Original Brading Waxworks Valentine Gray figure SOLD at auction

The original waxwork figure of chimney sweep Valentine Gray from the Isle of Wight's former Brading Waxworks Museum has sold at auction.

The fondly remembered museum depicted many characters throughout the Island’s history, including Valentine Gray, the Newport apprentice chimney sweep, who died in 1822, aged just 10, at the hands of his master, Benjamin Davies.

The vintage waxwork figure of ‘The Little Sweep’, together with an original Osborn-Smith’s Wax Museum pamphlet and a mask of an old man, went up for auction on Tuesday, June 18.

The auction, held at the HRD Auction Rooms in Brading, placed a guide price of £100-200, but instead, the figure fetched a cool £650.

• Read more: Auction sale of former Brading Waxworks - here's how much it made

The former Brading Waxworks building was itself sold at auction earlier this year.

At the old Brading Waxworks, the Valentine Gray figure could be found in an area repurposed as a chimney space.

The figure was put back on display in 2018, eight years after the Rectory Mansion Waxwork’s closure, as part of a mini-exhibition.