‘One-off’ auction at historic fortress

AIRCRAFT, ARTILLERY and waxwork models are among the contents of Yorkshire’s only Napoleonic fort which are set to be sold in an extraordinary auction this summer.

The iconic Beverley Blackburn XB259, which was moved successfully to Fort Paull in 2005 from its old home outside the Museum of Army Transport, in Beverley, will be among around 1,000 lots.

The plane, which was originally built at Brough, near Hull, is the only one of its kind left in the country.

Moving it again will prove a major task – when it arrived at Paull Fort a large crane was used to lift the large parts of the airframe over the fort’s walls.

Another aircraft owned by the Fort is the Hawker Hunter XF509 which started out with 54 Squadron in 1957 and came to Hull in 2005 where it was fixed on a pole outside the former Humbrol Airfix factory on Hedon Road.

Auctioneer Andrew Baitson said his firm felt “honoured and privileged” that the owner had asked it to auction the fortress.

He would look to sell it and its contents in its entirety, but should there be no acceptable offer then he was looking to hold the auction in June.

He said: “There are a few items that belong to third parties, and we will get those collected by the owners. Anything left we will sell.

This has taken 30 years to put together – it is difficult to put a price on it.

“There’s a lovely Henry VIII display, and of the Crown Jewels, and the Napoleonic Wars display, and of the world wars.

“There’s all the waxwork models of the Royal Family, Churchill, Hitler, Henry VIII, Ann Boleyn, all the artillery, anti-aircraft guns, Russian and other tank turrets and armoured personnel carriers. It’s going to be a very big job and it’s going to take some working out. It is a one off– it really is.”