Did David Beckham's chauffeur walk off with a George II ship's cannon at a Sheppey auction?

That is the mystery mum-of-two Jo Kavanagh is trying to solve.

According to rumours circulating across the Island, the football star’s driver was at the sale at the Klondyke Industrial Estate at Queenborough and bid £3,400 for the 290-year-old gun which had been rescued from the mud of the River Medway.

Miss Kavanagh, who was helping her partner Geoff Fray and his company Mantid dispose of workshop and engineering tools, said: “I don’t know who it was. The man was quite reticent and refused to give his name. But on reflection, he did look a bit chauffeurish.

“He said the cannon was being taken to a secret location. He was very, very secretive about it.”

The cannon was collected by its new owner the following morning in a “nondescript” truck.

More than 100 people turned up and 20 ended up bidding for the canon, one of 361 lots which included lathes, cherry-pickers, two mobile cranes, a tractor, a JCB digger, an anchor and ship’s wheel and five boats.

All were put under the hammer by Alan Mummery and John Booth from auctioneers Lambert and Foster.

Mr Fray had been hoping to get at least £1,000 for the cannon.

Miss Kavanagh said: “Geoff had been collecting these things for more than 40 years but as the estate is to be bulldozed by its new owners the Homes and Communities Agency to make way for more housing we thought it was time to have a clear-out.

“I am sure Geoff was sorry to see much of it go. In an ideal world, he would have liked the cannon to have remained on Sheppey.”

Miss Kavanagh said: “It went very well. Much of the metal went for scrap. The only things we had left were seven tyres, two cranes and an excavator.” Some of the boats also remain.

The one-ton cannon, which has a King George II mark on it, was pulled out of the Medway mud 30 years ago.

After the Dutch invasion of the Medway in 1667, the Royal Navy insisted all ships docking at Chatham must have their cannons removed.

While one ship was being relieved of her weaponry at Gun Wharf, a cannon was accidentally dropped into the water. The name of the ship is unknown.

The cannon was mounted on a mobile wooden block and sold, complete with an original cannon ball rusted into its muzzle.

Also for sale were an anchor and ship’s wheel were salvaged from The King Orry, the last steamship to serve the Isle of Man, when it was scrapped in 1978.

The wheel was bought by Islander Alan Milton who is planning to give it a new home on the Norfolk Broads.