Blantyre’s Robert Smellie is pictured here in 1980 at his auction house in Hamilton with a rather wonderful item.
In May 1980, Robert oversaw the sale of an antique wooden chair made from the 1414 wood of St Margaret’s Palace in Edinburgh!
The chair was fashioned in the 19th Century using the old wood and sold to an Irish dealer at the LS Smellie & Sons Auction House, Hamilton.
The chair fetched £110, which was about £600 in today’s money. The chair had information on the base which helped retell its history and aided the price. The chair used wood from the chapel of the Palace on Castle Hill, Edinburgh but had been demolished in 1856 for the building of Free Church College.
Featuring Blantyre Project Social Media with permission. Strictly not for use by others on or offline, our visitors said:
Davy Thomson Big andy is the double of his dad
Eleanor Clark Our sister worked for them in Strathaven for quite a number of years
Vicki Wolf Betsy Deane our grandfather Robert Coats worked for this man’s grandfather in the early 1900’s. I visited Smellie and Sons auction house when I was in Scotland a few years ago.