£32k boost to art school restoration

A key designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh to open Glasgow School of Art has sold for £32,000 to help raise funds for the restoration of the firedamaged masterpiece.

The former owner of the key and auction house Lyon & Turnbull will donate a per- centage of the sale to The Mackintosh Campus Appeal, the £32 million fundraising campaign launched following the blaze which badly damaged the Mackintosh Building in May 2014.

Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for the opening ceremony of the building he designed, the key was presented to Sir James King, the Lord Provost of Glasgow from 1886-9, by six-year-old Miss Mary Newbery, daughter of Fra Newbery, director of The Glasgow School of Art, who then unlocked the door.