BILLINGSHURST.- Summers Place Auctions next sale will take place on Tuesday, 1st October with the sealed bid sale closing on the 2nd October 2019 and includes many decorative items for the outdoors as well as indoors.
A first for the auction house is the sale of a collection of boats, which had been in private ownership for several decades and spanning a period of fifty years in boatbuilding. They include a mahogany hulled day launch built by Morgan Giles Ltd (Devon) in the 1920's. In 1990 it was in use in Windermere and has a Stuart Turner engine as well as two oars and is an impressive 320 cm long. Francis Charles Morgan-Giles (1883-1964) was a boat designer and builder from Devon, England. He built rowing boats, dinghies, yachts and large motor cruisers. His boats were known for their high quality, elegance and craftsmanship and this fine example is estimated at £1500-2500.
Also in the collection are five North American and Canadian canoes, the oldest dating to the early 20th century. Included are cedar strip and canvas covered examples by the Lakefield Canoe Company in Ontario and the The Old Town Canoe Company, a historic maker of canoes in Old Town, Maine. Each carries an estimate of £800-1200. Also relating to water sports and to anyone into fishing, Izaac Walton will probably be known to them as the author of The Compleat Angler. Written in 1653, it is a pastoral discourse on the joys and stratagems of fishing that has been one of the most frequently reprinted books in English literature. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, one of Walton's Royalist friends was made bishop of Winchester and offered Walton residence in his palace, where he stayed for the rest of his life in 1683. A rare Georgian carved sandstone panel of Walton from the late 18th century is reputedly from a public house close to the palace and it was standing on the riverbank, originally holding a fishing rod and net. At an impressive 170cm high by 98cm wide, it is expected to sell for £4000-6000.
An imposing granite boulder with runic inscriptions (130cm x 160cm x 110cm) comes with his own media history. It hit the news in Norfolk and nationwide in 2003, when local archaeologists formed the opinion that the scratched runic symbols and intertwined serpents and dragon were over 2000 years old and historically very significant and rare. However, after the Great Yarmouth Mercury local newspaper reported the "potentially very important discovery", jobless construction worker Barry Luxton, 50, saw the report and a photograph of the rock and recognised it as one that he had chiselled during an idle three days on the beach at Gorleston only 8 years earlier. It had been imported from Norway over 30 years ago to form part of the sea defences. It is estimated at £5000-8000.
