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

Yahoo

08-02-2025

For most people an attic is a place to dump tatty Christmas decorations, unused sports kit, and general junk.
For the aristocratic Coke family, custodians of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, things are a little different.
From antique furniture to oil paintings, royal mementoes to rugs, its attics, cellars, and storerooms are stuffed almost to the rafters with items collected by ancestors over the past 400 years.
Now the current incumbent, Lord Leicester, has decided to have a clear out and will auction off some 450 pieces, many of which have not seen the light of day for decades.
'Some of these things have not been used for three generations, which is 100 years,' says Lord Leicester, 59, whose full name is Thomas Edward Coke, the 8th Earl of Leicester.
'An Etruscan head has just been taken out of my office, which I might miss, but some of the furniture was just cluttering the place up.'
Stand out items include an ornate Sèvres porcelain dessert service which has a guide price of £20,000 to £30,000.
For that you get almost 80 pieces of fine antique porcelain, including ice cream cups, dessert plates, and a punch bowl.
Before Lord Leicester took over the estate in 2007 his father and stepmother had displayed the service, but he and his wife, Polly, were less enthusiastic about the idea. 'Porcelain hanging on the wall did not really do it for me,' he says.
Other lots include a Victorian tub armchair in a condition which could politely be described as distressed, with a guide price of £1,000 to £1,500.
Alternatively, for £800 to £1,200, you could opt for a pair of cherubs set on a porcelain and ormolu-mounted mantel clock.
Fancy a pair of elk antlers for the wall? A 197cm-wide set is on sale priced at £600 to £800.
Royal fans might like to bid on an oak chair used at Queen Elizabeth's coronation (estimate £300 to £500).
The chair was used by Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner, the daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who had been one of the late Queen's maids of honour.
Not all of the lots will break the bank. Many come with estimates starting at £100 or less including a pair of silver sugar nips, used to cut dainty pieces of sugar from a block, a baby-weighing scale with a wicker basket to hold the infant plus a push along toy dog, and two sets of pre-war golf clubs.
In the run up to the sale the estate's collections coordinator and art advisor spent years rifling through the hall cataloguing its contents.
Lord and Lady Leicester then went through each item, deciding what to keep and what to sell.
'It took a couple of years,' says Lord Leicester. 'Anything with really, really close historic links to the hall we are keeping. I have got no regrets doing it. I think we have been through a fairly stringent process of what we are keeping.'
Holkham Hall was built between 1734 and 1764, and is surrounded by 25,000 acres of land in Wells-next-the-Sea, on the north Norfolk coast.
It has been in the Coke family since it was built by the first earl. Today, to keep the estate running, parts of the house are regularly open to the public, and it hosts regular events including a Christmas market and Bear Grylls' Gone Wild Festival.
The Palladian stately home has, naturally, appeared in many period dramas, including The Duchess, starring Keira Knightly and Ralph Fiennes,
The auction will be held by fine art auction house Sworders at the hall on February 11.
Auctioneers expect it to raise a total of between £300,000 and £400,000 and Lord Leicester said he intends to spend the money on cleaning and restoring some of its vast collection of paintings, as well as general repairs and maintenance.
And he does not rule out making his own additions to the Holkham Hall collection.
'I might buy one or two pieces of art which are integral to the history of the house,' he says. 'The money will go to good use.'