Antique dealer Roger Warner's collection demonstrates his ecleticism of taste and lifelong passion for amassing treasures, of which he never tired.

His private customers included Queen Mary, Princess Margaret, Walt Disney, the wife of the novelist Graham Greene, Christopher Fry, Peter Ustinov and the Mitford sisters. He contributed to museum collections, including Temple Newsam, in Leeds, and his treasures included a dolls' house reputedly redecorated by Charlotte Brontë.

Now the private collections of Mr Warner, a leading figure in the antiques and fine art
world are to go under the hammer following his death last year.

Geoffrey Crofts, an auctioneer at Brightwells, Leominster, Herefordshire, which will look after two of the sales, knew Mr Warner. "He collected such a variety of items, which makes him quite unusual. He was a one-off I would say," he said.

Christie's in London will also host a sale of the larger items in his collection later this month including William Wordsworth's desk chair from Rydal Mount, and the Charlotte Brontë dolls' house.

Brightwells will auction the smaller items in his collection, together with the printed ephemera and games in two sales. The first will be held on February 4.

Trading from the same shop in Burford, Oxfordshire, for over fifty years, where every nook and cranny was carefully filled, he accumulated a serendipitous assortment of fascinating items from toys to books, watercolours, prints, engravings, sketches and much more including furniture, Delftware ceramics, pictures and textiles.

He was responsible for ensuring that an impressive number of rare survivals were placed in museums, including the Victoria and Albert in London. A textile collection is displayed under his name at Temple Newsam House,
Leeds.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he regularly appeared as an expert with Arthur Negus on the BBC's Going for a Song, the forerunner of the Antiques Roadshow.

His particular interest in dolls, dolls' houses and period costume brought him to the attention of Lord Redesdale's daughters, the six Mitford
sisters of whom Deborah, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, was the youngest and is the last survivor.

Diana Mitford, who married Sir Oswald Mosley, the British Fascist leader, spent the war years in Holloway Prison,
Unity was infamous for her friendship with, and adulation of, Hitler, and Jessica was a member of the American Communist Party.

The sisters embarrassed the young unmarried Warner by trying on frocks in the middle of his shop's showroom, and in 1938 they bought a dress for Unity to cheer her up after she got a black eye at a Fascist rally in Hyde Park.

Mr Warner, who died aged 95, was a Quaker and renowned for the ethical standards he practised in business.

Brightwells had a long association with Mr Warner, as Mr Crofts once worked for him at Burford and he was also a regular client of the firm.

At the first sale, on February 4, Brightwells will offer a selection of books, children's games, watercolours and toys. It offers an opportunity to discover forgotten treasures among the hundreds of papers and books that caught the eye of Mr Warner, who was never able, despite retiring some years ago, to give up collecting.

Some of the books reflect his interest in interior decoration, such as an 1827 edition of the Decorative Painter's and Glazier's Guide, written by Nathaniel Whittock and a Chinese design sample book for various trades, published in 1850.

Children's books, jigsaw puzzles, playing cards and paper dolls, including a hand-coloured representation of "Albert the Roscius", published in 1811 and watercolours, engravings and prints.

The sale of larger items from Mr Warner's collection, including the dolls' house said to have been painted by Charlotte Bronte, will be held at Christie's in London on January 20 and 21 and is expected to realise in excess of £800,000.

A magpie and a benefactor

The Roger Warner Collection of historic textiles was given to Temple Newsam, Leeds.

He acquired many fabrics during his fifty year career as an antique dealer. They were mostly furnishings bought at country house sales and some were inherited from his grandfather, Metford Warner, owner of Victorian wallpaper printing firm, Jeffrey & Co of London.

Metford Warner was a collector of fabrics which he used as inspiration for his wallpaper designs.

One of the most renowned and admired British antique dealers of the 20th century, Roger Warner ran his shop in Burford, Oxfordshire for 50 years from 1936.

Mr Warner also donated items to other museums including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and The Ashmolean in Oxford.