Salvage sale raises pounds 1.8m

A dozen panelled rooms, 50 marble fire-places and 300 doors, many of which have outlived the grand houses for which they were made, have been sold by Christie's in the largest-ever architectural salvage auction.

The sale - which raised pounds 1.8m, pounds 300,000 above estimate - attracted buyers from as far afield as Chicago, but the expected star turn (right) John van Nost's lead statue of a kneeling Moor holding a bronze sundial like a salver, barely topped its lower estimate at pounds 33,000 (upper estimate pounds 50,000). Christie's believes it is a lost piece from Hampton Court.

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