Rod Stewart furniture 'clear out' makes star £90k

Sir Rod Stewart was keen for a local company to auction off his furniture

Sir Rod Stewart has had a "good old-fashioned clear out" and sold his unwanted furniture and ornaments for just under £90,000.

The singer, who has a mansion in Sheering, near Harlow, auctioned off a number of items at Sworders' Fine Art in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex.

A pair of Victorian leather armchairs were the most popular items, with the hammer coming down at £7,600.

A spokesman for Sworders said the sales room had been "jam-packed".

The auction had originally been expected to raise up to £40,000.

Sir Rod, 73, who was knighted in 2016, is famous for such hits as Maggie May, Sailing and Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?

These Victorian leather armchairs were the most popular auction item with the pair selling for £7,600

There were just under 40 lots in the collection with estimates ranging from £60 to £3,000. All of the items listed were sold.

Among those were a pair of gilt bronze-mounted side tables, which were snapped up for £6,200, a pair of late 19th Century pier mirrors, which sold for almost double the guide price at £5,000, and a set of four gilt bronze two-branch wall lights, which went under the hammer at £2,800.

Sworders also had a limited number of signed auction catalogues the proceeds of which went to children's charity.

This teak leopard print lounge chair was snapped up for £3,800

A cold painted spelter figure of a banjo player sold for £2,900 - way over the £700 estimate

Emma McCann, of Sworders, said that most bidders came from the UK but there had also been a lot of interest from India, Greece and Germany.

She added: "There were 37 lots from Rod and all sold at well over the estimate.

"We certainly noticed a spike in attendance - we had approximately three times the number of online registered bidders and the sales room was jam-packed."