AN assortment antiques and other items of interest are to be sold from the clearance of waterside hotel Millers at The Anchor in Porlock Weir.

Honiton-based Chilcotts Auctioneers were invited to collect the items by Somerset hoteliers Nigel and Anne Way, who recently purchased the leasehold of the three-storey building with the intention of creating a health and wellbeing hotel.

The Ways bought the contents as part of the deal. When Anne viewed the hotel for the first time, she commented that the hotel was “like the Marie Celeste”, with sheets still on the beds and the tables set in the restaurant – it took two days and three vanloads to move everything.

Liz Chilcott, from the auctioneers, said: “We collected everything to take to our sale room in Honiton – where we had a fascinating time looking through all the items.”

The items were gathered by entrepreneur and bon vivant, the late Martin Miller, who took the Anchor over in 2009, as part of his ‘Exmoor Collection’.

Sometimes referred to as “the Richard Branson of the antiques world”, Mr Miller co-founded the highly successful Millers Antique Price Guides in 1979, a staple of antiques hunters everywhere.

Auctioneer Duncan Chilcott said: “Mr Miller was clearly a prodigious collector, buying regularly at auctions in London and around the country – in fact, some of the paintings still have their Christies lot labels attached.”

As well as antique furniture, paintings and ceramics, there are decorative items such as antique obelisks, lead urns, and large taxidermy animal heads.

The collection will be sold in two auctions: antique furniture, ceramics and decorative pieces on Saturday (February 9), and pictures and taxidermy on March 2. There will be approximately 100 lots across both auctions, with estimates ranging from £50 to £500 per lot.