RARE bank notes from when Salisbury printed its own money have sold at auction for £1,600.

Two of the notes, an 1810 Sarum City Bank five pound note and an 1809 Sarum City Bank ten pound note, each sold for £200 at the auction, held at Spink in Bloomsbury, London.

But ten other notes issued in the city between 1799 and 1815 failed to sell.

The notes were among a £1million collection of English provincial bank notes put up for sale by multi millionaire Jersey property tycoon David Kirch, which will be sold in four parts at Spink.

Salisbury was so prosperous in the early 1800s that it had at least four privately- owned banks, all issuing their own notes.

But their notes could only be used locally, so when many of these provincial banks went bust, as two of the Salisbury banks did, their notes became worthless.