Happy Birthday to us!

From Victorian cattle market auctioneers through to selling the local workhouse, (possibly) helping to solve the mystery of Jack the Ripper, and breaking the record on the BBC's Antiques Road Trip, our firm has had a colourful 150 years!

“Mr Henry Lacy Scott begs to advise as to his setting up in business as an Auctioneer and Valuer, the office being at No.3 Guildhall Street”

The first recorded mention of what would become Lacy Scott & Knight was the above announcement in the Bury Free Press of 9th July 1869. The business was obviously a success from the start as Henry Lacy Scott founded a livestock market behind the Market Tavern (now the Gym Bar) on Risbygate Street in 1874, almost exactly where the Auction Centre is now located.

Over the years, Lacy Scott & Sons expanded and diversified before linking up with R.C. Knight & Sons of Stowmarket in 1997. We have held many notable auctions in this time including a pair of Sèvres vases which were probably made for a French king and broke the provincial auction record in 1999, a Victorian shawl which purportedly belonged to a victim of Jack the Ripper and was later DNA tested with surprising results, a barn-find collection of classic cars, the collection of Victorian Britain's 'Father of Forensic Science', the estate of Angus McBean - Surrealist Photographer to the Stars, and much more. It is very true that we never know what's going to come through the door next!

You may well have been involved in some of those auctions and we would like to say thank you for your continued business. Our clients are extremely important to us, both buyers and sellers, and we would not have made it this far without you!

Take a scroll through a brief history of Lacy Scott & Knight here.

Silver trophy cup presented to Walton Burrell for the Best Ox at Messrs Scott & Nunns Xmas sale, Bury St Edmunds, 13th Dec. 1882. Kindly loaned by Mr Lawrence Simpson for the purpose of a display at Moyse's Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds (further details below).

As part of our 150^th anniversary year, we are pleased to announce a mini-display charting our company history at Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds which will run between 13th March - 11th April. To include items donated to the museum by the Lacy Scott family, photographs of the last Cattle Market held in the town, information and highlights from our 150 years as auctioneers, and a stunning medieval stirrup ring which the museum has acquired through a charitable donation by Lacy Scott & Knight.

The ring was discovered by a metal detectorist on land in Nayland, and was offered to Moyse's Hall Museum to buy via the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
It falls into a category or style collectively known as “Stirrup Rings” because of the shape. The ring extends at its shoulder to the bezel (creating a miniature stirrup shape) which at one time housed a precious stone or gem. On the external face of the ring from the right side of the bezel to the left is an inscription that reads “Amie Tu Et Ma Vie (Friend you are my life). Inscriptions are very rare on this style of ring, presumably because of the generally small width of the band of the loop making it hard to inscribe. The font style has led Archaeologists to conclude that it probably dates to the 14^th Century. Its size also probably means it was made for and worn by a woman. This brings a wonderfully personal and emotive, possibly tragic even, story to an object. What happened to either the friend who “was someone else’s life” and indeed what was the life of that person in turn.

You can see this ring on display in Moyse's Hall Museum in the Lacy Scott & Knight case until 11th April.

The display will be in the reception area of Moyse's Hall Museum (therefore free to visit), although we highly recommend that you explore the rest of the museum which is in a 12th century building and houses a world-renowned clock collection, wonderful works of art, a crime & punishment gallery, as well as charting the history of Bury St Edmunds.
More details here.