STOKESLEY auctioneers Lithgow Sons and Partners were selling the contents of Wilton Castle, near Redcar, on the premises, an unmissable opportunity to have a gander at the famous pile, to rubberneck and wonder at a place once pivotal in the era of the "white heat of technology".

Or so I was assured by my partner who insisted on coming as his mother had frequented the castle when, just after the war, she worked as a top secretary (in modern parlance a PA) at ICI, for a while for the chairman, meeting the likes of the young Harold Wilson.

Wilton Castle still has a tremendous feel, not on account so much of the building itself, a castigated block of sandstone circa 1810 by architect Sir Robert Smirke.

In his Yorkshire, the North Riding volume of his Buildings of England, Nicholas Pevsner says of the Gothic-styled castle: "No romance here."

He misses the point. There can be few more extraordinary vistas. I looked out from a first-floor dining room, over a golf course, to the forest of chimneys and metal glittering in the sunshine, acre after acre of chemical plant, a demanding but exciting view.

Oh yes. The furniture - in this room a table to seat a couple of dozen, measured by auctioneers at 298in, that sold for about £4 per repro inch.

I continued my wander through the oak-lined corridors and came to the chairman's suite. His bedroom curtains sold for £350 (the sale was wonderful for curtains); his bathroom suite, jacuzzi included, made £525.

However, the surprising aspect of the chairman's pad was its aspect. You would think that the boss would wish to command his domain, look out over the source of his salary. But no, the chairman would have opened his curtain in the opposite direction, to a parterre, the lawns divided by paths with benches, and beyond a natural hillside.

The new owners, Wimpey Homes, will have to find two sets of buyers for their apartments, one with a rural and one with an industrial aesthetic.

The ballroom had a high-painted ceiling and mirrors; one sold for £340.

The most impressive lots were the sets of decent repro chairs. These the auctioneers sold by the effective method of putting one up, taking the bids, and then letting the successful bidder "stand on" for as many of the chairs he or she wanted.

Twenty-six dining room chairs made £40 each; 59 in Chippendale style reached £60 a seat - that's £3,400 for the sitting.

To one side of the formal rooms was an area called the Wilton Castle club, comprising a courtyard with a fountain, bars and a fitness room. You would not believe the equipment in this mirrored gym - the machinery of torture.

To quote from the sale catalogue, there was a "Panatta sport groin flex exercise machine"; that made £325. A contraption for "deltoids" flexed to £250, one for "pecs" a popular £400, an "abdominal crunch roller" a mere £20, and a "leg curl machine", £325.

Nearby was arrayed a vast quantity of catering gear. I quite fancied a 19in diameter stainless pan with lid that would hold enough to feed the 5,000. it made £52.