Top honours by quite a margin went to this much publicised pair of Armada dishes from 1600-1602, which complete a suite of 31 made of silver looted from the Spanish fleet after its disastrous attack of 1588. Of the other 29, the British Museum has 26.

The pair at Crewkerne was estimated at £50,000-£70,000, but the buyer had to go up to £135,000 plus some £26,000 premium to land them. He was the Antiques Roadshow regular Alastair Dickenson, a former head of antique silver at Asprey who now has his own shop in Mayfair.

"These are one of the most important lots of Elizabethan silver to come to auction in my 38 years' dealing," says Alastair, who bought the plates for a client who owns one of the leading collections of Elizabethan silver in the country.

"In all my time, not one of these plates has come up at auction. They're so iconic, and one of the most reproduced objects you'll find. There are still three out there somewhere, and sometimes a sale like this brings out others."

Eight inches across, the plates were hallmarked London 1601. Sir Christopher Harris, who had the suite of 31 made, was a Devon man and an adviser and friend to both Drake and Raleigh.

He commissioned them for a somewhat belated banquet to celebrate the victory at his Radford estate in Devon.

In the Civil War, Harris hid his silver in a potato store at Brixton, near Plymouth, and the secret of its whereabouts died with him. It was not until 1827 that farm labourers unearthed it, and though it was returned to the family, they sold 26 of the dishes about 60 years later.

When they changed hands again, at Christies in 1911, it was for a world record £11,500 – and these are the ones acquired by the British Museum in 1992.

Lawrences' silver specialist Alex Butcher says: "It is still a mystery why these two and three others were separated from the set. The vendor believes they were bought in an estate sale in the Southern States of America."

Elsewhere in the sale militaria sold well, and the group of six medals seen here, awarded to Major Harold Noel in World War I, made £2,210.

Then there was that long-lost portrait of an elegant lady by the celebrated Scottish Colourist Francis Cadell we discussed not long ago.

This was the one that was bought at auction by the Somerset vendor's mother – along with 13 other pictures – for just 30p back in 1957.

It was sold this time for £25,000 – which makes these pages seethe, and wonder what their mum was doing frittering away endless six bobs on bread, milk and sausages all those years ago.