Irish bog oak canoe or trough – £7500 at Bonhams.
Carved from a single log and measuring 6ft 10in (2.09m), it had been acquired by Lennon from the estate of the Irish antiquarian Rev Con Auld.
In the 1970s Rev Auld had been driving through rural County Fermanagh when he noticed a group of boys tending a bonfire. The firewood being used was a number of bog oak vessels recently uncovered by contractors building a road.
Anxious for this piece of Irish history not to be lost, a price was negotiated for this piece, which he carried away in a trailer. Although long deemed to be a neolithic canoe dating from c.2000BC, it was suggested prior to the sale that it was an Iron Age trough – the sharp angles within the vessel being consistent the use of metal tools in its manufacture. Estimated at £2000-3000, it sold at £7500.
Lennon accumulated a huge collection of antiques across a range of disciplines including silver, Asian art, English drinking glasses and European ceramics.
Topping the sale at £21,500 was a Scottish silver cast of the Warwick vase – the second century marble excavated from Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli in 1771. This Victorian silver vase measuring 15in (37cm) across and weighing 112oz was marked for Aitchison, Edinburgh 1877.
