A deckchair from the doomed Titanic liner sold for £100,000 at auction in Devizes on Saturday.

Andrew Aldridge from Henry Aldridge and Son said: "It was an excellent day. I couldn't believe the interest both from sellers and from the media. I was very, very pleased with the price the deck chair went for."

The Nantucket wooden chair was on the first-class promenade deck when the luxury liner sank in the Atlantic after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912.

Mr Aldridge, the grandson of the auction house founder, said the chair was one of the rarest types of Titanic collectible.

About 1,500 people died when the Titanic sank after striking an iceberg on 14 April 1912 en route to New York from Southampton.

The deckchair was found bobbing on the surface of the Atlantic by the crew of the Mackay-Bennett, who were sent to recover the bodies of the victims.

The Mackay-Bennett’s log records six or seven deckchairs being picked up and taken back to port in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

One was given to a former crewmate, Captain Julien Lemarteleur. It has since been owned for 15 years by an English Titanic collector who kept it by a large window overlooking the sea at his home on the south coast.

The seller had never sat on it due to its fragile state and instead used it as a display item.

The chair, which had a sale estimate of £70,000 to £80,000, was bought by a UK collector who bid over the phone for the item. Mr Aldridge said: "He is not specifically a Titanic collector. He just enjoys unusual items. He has bought it for himself not to sell on.

"We had between 80 and 100 people in the salesroom on the day but we had many more on the phone and bidding via the internet. There was interest from all over the world including Australia and America.

"The interest in everything Titanic is still huge. It is a bit scary when you are in charge of an auction that has so much interest as you don't want to do anything wrong. The important thing is to really know what you are doing and to be confident."

A rare collection of original negatives from Robert Scott's fatal expedition to the Antarctic also drew a lot of attention on Saturday and sold for around £36,000.