Alan Carr to keep castle auction's only unsold item - a concrete cow

ByGiancarlo Rinaldi

South Scotland reporter

The auction took place at Ayton Castle on Sunday after viewings on Friday and Saturday.

It contained a huge range of items including furniture, paintings and textiles.

The top price on the day was £24,000 for a five-seater Bentley Mulsanne.

However, among the highlights were the lots containing the Northumberland folk art creations from the Branxton Cement Menagerie.

They were created by a retired joiner in the 1960s to entertain his disabled son but grew to a huge collection and became a "much-loved visitor attraction".

It was sold and relocated to Ayton Castle in 2021 but its pieces have now been auctioned off to the highest bidder - apart from the cow which Carr is set to keep.

Jim Railton, of Railtons Auctioneers, said it had been a "very busy day".

"Seven-and-a-half hours of selling non-stop and we only had one item that was unsold, which is quite a good record," he said.

He confirmed that the item which could not find a buyer had been the cow from the Branxton Menagerie.

"For some reason we couldn't get a bid for it," he said.

"So Alan Carr, who has bought the castle, is going to keep it as an ornament or a memory of all the animals that were at Branxton and then went to Ayton.

"He's going to keep the one cow and enjoy it as a memory of the Branxton animals that resided there for a little while."

Railton said that the sculptures had made about £28,000 overall

"I was quite pleased with the Branxton animals because that was a bit of an unknown quantity, how well they'd do," he said.

"But it seemed to have taken off and it sold well."

Overall, he said the sale should produce about £100,000 which would go to the owners who sold the castle to Carr.