Last- auction at Pavilion?

Written by Angela Gooch on February 17th, 2008 in Social History.

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WHAT may prove to be the last auction in the burnt-out Tower Gardens Pavilion, Skegness, was held under its smoke-blackened roof on Thursday. All 120 lots were sold in the same number of minutes with only a disputed commode left over at the end of the lightning clearance sale.

About 80 people attended the auction, carried Out by William Bacon’s resident partner, Mr Alan Wright. A three-piece suite fetched most at £16 but a number of articles went for only 1op.
The commode was the most stubborn. When no one would offer even 5p for it, Mr Wright threw it in with two picture frames, which he sold for 50p. But the man who bought the frames made it clear he did not want the commode and the matter was still unresolved when the sale ended.

Mr Wright said afterwards : “People knew everything had to go. I’m afraid it was giving them away really. Sometimes I felt like being a registered charity.”
The light was fading in the unlit Pavilion as he finished. It was a relief to have disposed of the stock as it had been piled up in a back room with no security and some of the items, including a bag of coke, had been stolen.

The goods sold included furniture, kitchen equipment, carpets, books, amusements, a clock, a sewing machine, an ancient typewriter, crockery, a pram and cot, a TV set and a juke box. Some had been damaged by the fire.

The sale took place instead of the scheduled gun sale as the guns they had had been destroyed by the fire, and all the firm’s recent records destroyed.
It was impossible to notify everyone of its cancellation and people turned up for the gun sale from as far as Dorset.

Local news article 1976