IN its current state it might look a bit drafty, but the bidding was expected to become red hot today, when an old oak-framed barn comes up for auction at Grimley, the riverside village just outside Worcester.

The late 19th Century building, raised off the ground on unique cast iron topped staddle stones, has attracted interest from across the world and is just one of around 250 lots of country antiques and vintage collectibles going under the hammer.

Sadly, chances are the British countryside will be kissing goodbye to it.

"Although the barn will probably go to a British buyer, it's a good bet it'll end up on the American market eventually," said auctioneer Howard Pugh.

"They go mad for things like this.

"They use them for pool rooms, dens, studies, even saunas or extensions to houses. Put a floor in, walls and a roof and you have a real piece of history."

Certainly the old farm building had no pretensions to such grandeur when it was discovered in a field near Bromyard a few years ago.

Then it was stuffed full of hay bales, as it probably had been every summer since it was built in the 1800s, 14 staddle stones keeping the crop off the wet floor and the design of their domed tops stopping rats and other vermin in their tracks.

"In fact, it is partly the cast iron staddle stone tops that make this building so unique," Howard added.

"Staddle stone tops are usually stone, the same as the columns. I have never seem them made of metal before."

It took 10 days for the 20ft tall barn to be taken down, with all its timbers numbered, and then a further two weeks for it to be re-erected at the sale site at Retreat Farm, Grimley.

"Now it is all pegged, so it can be dismembered relatively easily by a trained craftsman," said the auctioneer.

"But you won't get it in the back of your Volvo!

"How much will it make? Your guess is as good as mine, because these don't come up for sale very often.

"I'm surprised it's not been listed, because it must be of historical importance."

Items in the sale have been gathered from all over the country, but the barn apart, few are likely to cause more interest than a 1933 Dennis horse ambulance, which came from Aintree racecourse and belonged to Tophams Ltd, the family firm that ran the home of the Grand National.

Still with inflated tyres and in good running order, the vehicle is a masterpiece of engineering, with a special ramp that can be lowered to make access easier for injured horses and a sling device to support the weight of the animal during transport.

The hopes, dreams and money of many a punter have probably been carried away in this equine ambulance over the years.

Some of the lots will be of particular interest to those collecting agricultural memorabilia, for there are horse drawn ploughs and scuffles, a wooden cart jack, wooden harrows, a bale sledge and the wonderfully named lot 14 - an old wooden apple scratter.

Three items were among those salvaged from Saltmarsh Castle, near Bromyard, which fell on hard times many years ago.

It was finally demolished in the 1950s, but not before someone had squirreled away a pair of Victorian cast iron urns on stands, a single cast iron urn and a statue of an eagle.

There are several imposing carved wooden statues, including a 7ft 6in tall long-beaked bird, which would be enough to scare the jogging bottoms off a burglar if he bumped into it in your pitch black hallway one night.

For anyone interested in garden artefacts, the sale should prove a goldmine.

There are marble benches, ornate gates, stone, cast iron and lead troughs, Victorian lamp-posts and even a lovely old Victorian galvanised water butt on a cast iron wheeled carriage.

There's even a white marble frog.

"Interest in the sale has exceeded all our expectations," said Howard. "We have had requests from catalogues from all over the place.

"Of course, on the day people have to turn up prepared to buy, but if it proves successful, I could see a sale like this becoming an annual event."

The first lots were due to come under the hammer by mid morning and the sale is expected to end by mid-afternoon.