Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson table sells for ‘world record price’

A school facing closure has auctioned off two 1930s “Mouseman” dining tables for a combined total of £78,000.

Auctioneers Hawleys said it believed one of the tables, belonging to Moorlands School in Leeds, had sold for a world record price at the event at Beverley Racecourse on Saturday.

The auctioneers said the £42,000 paid for the “astonishing” table, which is almost 6m (19.7ft)-long and made in 1937 from a piece of oak, was the “highest paid at auction for a piece of Mouseman furniture”.

Both tables were sold to phone bidders, with the record offer coming from a buyer in Yorkshire.

The second table, measuring almost 5m (16.4ft)-long and made in 1935, sold for £36,000 to a bidder in Hawaii.

Hawleys said the sale prices had “burst through” the estimates, with the 1937 table having a guide price of £8,000 to £12,000, and the 1935 table at £5,000 to £8,000.

Each table had four benches, which sold to the same bidders for between £3,000 and £5,000.

Auctioneer Caroline Hawley said: “It was amazing. Both bids just went up and up.

“We have checked and £42,000 is the highest price paid at auction for a piece of Mouseman furniture. [It’s] really exciting.”

In June, the independent preparatory school, which has educated children for almost 130 years, announced it would sell the tables, which generations of children had eaten at, ahead of its closure on 31 December.

The oak refectory tables and benches, crafted by Robert “Mouseman” Thompson and featuring his trademark mice carvings, had been donated by former pupils.

Headteacher Jacky Atkinson said the tables and benches had been a “central part of school”.