Rare toys belonging to one of the last surviving members of the Rowntree family have gone under the hammer at a record-breaking sale.

Items from the home of Esther Robson, of Scalby, near Scarborough, who is in her 90s and is the last surviving grandchild of William Rowntree, were sold at David Duggleby's Vine Street Salerooms in the resort.

The sale, which also included items of furniture, ceramics, silverware, clocks and paintings, realised about £190,000 - almost double the £100,000 estimate.

A battered-looking teddy bear, dating from 1906 and believed to have been made by the German firm Steiff, sold for £900 - considerably higher than its pre-sale estimate of between £100 and £200.

Mr Duggleby said a tinplate Marklin & Bing train set sold for £1,650, in line with an estimate of between £1,500 and £2,000.

A boxed model of Lehmann's "Stubborn Donkey"complete with original instructions went for £340, compared with an estimate of £200.

The highest price was £13,000 for a George I walnut chest on chest - making it the most expensive piece of furniture ever sold at auction in Scarborough.

Mr Duggleby said a watercolour by William Russell Flint entitled Dear Miss Phoebe sold for £6,700, and a Dutch-school winter landscape in "fairly poor condition" was knocked down for £5,400.

A pair of silver candlesticks made by Bowles Nash of London in 1725 went for £6,700, while a table by Robert "Mouseman" Thompson containing a canteen of silver cutlery realised £6,100.

The four-poster marriage bed of William Rowntree and Mary Stickney was sold to a local buyer for £4,300.

Rowntree was the founder of the W Rowntree & Sons department stores in Scarborough and in Coney Street and Lendal, York.

About 350 people worked in the Scarborough store and a further 150 were employed in York. The business was taken over by Debenhams in 1966, but held on to the Rowntree name for a further six years.

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