Five thousand antiques for sale at the glove-maker's folly

THE AUCTION of the contents of Stokesay Court in Shropshire, a 19th-century glove manufacturer's folly, opens for viewing this morning and is going to be the biggest house sale for a decade - more than 5,000 objects must go.

The auctioneers are expecting that between 5,000 and 8,000 people will pour into the house to look over the goods. The viewing runs for four days, and is followed by a three-day auction beginning on 28 September.

The 37-bedroom Victorian mansion was built by John Derby Allcroft, who pulled down an 18th- century manor house to make room for it in the early 1890s. He had made a vast fortune by selling cheap cotton gloves across Europe and the United States and wanted a home to match his wealth.

The prime attractions are Allcroft's Victorian furnishings. He had to have everything of the best, from salon to bedroom to servants' quarters. There are brass hot water jugs for the gentry (five estimated at pounds 150-pounds 200), tin for the servants (pounds 20-pounds 40). The grandest piece is a marquetry display cabinet made by Gillow of Lancaster for the 1862 International Exhibition (pounds 20,000-pounds 25,000).

Allcroft was succeeded at Stokesay by his son Herbert, an indefatigable traveller who collected everything from Kashmir shawls to Burmese hardwood furniture. Price forecasts range from pounds 30,000 for an Agra carpet to pounds 50-pounds 80 for African spears.

Herbert's widow put the main contents of the house into the attic and basements in 1941 when the house was requisitioned as a school. She died in 1946 and her daughter Jewell, who lived at Stokesay until her own death in 1992, never unpacked them. It was only when the art adviser Robert Holden began to value the house contents on behalf of Jewell's executors that the hidden Victorian treasures were discovered.

Fifty years in packing cases has assured a magical survival for textiles which would otherwise have faded in the sunlight. The flamboyantly coloured rag rug in the billiard room is probably the best preserved of its kind in Britain - and a snip at pounds 200-pounds 400.

(Photograph omitted)