Top auctioneers move to Cotswolds (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Top auctioneers move to Cotswolds

ONE of the country's largest specialist auction houses has moved to South Cerney after nearly 20 years based in Swindon.

Top book dealers from far and wide descended on the Cotswold village for its first auction last Wednesday when Dominic Winter Book Auctions placed itself firmly on Gloucestershire's auction house map with a £300,000 sale.

The company, founded in September 1988, is situated in Broadway Lane where there is an extra 2,000sq ft of floor space compared to its previous premises.

Founder Dominic Winter said: "Our business has grown continuously from day one, and we had simply run out of space to operate efficiently with books to be found in every conceivable nook and cranny of the saleroom, including the kitchen.

"Swindon has been good to us, but it was time for a change and I'm glad that all the staff have moved with me.

"Besides two downstairs salerooms, more office space, an upstairs gallery and a loading bay with a goods lift, we now have a large car park as well."

Mr Winter plans to hold ten general book auctions per year, plus a further ten specialist auctions.

These will sell everything from modern first editions to topographical books and maps, and children's books.

The star lot of last Wednesday's auction was a very rare manuscript estate plan by one of Britain's greatest cartographers Christopher Saxton.

Depicting an area to the west of Wakefield, Yorkshire, the ink plan was drawn in 1601 and is one of only about two dozen known manuscript plans by Saxton.

An anonymous telephone buyer eventually bought the map for £27,600. Mr Winter added: "Other highlights of the auction included an equally rare first English edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs of 1563 selling for £9,430.

"It has gruesome woodcuts of burnings and tortures of Christian martyrs and was written from a staunchly pro-Protestant Elizabethan viewpoint.

"I think its massive popularity over the next two hundred years with the general populace was largely responsible for the anti-Catholic feelings of the nation."

Among the more modern books highlights included dust-jacketed first editions of C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 1950 (£3,680) and The Silver Chair, 1953 (£4,025).

To find out more about DWBA call 01285 860006 or visit www.dominicwinter.co.uk