A NORTH Yorkshire auction house is celebrating its highest sale total ever.

Tennants Auctioneers of Leyburn took more than £2.25m during their three-day art and antiques auction last week.

More than 1,800 privately-sourced lots went under the hammer during the sale.

Among the many highlights was a 350-year-old wine bottle dug up in London in 1894 which went for £4,200.

A pair of Chinese carved ivory wrist rests - which a scholar would use to avoid smudging wet calligraphy - dating from 1850-80 went for £17,500, after a bidding struggle between eight telephone lines to China.

And a Luftwaffe pilot’s watch of around 1940 that may well have seen action in the Battle of Britain reached £2,500.

A pencil drawing by Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones of a beautiful young girl shattered its estimate of £10,000 to £15,000 to sell for £36,000.

An oil painting of a Venetian canal by Belgian artist Frans Vervloet (1795–1872) fetched the highest price, at £47,000.