Gorringe’s in Lewes expected £1,000 to £1,500 for a painted wooden stick 35cm long, made in 1832 for G. Hoey, Constable of the Hundred of Ringmer; on 2 November a local buyer paid £16,000 for it.
A 35cm painted tipstave made in 1832 for the Constable of the Hundred of Ringmer sold for £16,000 at Gorringe's in Lewes, on a £1,000-£1,500 estimate.
A painted wooden tipstave, or staff of office, 35cm long, made in 1832 for G. Hoey, Constable of the Hundred of Ringmer, sold for £16,000 at Gorringe’s in Lewes on 2 November 2026. The Antiques Trade Gazette, reporting the result in its print edition issue 2768, called the figure “a remarkable £16,000” and said the piece had been “snapped up by a local buyer”.
The estimate had been £1,000 to £1,500. The lot was catalogued by Gorringe’s as a rare William IV turned wooden painted tipstave and offered in the firm’s Militaria and Medals auction, held on Monday 2 November at 15 North Street, Lewes.
Previewing the sale on 26 October, Lawrence Smith reported in the Sussex Express that the staff was dated 1832, made for G. Hoey, Constable of the Hundred of Ringmer, and carried “strong Lewes provenance”. Its overall length was given as 35cm, and the auction house noted that such an object is often called a tipstaff.
A tipstaff, Gorringe’s explained, is a traditional ceremonial baton carried by law enforcement and judicial officers to show official authority to execute orders and make arrests.
A staff of office for a Sussex hundred
The description places the object precisely: a turned wooden staff, painted, 35cm long, and dated 1832, two years into the reign of William IV. Ringmer lies a short distance from Lewes, the county town, and gave its name to one of the hundreds, the historic subdivisions into which English counties were divided.
The staff was not a weapon but a proof of office. On the auction house’s own account of what a tipstaff is for, the holder produced it to demonstrate that an order or an arrest carried official authority. Hoey’s name and his title, Constable of the Hundred of Ringmer, were on the object from the start.
The sources differ slightly on that title. Gorringe’s and the Sussex Express, followed by the auction record, describe the 1832 staff as made for G. Hoey, Constable of the Hundred of Ringmer. The Antiques Trade Gazette’s visible report describes the lot as a 19th century ceremonial truncheon created for the High Constable of the Hundred of Ringmer in Sussex under William IV. Both ranks appear on the object itself, because of what was added to it later.
Fifteen names in silver, and a fire engine
What distinguishes this staff from a plain painted baton is the set of small silver labels attached to it, dated variously to 1879. Each is engraved with the name of one of 15 subsequent Constables and High Constables, together with their years of office. The staff therefore functions as a list of the men who held the post after Hoey.
The largest of the labels is engraved “B. Thorpe High Constable 1868 – Cliffe Volunteer Fire Brigade Estd. 1864”, and carries an engraving of a fireman standing by his engine. The brigade’s founding date of 1864 is given on the label itself, alongside Thorpe’s year as High Constable.
Among the other names engraved on the staff is John Harvey. Gorringe’s placed the piece in an era of Lewes history it said was “championed” by figures such as John Harvey, who founded Harvey’s Brewery in 1790. That combination – a brewing family, a volunteer fire brigade and a line of hundred officers – is what Gorringe’s drew attention to before the sale. In the auctioneer’s own phrasing, the piece “bridges the historic civic life of the High Constable with the exact golden era of Lewes’s development”; that is a seller’s characterisation rather than an independent historical judgement.
James Hancox, auctioneer and valuer at Gorringe’s, put the appeal in local terms before the sale: “With inscriptions dedicated to John Harvey, as well as a member of the Cliffe Volunteer Fire Brigade, this tipstave is an important piece of Lewes local history and we are delighted to be presenting it for sale at Gorringe’s.”
A result well above estimate, and a buyer known only as local
Against an upper estimate of £1,500, the staff sold for £16,000. The Antiques Trade Gazette made the lot its pick of the week in issue 2768, under a headline promising a tip-top price for a rare truncheon at auction.
Beyond that, the public record is thin. The gazette’s article is paywalled, and its visible text breaks off mid-sentence while beginning to place the sum in a wider context of prices paid; the remainder of that sentence is not reported here. The buyer is identified in that visible text only as local, with no name, and the available reporting does not state whether the £16,000 figure includes buyer’s premium.
What can be said is contained in the object. It was made in 1832 for a named constable of a Sussex hundred; it was still in use, or at least still being added to, when silver labels dated variously to 1879 were fixed to it, recording 15 further holders of the office; one of those labels ties a High Constable of 1868 to a volunteer fire brigade founded four years earlier; and another name on it is John Harvey, a name Gorringe’s associated with the Lewes brewery founded in 1790. On 2 November 2026 it sold in Lewes, a short distance from Ringmer, to a local buyer.