A “MACABRE” collection of items from a family of Bradford hangmen is expected to sell for up to £40,000 when it goes to auction later this month.

The items relate to Albert Pierrepoint, the Clayton-born hangman who executed more than 400 people during his prolific career, including many Nazis.

Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst will be selling the lot at an auction on June 12, with a guide price of between £25,000 and £40,000.

The lot includes a “death mask” plaster cast of Pierrepoint’s face as well as casts of both his hands, and an execution book belonging to his father Henry Pierrepoint.

The grim book includes details Henry collected about prisoners before he would hang them, and includes their name, age, height, weight and descriptions of their necks, ranging from “very thin neck” to “strong neck, little flabby”.

It also includes Albert Pierrepoint’s large leather-bound execution ledger with notes about the prisoners, with notes such as “the German, Dutch and Belgium spies; IRA; German POW; British Soldier” etc.

Albert Pierrepoint was an executioner from 1934 to 1956, and achieved national fame for a number of high-profile hangings. When he resigned in 1956, the Home Office acknowledged him as the most efficient executioner in British history.

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A copy of the death mask, and similar ledger of prisoners, is currently on display at Bradford Police Museum. The museum’s curator, Martin Baines, said the execution book reflected the practice of hangmen viewing prisoners to make sure they had the right type of rope for the execution.

He said: “The Pierrepoint family were a well-known family of executioners originally from Clayton. The fact that these items are going to auction with such a high guide price shows the interest some people have in these macabre items.

“These will likely go to a private collector and I can imagine there will only be a handful of private collectors interested in paying this much.

“An awful lot of visitors to our museum show a particular interest in the similar items we have on display, so it shows there is a big public interest in items like this.”