Collectables from estate of the Baroness St Oswald to go under the hammer

Andrew McMlllan with some of the items up for auction.

Lady St Oswald was the wife of Derek Anthony Winn, the 5th Baron St Oswald, who inherited the title in 1984, at which time she became mistress ofstately home Nostell Priory, that was built for the Winn family in 1733.

Lady St Oswald remained at Nostell, described by the National Trust as ‘one of the great treasure houses of the North’, until the death of her husband in 1999.

Their son then succeeded as the 6th Baron and she moved, first to a Georgian property at Ludlow in Shropshire and later to The Old Vicarage at Topcliffe near Thirsk, another Georgian-period property.

Seventy-six lots of porcelain, ceramics, silverware, collectables and books are included in the auction.

Following Lady St Oswald’s death at the age of 94 last year, the executors of her estate have instructed auctioneers Duggleby Stephenson to include a number of items of furniture, furnishings and collectables from her home in auctions that are to take place this week.

Seventy-six lots of porcelain, ceramics, silverware, collectables and books are included in Thursday’s Antiques & Collectors Auction at the York Auction Centre.

Fifty-five lots of furniture, ranging from early 18th century pieces through to furnishings commissioned by Lady St Oswald from Yorkshire and North Eastern craftsmen in the 1990s, will go under the hammer in a Furniture Rugs and Interiors Auction on Friday.

Duggleby’s Stephenson’s Andrew McMillan said: “Lady St Oswald had a passion for the Georgian period, memorably expressed in an interview she gave to the Architectural Review after leaving Nostell Priory ‘I was born in a Georgian house, always lived in them and have retired to one. I love them’.

“That love of the Georgian period is evident in the furniture that is to be offered in the sales and indeed her ladyship’s interest in the late 18th to early 19th century is apparent in her porcelain collection too.”

They include a set of 13 of the famous ‘Cris de Paris’ (Cries of Paris), a series modelled by the sculptor Peter Reinicke who worked for Meissen between 1743 and 1768.

Catalogues for both auctions are available on the firm’s website www.dugglebystephenson.com.