A CIGAR box used by the wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill has sold for £2,600 at a Swindon auction house.

The box was sold by the Dominic Winter Book Auctions in Maxwell Street.

Churchill presented the box to Brendan Bracken, the Minister of Information during the Second World War and inside it is stamped Romeo Y Julieta, Made in Cuba.

It was expected to go for between £700 and £1,000 so it exceeded all expectations when it was sold yesterday.

Also on sale were portraits signed by the Queen Mother and the Queen.

They were expected to go for between £200 to £300 each but on the day the Queen Mother's portrait sold for £660 and the Queen's portrait went for £400.

One of the most sinister items on sale was a letter signed by the infamous Doctor Crippen giving readers information for home treatments.

It was written and signed in June 1910 five months after he poisoned his wife.

He was eventually caught on an ocean liner to Canada in July of that year and was the first man to be caught using radio.

Dr Crippen was hanged at Pentonville Prison in November of that year.

A copy of a newspaper signed by Margaret Thatcher which reported her resignation as Prime Minister was expected to fetch up to £300 at auction.

Baroness Thatcher signed her photograph on the front of The Times from November 23, 1990, which had a headline, which read Bravura end for Thatcher Era.

The framed newspaper sold for £230 at auction £70 less than predicted.