Historic contents of crumbling mansion including Jaguar graveyard being sold at auction
| Posted: September 13, 2016
Blackborough House has long been the destination for motorheads seeking an illusive missing part with its vast collection of old vehicles and spare parts.
The rusting relics of a crumbling mansion are being sold at auction - including a rare Jaguar GRAVEYARD.
Blackborough House has long been the destination for motorheads seeking an illusive missing part with its vast collection of old vehicles and spare parts.
It has also been the setting for a horror movie and is home to the car crusher that could not kill Superman in one of the films.
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Owner and classic car collector Ralph Sanders recently sold the derelict 60-room property and 10-acre grounds near Cullompton, Devon to a developer.
And on Saturday, choice items from his private collection will be auctioned along with an assortment of rusting relics that have almost taken root around the property.
With everything having to go, the 1,000-plus lots will include salvage, spares, tools, engines, enamel signs and rural bygones from several decades of decay.
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There is also what Ralph affectionately refers to as "the Jaguars' graveyard" - a row of once prestige cars disappearing under brambles.
There is also a Morris Minor "minus most things" and a haphazard collection of motorbikes.
Tucked away in an outhouse is an Austin Seven trials car with a pre-war chassis and later engine out of an A30. Alongside it is a 1940s Standard Fordson tractor.
In addition, there is a mobile Aljon American car flattener bought new by Pinewood Studios for one of the Superman films where it unsuccessfully tried to crush the hero.
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After its brief moment of cinematic fame it went on to be used in scrapyards from London to the Westcountry before coming to rest at Blackborough House.
All are destined for new homes as an end of an era comes to Blackborough House.
In contrast the glittering rarities from Ralph's private classic car collection, some of which will be open to bids on Saturday, are cosseted in several secure units in mid-Devon.
Built in 1838, by the fourth and last Earl of Egremont, the site was intended to be a vast Italianate palace.
However, financial woes curtailed his grandiose plans and a smaller house was built instead.
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In its day it has been a school, base for a religious group, home for wartime wounded and an internment camp for conscientious objectors.
Since 1951 it has been used as a vehicle breakers' yard.
Ralph's family farmed locally and he used to come here as a child.
He said: "I bought it when the owners got to old to run the business - now I have got too old, and we are moving on.
"They kept tyres in the cellars in the dark and the cool because that is the way to keep them. They were chalked up with their different sizes.
"The house was stocked full of old car bits from years ago and we have been steadily selling them since."
During its heyday articulated lorries arrived each day - delivering up to a hundred cars a week.
"The spares were sold and the cars sold for metal. Each car was a ton."
Three years ago the Grade II Listed house achieved fame as the setting for a low budget horror movie called 'In Fear'.
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