Historic Berkeley family items from Spetchley Park up for auction

Chorley’s Attic Sale on Tuesday January 28 includes items from the stores and attics of Spetchley Park.

The collection reveals the interests of past members of the Berkeley family and items will range in value from under £100 to several thousand pounds. Pieces have been amassed over 400 years and range from interesting curios, a library of antiquarian books, Worcester porcelain and rare silver.  

Some of the items were picked up by the Berkeleys during their travels across Europe, North America and Colonial India and kept in the property’s private 19th century museum. Others were purchased at country house auctions during the 19th Century and so it is perhaps fitting that they now go to new homes in a traditional sale of that type.   

Other properties offered in the same sale will include Old Master Paintings from the collection of the late Lady Killearn which until recently hung in the great hall of Little Sodbury Manor.  

"Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn stayed at the 500 year old, Grade I listed Manor during a ‘Summer Progress’ of 1535. It is also reputed that William Tyndale began his Bible translation there. The portraits largely date to the 17th Century and include richly dressed ladies and armoured noblemen.  

From one of Gloucestershire’s principal country houses come fine carpets, including a Ziegler example dating to 1900 and decorated with lions and peacocks which asks £12,000-18,000. 

Chorley’s Director and Auctioneer Thomas Jenner-Fust says: “From a lock of Elvis’s hair to the smallest house in the Cotswolds, Chorley’s has sold some significant lots over the years, but this particular auction is one of our most exciting to date.

"With two historic and private collections going under the hammer for the first time, this is an excellent opportunity for historians, collectors and locals alike to acquire a piece of British history with significant provenance.”

The sale will be held at Chorley’s, Prinknash Abbey Park, near Cheltenham.