ONE of the most unusual pieces of Beatles memorabilia ever to go under the hammer sold for just over £5,000 at a Cotswolds auction house last week.

The front door of Paul McCartney’s childhood home at 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton – where the legend lived from 1955 until 1964 – sold for £5,060 at South Cerney auctioneers Dominic Winter last Wednesday.

Auctioneer Chris Albury said the atmosphere on the day was "nerve-wracking".

"There were just two phone bidders and a couple of commission bidders so the bidding started at £3,000 and crept up in £100 increments until it reached the final price," he said.

"The winning phone bidder was Tracks, specialist Beatles dealers from Chorley, Lancashire – so back to the county from whence it just came.

"There was a good crowd of people in the saleroom to witness this though no bids came from the floor. We are very pleased indeed and know the vendor will be pleased it created selling interest."

The door – which is missing its locks and letter box but retains the number 20 at the top – was the second from the Liverpool house to go under the hammer with the door to McCartney’s bedroom selling for £2,875 in 1995.

Other unusual items to sell at last Wednesday’s auction included a wooden calculating machine from 1840, which was expected to sell for between £500 and £800 but eventually fetched £4,400 and an autographed letter by physicist James Clerk Maxwell, which went for £12,000.

This was only the second letter by Maxwell to have gone up for auction in modern times and was written in 1869.

The Scottish scientist's discoveries are credited with helping pave the way for modern physics and was described by Albert Einstein as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton".