A CHARITY that brings cancer care closer to patients homes and a group that supports the running of its local hospital are to benefit from two antiques valuation days in the Cotswolds this autumn.

Auctioneers from Moore Allen & Innocent will be holding their popular antiques valuation days in Cirencester and Tetbury, in aid of Hope for Tomorrow and Friends of Tetbury Hospital.

Ceramics, paintings, jewellery and collectables like stamps, postcards and toys are among the more common items taken to valuation events, but once in a while some real surprises come to light – like a set of eight wall tiles found in a loft.

The eight 15cm x 15cm red and cream pottery tiles, decorated with animals, were identified as being by the Victorian ceramicist William De Morgan, whose work was popular with William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement.

The owner asked for them to be included in a Moore Allen & Innocent antiques auction, and to everyone's delight they sold for £11,000.

“Hunt out your undiscovered items. You never know, the same could happen to you,” said auctioneer Philip Allwood.

Philip will be valuing antiques at the Moore Allen & Innocent's central Cirencester offices, a Castle Street, from 10am until 2pm on Friday, September 14.

The team will be taking donations, which will go to the firm's charity of the year, Hope for Tomorrow, a Tetbury-based organisation which brings cancer treatment closer to patients' homes with its mobile care units.

And on Friday, October 5 from 10am until 2pm Philip will be at wine merchants Vinotopia in Tetbury, where donations will be sought for the Friends of Tetbury Hospital, which raised £1m to save its local NHS centre from closure in the 1980s and supports the facility – now a registered charity – to this day.

For more information about buying and selling antiques at auction, log on to www.mooreallen.co.uk