Earl to auction 450 family artefacts in ultimate attic sale at Holkham Hall in Norfolk

For astir radical an attic is simply a spot to dump tatty Christmas decorations, unused sports kit, and wide junk.

For the aristocratic Coke family, custodians of Holkham Hall successful Norfolk, things are a small different.

From antique furnishings to lipid paintings, royal mementoes to rugs, its attics, cellars, and storerooms are stuffed astir to the rafters with items collected by ancestors implicit the past 400 years.

Now the existent incumbent, Lord Leicester, has decided to person a wide retired and volition auction disconnected immoderate 450 pieces, galore of which person not seen the airy of time for decades.

“Some of these things person not been utilized for 3 generations, which is 100 years,” says Lord Leicester, 59, whose afloat sanction is Thomas Edward Coke, the 8th Earl of Leicester.

“An Etruscan caput has conscionable been taken retired of my office, which I mightiness miss, but immoderate of the furnishings was conscionable cluttering the spot up.”

Stand retired items see an ornate Sèvres porcelain dessert work which has a usher terms of £20,000 to £30,000.

For that you get astir 80 pieces of good antique porcelain, including crystal pick cups, dessert plates, and a punch bowl.

Before Lord Leicester took implicit the property successful 2007 his begetter and stepmother had displayed the service, but helium and his wife, Polly, were little enthusiastic astir the idea. “Porcelain hanging connected the partition did not truly bash it for me,” helium says.

Other tons see a Victorian tub armchair successful a information which could politely beryllium described arsenic distressed, with a usher terms of £1,000 to £1,500.

Alternatively, for £800 to £1,200, you could opt for a brace of cherubs acceptable connected a porcelain and ormolu-mounted mantel clock.

Fancy a brace of elk antlers for the wall? A 197cm-wide acceptable is connected merchantability priced astatine £600 to £800.

Royal fans mightiness similar to bid connected an oak seat utilized astatine Queen Elizabeth’s coronation (estimate £300 to £500).

The seat was utilized by Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner, the girl of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who had been 1 of the precocious Queen’s maids of honour.

Not each of the tons volition interruption the bank. Many travel with estimates starting astatine £100 oregon little including a brace of metallic sweetener nips, utilized to chopped dainty pieces of sweetener from a block, a baby-weighing standard with a wicker handbasket to clasp the babe positive a propulsion on artifact dog, and 2 sets of pre-war play clubs.

In the tally up to the merchantability the estate’s collections coordinator and creation advisor spent years rifling done the hallway cataloguing its contents.

Lord and Lady Leicester past went done each item, deciding what to support and what to sell.

“It took a mates of years,” says Lord Leicester. “Anything with really, truly adjacent historical links to the hallway we are keeping. I person got nary regrets doing it. I deliberation we person been done a reasonably stringent process of what we are keeping.”

Holkham Hall was built betwixt 1734 and 1764, and is surrounded by 25,000 acres of onshore successful Wells-next-the-Sea, connected the northbound Norfolk coast.

It has been successful the Coke household since it was built by the archetypal earl. Today, to support the property running, parts of the location are regularly unfastened to the public, and it hosts regular events including a Christmas marketplace and Bear Grylls’ Gone Wild Festival.

The Palladian stately location has, naturally, appeared successful galore play dramas, including The Duchess, starring Keira Knightly and Ralph Fiennes,

Auctioneers expect it to rise a full of betwixt £300,000 and £400,000 and Lord Leicester said helium intends to walk the wealth connected cleaning and restoring immoderate of its immense postulation of paintings, arsenic good arsenic wide repairs and maintenance.

And helium does not regularisation retired making his ain additions to the Holkham Hall collection.

“I mightiness bargain 1 oregon 2 pieces of creation which are integral to the past of the house,” helium says. “The wealth volition spell to bully use.”