground as usual”, said Sue Ede of SP Fairs.

Estimated at £40,000-60,000, a lacquer cabinet from Edo period Japan sold for £105,000 at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on November 23.

A suffragette’s true identity may have been uncovered by an auction house.

A silver war badge issued to Lance-Corporal Harold Sandford Mugford of the Machine Gun Corps was a surprise highlight of a Gloucestershire sale.

Painted with an image of an urn to the front cover of its vellucent binding and with a view of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire to the rear, the Book of Common Prayer & Book of Psalmes shown below was printed in 1774 by T Wright & W Gill for the University of Oxford.

Among the book lots offered as part of an October 7-8 sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) the earliest was a Burgundian ‘Hours of the Virgin’ manuscript.

Paintings of caves including a view from a Channel Island in the spotlight at two salerooms

Portraits by James Sharples (1751-1811) appear to make less money than you might expect given the calibre of his sitters.

In a recent Financial Times article titled 'Dangerous baubles for boys', historian and style journalist Nick Foulkes commented that a friend had “described my hands as looking like a cabinet of curiosities trying to emulate a pair of knuckledusters”.