More than £1.2m has been raised at an auction of the antique instruments and other contents of the former Finchcocks Museum in Goudhurst.

A total of 99 rare and unusual instruments - mostly keyboards, but including flutes and violins - the private collection of Finchcocks’ owners Richard and Katrina Burnett - went under the hammer at a sale in Donnington Priory in Berkshire last Wednesday.

All the lots were snapped up, raising £832,462 - more than double their pre-sale estimate.

A further sale of some of the paintings and furnishings from the grade 1 listed Georgian mansion raised another £310,181.

The funds raised will go towards the Finchcocks Charity for Musical Education and will support the training of technicians and tuners in order to preserve and promote the playing of historic keyboard instruments.

Will Richards, the deputy chairman of the auctioneers Dreweatts and Bloomsbury which handled the sale, said: “The success of the sale far exceeded our expectations and has raised important funds for the Finchcocks musical charity going forward which serves as a fitting outcome to all the dedication that Richard and Katrina have shown to early musical instruments.”

Bid were made from all over the world with the top price of £99,200 paid by an American collector for a harpsichord made by Joaquim José Antunes in Lisbon in 1785. The piece was decorated with classical figures including a depiction of the goddess Athena.

A virginal by Onofrio Guarracino made in Naples in 1668 sold for £74,000 to an unnamed British museum.

Many of the pieces sold to buyers in China, Germany and the United States.

In the sale of contents, an oil painting by Martin van Meytens the Younger (1695-1770) sold for £37,200.

A Chinese blue and white Lotus dish, showing the Kangxi mark from the period 1662 to 1722 sold for £27,280.

The Finchcocks Museum closed at Christmas.