A collection of rare photographs of one of the most famous buildings in Victorian Britain has been saved for the nation after being bought by English Heritage in Swindon for nearly three times its estimate.

The 47 shots of the Crystal Palace had been expected to fetch up to £5,000 but sold for £13,500 when they went under the hammer at Dominic Winter Book Auctions in Swindon.

English Heritage received assistance from the Crystal Palace Foundation to buy the pictures.

It is believed they will now stay in Swindon at the National Monument Record Office at Churchward.

Chris Albury, of Dominic Winter, said he was very pleased that the pieces had been sold into public hands.

"To us, it's a perfect story," he said.

"The vendors win, we win, and it's really nice to know that something that has research potential is going to be available to the public.

"The fact that they are in this country as opposed to abroad is even better."

The images show the palace after it was relocated from Hyde Park, central London, where it hosted the Great Exhibition in 1851, to Sydenham Hill, south east London.

They are thought to date from the late 1850s or early 1860s and are one of several collections of prints by Philip Henry Delamotte of the structure, which contained more than one million square feet of glass.

The Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire in 1936.

Mike Evans, of English Heritage, said the pictures would now be stored in the organisation's archive in Swindon and would be available to the public.

He said: "We're very pleased that we have been able to get the images.

"The Crystal Palace is one of the great iconic buildings of the 19th century and its contents are equally important so to have these images, that seem very rare, is very good."