This battered, well-worn desk may not look much. It has, in fact, seen better days.

But it has just sold at auction for a cool £433,250!

It was the setting for literary genius - where author Charles Dickens penned classics such as Great Expectations and Pickwick Papers.

Now the hammer has fallen on the lot - complete with chair - and it raised eight times the auction price!

The two items of furniture, from his home in Higham, are said to be the most important Dickens relics ever offered for public sale.

They were auctioned at Christie's of London on Wednesday and fetched £433,250.

The Victorian mahogany desk and walnut chair passed by family descent to Christopher Charles Dickens (1937-1999) and his wife Jeanne-Marie Dickens, Countess Wenckheim.

They were recently gifted to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, London, by Jeanne-Marie Dickens in order to raise funds.

The hospitable will profit from the total funds raised.

Margaret Ford, the director and head of Christie's books and manuscripts department, said: "It is particularly fitting that the proceeds from this sale should benefit Great Ormond Street Hospital, which was dear to Dickens' own heart, and which received his support and patronage in its early history."

Factfile