Box full of 'broken porcelain' sells for £160,000

A lot of 16 porcelain tea bowls, including these, sold for £59,000

A box of porcelain left in an attic in the Lincolnshire Wolds for more than two decades has sold for more than £160,000 at auction.

The collection, which had been labelled "broken porcelain", had sat in a loft in Benniworth, near Louth, before owner Gill Stewart took it to an auctioneers.

Ms Stewart had been left it by her grandfather, who had been stationed in China before World War One.

She said she was "completely bamboozled" by the price the collection fetched at auction.

Five Chinese saucers, with Chia Ch'ing marks on their bases, were valued at £100 but sold for £35,000

She said that when her grandparents died, she was given the box with its "broken porcelain" label.

"I brought it up to Lincolnshire [in 2002] and since then it's just lived in the attic," she said.

"Every time I went up to get the Christmas decorations, I thought 'I must do something with that box'."

Auctioneer James Laverack, from John Taylors Auction Rooms in Louth, which sold the lots, said the items were "quite unassuming, really".

"It's the sort of stuff you would hear about people finding in charity shops or carboots," he said.

"Most people wouldn't think they're worth more than a pound or two, but they're rare, highly collectable and therefore highly valuable."

Brig RHA Kellie OBE MC collected the porcelain while serving in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1899-1901

Auctioneer James Laverack said some of the lots were "unassuming"

'Are you sitting down?'

When Mr Laverack rang Ms Stewart to let her know how the sale was going, he asked her, "Are you sitting down?"

"I said, 'No, do I need to?'" Ms Stewart said.

When told the final figure, she said: "Bless my dear grandfather. Long gone, but wow - that is fantastic."

One of the features of the collection which impressed John Taylors was the detailed notes about the collection that Ms Stewart's grandfather had kept.

Among them were details of which items had broken - and who was to blame.

"My grandfather had recorded who broke them, and it was my grandmother who had broken them!" said Ms Stewart.

"She had broken the most valuable ones!"

Follow BBC Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail]