Summers Place Auctions

This rust-tinged enamelled sheet iron sign was sold for £31,500 at Summers Place Auctions’ latest sale in Billingshurst, West Sussex.

This remarkable fossil of one of the largest animals ever to have walked the Earth becomes the first large dinosaur skeleton to be offered at auction in the UK at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, West Sussex, on November 27.

The latest sealed-bid sale at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst produced some real surprises – none more so than the Edwardian painted wood and wrought-iron seesaw pictured here.

Summers Place Auctions, in association with Sotheby’s, have formally unveiled their new, purpose-built 5000 sq ft gallery.

Sculptures displayed in the athletes’ village of London’s Olympic Park are to be offered at auction.

This impressive run of lidded urns once adorned the grounds of Witley Court, the palatial mansion in Worcestershire built by Thomas Foley in 1655.

Summers Place Auctions of Billingshurst, West Sussex, are to host The Glory Of The Garden in aid of St Catherine's Hospice, a Crawley-based charity, on May 16.

Summers Place Auctions have revealed plans for a three-tier selling strategy when they hold their inaugural sale of garden statuary and fossil decoration ‘in association with Sotheby’s’ in May.

Building work is expected to begin soon at Summers Place, Billingshurst after planning permission was granted to convert the former Sotheby’s saleroom into residential dwellings and office space.

It might not look much, but the humble unglazed earthenware vessel, pictured right, is believed to be the earliest form of watering pot made in Britain. It’s also the precursor to the metal watering can that did not adopt its recognisable shape until the 17th century.

With the antiquities market suffering from high prices and criminal scandals and a shortage of good material, it is no real surprise that collectors have turned to natural, as opposed to man-made, artefacts of greater age and, arguably, equal beauty.

UK: KNIGHT Frank, who are overseeing negotiations for the sale of Sotheby’s Billingshurt rooms, have set a deadline for interested parties of July 26.

FOLLOWING months of speculation, Sotheby’s have announced they are to sell Summer’s Place in Billingshurst, West Sussex – but want to continue their twice-yearly garden statuary sales there.

UK: WITH the trade’s rumour mill in overdrive over the possible closure of Sotheby’s Billingshurst, the decision by a West Sussex businessman to open a new auction house Latimers (15 per cent buyer’s premium) in Horsham, barely 10 miles away from Summers Place, could well prove to be timely.

UK: WITH the re-branding of Sotheby’s saleroom in Billingshurst (see the News Briefing section - 'Sotheby's revamp Sussex operation') Summers Place leaves behind its image as Sotheby’s last saleroom foothold in the UK provinces and assumes its position as the company’s second stronghold in the South.