Dome items on display

The auction of Dome equipment begins on Tuesday

More than 17,000 items from the Millennium Dome have gone on show, ahead of an auction at the Greenwich site next week.

They include a giant seagull made from recycled kitchen utensils, a pair of diamond-studded football boots and a six-foot-tall hamster.

Some objects may appeal as souvenirs, but the items expected to raise most money are more practical - projectors, cranes, lights and catering equipment.

Items from two of the zones have been withheld from the auction, in case the Dome should be re-opened as a visitor attraction.

The auction of Dome equipment is set to begin on Tuesday 27 February, and should include a wide range of items.

They include everything from the mundane - such as uniforms and fork-lift trucks - to the truly bizarre.

Lot 246 in the auctioneers' catalogue is the front half of a Flower Power mini car, from the Living Island zone.

Lot 1608 is a cut-out photograph of the Blackadder characters, and Lot 1737 is a Test Your Strength Machine - with five mallets.

Expressions of interest

Other items coming under the hammer next week include the heart, eye and brains from the giant Body, arcade games and children's rides, and the exotic costumes from the Millennium Show.

The contents of the most popular zones - the Home Planet ride and the Timekeepers ball park - are not included, in case former Dome chief executive Pierre-Yves Gerbeau or another bidder succeeds in re-opening the Dome as a visitor attraction.

Since the Legacy consortium was stripped of its preferred bidder status, the government says it has had more than 70 expressions of interest in taking over the site.

The BBC has said it would be interested in an entertainment complex showing life-size exhibits from productions like EastEnders and Walking With Dinosaurs.

Mr Gerbeau wants to develop the Dome site into a world-class visitor centre capable of attracting stars like Michael Jackson or sporting events like a Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight.

Legacy, which has bid £125m for the site, wants to turn the site into a hi-tech business centre.