A rare reminder of country house life in Furness in the early 17th century has been sold at auction for a remarkable £11,500.

This was the hammer price at Tuesday's sale by Sworders at Stansted, Essex, for an oil painting showing a woman who once lived at Kikrby Hall.

The painting is dated 1603 and shows Jane, wife of Roger Kirkby, and the daughter of Edward Rigby, of Burgh, Lancashire.

It was painted in oil on a wooden board and is by an unknown English artist.

The picture had a pre-sale estimate of £1,000 to £1,500.

An article for the Evening Mail in August 1968 by local historian James Melville said it was suggested that the Kirkby family had been living in Furness since before the 1066 Norman Conquest.

Mr Melville wrote: "West, when writing his Antiquities of Furness, published in 1774, lists no less than 22 generations, commencing in the time of Richard I.

"The last living in 1774 was William Comber Kirkby, who then lived at Ham, near Richmond in Surrey.

"He passed away all his right to the Kirkby estates but still retained Ashlack Hall, just north of Kirkby."

The earliest known residence of the Kirkby family was Cross House, which was built in the early 15th century.

Mr Melville wrote: "It was not until Henry Kirkby of Cross House married his cousin Anne, heiress of the Kirkby estates, in 1519 that the building became known as Kirkby Hall."

A height difference of just two inches on a rare little green bottle is likely to add £1,000 to the price.

The sale on Sunday, July 2, by BBR Auctions at Elsecar in South Yorkshire, has two examples of bottles by the Manx Shrub company of Ulverston.

Around 1900 these triangular bottles would be sold as a herbal medicine and contained Fishers Seaweed Extract.

The bottle (lot 106) measuring five inches in height should sell for £120 to £150 but the seven inch (lot 107) example - one of only three known - is tipped to sell for £1,200 to £1,500.

The July 6 to 8 sale in Sussex by Eastbourne Auctions expects £50 to £80 for a wooden clockwork boat based on Miss England II.

The full size version was raced by Sir Henry Seagrave on Windermere.

A letter written by Coniston author John Ruskin is included in the Monday, July 3, sale (lot 107) by International Autograph Auctions at Nottingham.

It was sent by Ruskin, who lived from 1819 to 1900, to Charles - possibly the American author Charles Norton.

The letter should sell for £200 to £300.

Bidding reached £300 in Tuesday's sale by Gorringe's at Lewes, in East Sussex, for a rare 1930s meerschaum pipe with the bowl carved with the faces of Ulverston-born movie star Stan laurel and his screen partner Oliver Hardy.

The Saturday, July 1, (lot 261) sale by Fieldings Auctioneers at Stourbridge, in the West Midlands, has the autographs of Stan and Ollie for sale.

They normally signed autograph album pages, photographs or even dinner menus - but rarely banknotes.

The sale has an old 10 shilling (50p) note signed by the comedy duo and it has a modest pre-sale estimate of £60 to £90.