T here are some who dismiss the great 19th-century eccentric William Beckford as a fool – in which case, Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury have just discovered that there's a high price to be paid for fool's gold.

A pair of silver-gilt waiters which once graced his ill-fated Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire sold for a hammer price of £36,000 on Wednesday, after going in with a top estimate of £20,000.

Dated 1817, they were made by William Burwash of London, and decorated with strapwork echoing the heraldic motifs of the Beckford arms.

Better still, they bore a striking resemblance to a sideboard dish in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was made for Beckford by the same silversmith at around the same time.

It is also possible that the design was by Gregorio Franchi, Beckford's Portuguese agent and friend, and it certainly echoes Beckford's obsessions with his lineage and the Islamic world.

The waiters came in from the estate of the late Niel Rimington of Fonthill, and another outstanding piece of silver from him was a Guild of Handicraft beaker by Charles Ashbee, set with garnet cabouchons.

Eleven telephone bidders competed with several in the room plus various commission bids, and its modest estimate of £3,000-£5,000 was left far behind when it was sold to a private collector for £12,500.