Antique Way

Finest Hour for Business Boss's Clock Collection

For those who lived there, his ever-increasing collection of antique clocks was part and parcel of everyday life 每 and when they chimed simultaneously the whole house shuddered.

Now the secrets of the impressive collection, which contains rare examples of English timepieces from the past 400 years, are to be shared following his death at the age of 80.

The table, lantern and longcase clocks that the businessman kept scattered around his home in Grassington, North Yorkshire, are to be auctioned at Christie's in London, as per his wishes.

Revered by specialists as "first-rate", his collection could fetch up to £500,000. Included are a number of examples of clocks by Yorkshire manufacturers, the most valuable of which is expected to be sold for at least £10,000.

A private man, Mr Wagstaff began gathering timepieces from across the world in the 1960s. At least two rooms and their interlinking passageways in his home were lined with dozens of clocks that chimed together every hour.His daughter, Caroline Elliott, said that, as a teenager, she was often woken as the clocks chimed en masse.

"It was his passion but it did make things unbearable at times when I was trying to go to bed." she said. "I used to stomp out of my room in protest in the evenings after he placed an antique clock from Turkey outside my room."

The 86-piece collection includes complicated Yorkshire and Lancashire clocks of the 18th century such as "quintessential" examples :

• of work by Henry Hindley
• of York and John Bancroft
• of Scarborough.

The face of the Bancroft musical automaton table clock, made in around 1790, houses a movable curtain which reveals a fiddler flanked by a dancing lady when the piece chimes. At £10,000 it is expected to sell for slightly more than Hindley's Blue Japanned Quarter-Striking Longcase Clock with its intricately-designed panelling.

But pride of place belongs to a Charles II Fruitwood Architectural Longcase clock which experts believe will substantially exceed its estimate of £60,000. Made in 1670 by Johannes Fromanteel 每 the man credited with bringing the pendulum system to England from Holland 每 it would have been worth quadruple its current value had it been in perfect condition.

Ben Wright, Christie's clock department director, described Mr Wagstaff, who was the chairman of textile company Tootal until 1986, as "the ultimate" English timepiece collector.

"He could not fit any more clocks into his house without it becoming a museum," Mr Wright said. "He had to have a love of things mechanical but he also appreciated the aesthetics of each piece. Collecting clocks requires money and a love of the intricate 每 you often find they are surgeons or engineers.

"It is extremely rare to find a collector who has clocks from the top to the bottom of the market in terms of price. Most others collect in the low thousands or at the top end. Mr Wagstaff's collection has both, is first-rate and you can see through the individuality of each piece that he took his time over what he bought.

"Great and memorable collections are not made by buying the best works from only the most famous makers. Such collections are fostered over decades and are filled with memories and stories. A great collector is led by his heart 每 and Alan Wagstaff was just such a collector."

The collection, which also includes barometers and valuable horological textbooks, goes under the hammer on December 7 at Christie's King Street auction house in London. It will be sold under the title "Important Clocks 每 Including the collection of the late Alan Wagstaff Esq".