Valuable sideboard fails to sell

The sideboard is typical of the elaborate style Pugin did for others

An antique sideboard left for 20 years in a barn has failed to sell at auction.

Brian and Louise Corfield hoped the rare Gothic piece could have made £35,000.

But the sideboard made from a design by the man who helped draw up the Houses of Parliament did not attract a bid at an auction at Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury, on Wednesday.

The ornate carved sideboard cost just £6 when it was bought by Mr Corfield's great-aunt in 1931.

The piece is now likely to be sold privately, according to auctioneer, Richard Allen of Halls Fine Arts.

"The reserve price was £25,000,so the first bid was set at £5,000 below that," said Mr Allen.

Discarded

"Unfortunately no one made a bid at the opening bid of £20,000 and we will now look to sell the piece privately."

Mr and Mrs Corfield only realised what the sideboard was worth after a table designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was sold by another mid Wales farmer for £180,000.

The Corfields, from Montgomery, were left the sideboard by Mr Corfield's mother.

The sideboard was commissioned for the dining room at Leighton Hall, near Welshpool, in the 1850s.

Mr Corfield said: "Nobody in the family wanted it because at nine feet wide it was too big for their homes.

"It ended up in a barn in the Welshpool area for 20 years before my mother took the piece when she got married and came to live at this farm."