South-west England

A key which opened a life-jacket locker on the Titanic was one of the highlights of Henry Aldridge & Son’s auction last week.

Webbs of Wilton, near Salisbury, are conducting a sale of paintings by three generations of the Benney family on November 2.

A rare Chinese Imperial Beijing enamel vase bought for £10 at a car boot sale is to go to auction in Salisbury next month carrying a £20,000-30,000 estimate.

This early George III mahogany serpentine dressing commode with distinctive carved decoration forms part of a group thought to have been made by the London cabinet-maker William Gomm (c.1698-1780).

The organisers of a new collectors’ fair at Marlborough College say they have had “a tremendous response from the trade” but still have a few spaces left for the inaugural event later this month.

African artefacts, jewellery and fossils from a family collection linked to the celebrated palaeoanthropologists, the late Louis and Mary Leakey, are to be sold later this month at The Cotswold Auction Company.

A family row over a large collection of 17th century Chinese porcelain escalated this week after Art Fund trustee Caroline Butler hired Christie’s to value the collection.

Bridport saleroom Busby’s will offer ‘unseen’ works by members of the Bloomsbury group on October 20.

Auctioneer, valuer and ‘Antiques Roadshow’ expert Michael Newman died last month, aged 80.

Adam Schoon has joined Duke's in Dorchester to head its Asian art department.

A remarkable Australian gold rush era bracelet was sold by Chorley’s of Prinknash Abbey Park earlier this month for £57,000. The buyer was an Australian private collector.

A large collection of 17th century Chinese porcelain could be broken up and sold after a family feud among the heirs of Sir Michael Butler, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher.

The Cotswold Auction Company have moved into a new permanent saleroom in Cirencester.

A Fijian cannibal fork was sold at Duke’s in Dorchester for £7500 on September 16.

Salisbury auction house Woolley & Wallis are opening a Mayfair office.

Police are appealing for help following the theft of £10,000 worth of silver from a church in Blockley, near Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire.

Who you gonna call? If you have ectoplasm seeping through the floorboards then ‘Ghostbusters’ is the obvious answer, shouted loudly.

This tiny ivory netsuke of a rat was the major suprise of a recent auction in the Cotswolds.

Studio pottery has been hogging the arts and crafts headlines for a while now. In recent years collectors have really taken this field to heart and items produced by 20th century designers such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper have been drawing strong bids at auction.

At the time, Gary Lineker’s promise to present the new season’s first Match of the Day in his underpants if Leicester City won the Premier League didn’t seem like a rash pledge to make.