Tens of thousands of bygones collected by Chris Nunn of Sutton Windmill museum, are to be sold by Gaze in a 1,000 lot auction on the premises on 11th and 12th September. The themed sale covers shaving memorabilia, shop displays, kitchenalia, plumbers tools, tinmans shop, joinery carpentry and planes, farrier, millwright, farm implements, cobbler, pharmacy, smoking collectibles, contents of various wooden sheds, carts and prams, coopers shop, undertakers undertakings, wheelwright tools and spares, old radios radiograms records and TVs, taxidermy, advertising, vets implements, fishing tackle and animal traps.
 
Top lot, no. 475, is a complete pharmacy from the Isle of Wight, comprising a mahogany pharmacy counter approximately 16ft long with five ebonised front panels carved with leaf and berries with any miscellaneous contents in drawers, the fitting of an 1880's pharmacy to include a 25ft long drug run, shelving and 104 drawers with glass knobs and gilt labels and 65 drawers with numbered or letter labels and a further run incorporating shelving, a large mirror and cabinets, all in mahogany with carved embellishments and estimated at £25,000 - £35,000.
 
Sutton Windmill, the tallest on the Norfolk Broads (and in Britain in 1992), was owned by two families - the Bygraves and then the Worts - from 1790 to 1940 when it stopped milling work. In 1975 Chris Nunn bought the windmill from the Worts and began its restoration at the same time continuing to build his bygones collection, reportedly started in 1961 when a neighbour gave him an old washing dolly.
 
"In the late 1950s so much was being thrown away - the big changing world after the war - and my late wife and I thought we really ought to try to save some of it. Once we started we did not stop," he told the BBC in 2005.
 
The mill and museum were sold to Yesterday's World of Sussex in 2006 and the museum closed in 2008 following reports that the company could not fund the estimated £500,000 windmill repair costs.
 
Although no longer the owner, Mr. Nunn has talked to Carl Willows of Gaze's about the sale, and is willing to provide information about lots if he can.