Hundreds of unwanted items from Alan Carr’s Scottish castle go up for auction

Hundreds of unwanted items from Alan Carr’s Ayton Castle will go under the hammer on Sunday 5 July, including more than 90 lots from the Branxton Cement Menagerie, a hand-built collection of concrete animals and figures. Railtons will sell the castle’s residual contents in situ at 10am, after public viewing on Friday 3 July and Saturday 4 July, with tickets required for both the viewing and the auction.

The sale covers about 400 lots in all, from furniture, pictures and textiles to rugs and ceramics, and the vast majority are expected to bring only a few hundred pounds each. The contents are being cleared from Ayton Castle, a 19th-century baronial-style property in the Scottish Borders that was bought earlier in 2026 for around £3.25m after being marketed for offers over that figure. Alan Carr planned to restore the 17-bedroom castle for a new television project.

Created in the 1960s by a retired joiner for his disabled son, the collection grew to more than 200 painted concrete sculptures and became a much-loved visitor attraction in Branxton, Northumberland. Its figures include animals, historical characters and rural scenes, and earlier versions of the collection also featured Winston Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia.

The menagerie moved to Ayton Castle in 2021 after a sale that was won by Brian Parsons for a hammer price of £20,000. Parsons said at the time that the sculptures would be restored and displayed at the castle, while Samantha Brattisani, the former owner, said she was upset to part with them but happy they would go to a good home.