HUTCHINSON-Scott had a nice little auction in Northallerton. I say "little" because, although there were 400 mostly valuable lots, the venue, the town hall, though vaulted, isn't large enough for a tonnage of furniture.

Just to check out the hall, I looked it up in the North Riding volume of The Buildings of England by the late Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and was astonished to find the most vitriolic entry. Here it is: "Town Hall. Really irredeemable: joyless, utterly ignorant and not inventive either. 1873 by Ross of Darlington." I quite like the hall.

Just out of interest, I wondered what else Pevsner had to say on the town and found another sharp entry: "County Modern School for Boys. Opened 1960. By D Clarke-Hall & Partners. A clean, sensible job without personality cult."

Back to the sale, which was certainly not ignorant, brought plenty of joy for the auctioneers and came to life after a dozen lots via a pair of nineteenth century Staffordshire zebras that galloped to £380. The auctioneers had expected £350-450 for these and were spot on.

Most auctioneers nowadays set low estimates as an encouragement to buyers. Hutchinson-Scott's estimates were unerringly accurate, surprises were few, yet very little did not sell efficiently.

A plain Doulton salt glaze three-handled cup made £450; a fancy Moorcroft Art Deco vase made £550, an up-front Royal Dux Bohemia bust of a young woman fetched £880; a "scantily clad" version with a conch shell reached a full £1,700.

There was a lot of copper and brass including ale warmers that made a lukewarm £130 in these times of cold lager. The metalwork that caught my eye was the "rare Georgian ironwork peat tongs" which curiously did not sell; one cannot blame central heating.

An octagonal lead tobacco box with the inscription "Tobacco's a physician good for the sound and sickly" made a perverse but again expected £330.

Of the barometers, one from Hull reached a high £1,800, one from Penzance an under-the-weather £750, while a barograph from Newcastle recorded £800. There was a fine instrument in the clock section, a nineteenth century domestic wall regulator by Shepherd of London. This was plain and neat but beautifully engineered with a massive zinc compensated rod pendulum to ensure that precision timekeeping should not be prejudiced by any change in temperature. It clocked up £6,400.

I tried a selection of the Windsor chairs. The most comfortable, yew wood and elm, was also the most expensive at £950. More expensive elm came in the shape of a William and Mary burr elm chest that drew out a bid of £7,000.

However, this sale will for me linger as a tale of two pictures. One was of interest because good, an oil by Herbert Royle (1870-1958) depicting a view on the Wharfe. It was estimated at £4,500-£6,500 and made exactly the lower figure.

It was a lovely bit of work by the Ilkley artist, vivid, confident and with a touch of Van Gogh. His work can be seen at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. The picture might well have made a little more sold in the West Riding.

The other Victorian and pricey oil was by Ernest Walbourne, who flourished, as they say, between 1897 and 1904. His effort called The cabbage patch flourished to £6,800. Not a first prize-winning patch - the lower estimate was £7,000 - but grade A vegetables none the less.

If it had just been a picture of cabbages one would be pleased. However the large oil painting also had a full range of calendar cliches of romanticised countryside - a man leaning wearily on a fork, a cart, an orchard, a broken fence and a thatched cottage. Plus a young woman in a long dress holding a wicker basket and also holding her head as if shading her eyes from the sun - or she might have just seen a problem with the cabbages, or she had a migraine.