Bury St Edmunds in the auction spotlight

BURY St Edmunds was in the spotlight on October 22 when auctioneers Lacy Scott & Knight, which is based in the town, sold a Saint Edmund electric locomotive nameplate and a Bury St. Edmunds station platform lamp horseshoe tablet alongside other local memorabilia in a railwayana and model trains auction.

The plate, which sold for £1000, was from Class 86 Bo-Bo No. 86430, built at Doncaster in June 1965 as E3105 for work on the WCML and withdrawn in June 2004. It was named after a king of East Anglia who ruled from about the year 855 until his death in November 869, and whose name was subsequently adopted by the Suffolk town.

The lamp tablet, from the town's station that was opened by the Eastern Union Railway in November 1847, went for £850. The station, on the Ipswich-Ely line, is still open today, handling more than 500,000 passengers annually, and is now Grade II-listed.

Behind the tablet came the leading model, a gas-powered 0-4-0T named Botolph made by Roundhouse Engineering of Doncaster in O-gauge (£800). Prices exclude buyer's premium of 22½% (+ VAT).