KEYS to the post room of the ill-fated Southampton liner Titanic have sold for more than £100,000.

They were bought and sold by private collectors from abroad.

The hammer price was £90,000, to which a buyer's premium was added, taking the total fee paid to £101,750, far in excess of the £30,000-to-£50,000 estimate.

The sale took place at Henry Aldridge & Son auction house in Devizes, Wiltshire.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: "I had a little feeling that it might do something serious but I never expected it to do the £100,000.

"This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire a Titanic item of this importance."

Mr Aldridge said the keys held a particular significance to collectors as the doomed ship's post office staff are reputed to have carried on working even as the vessel sank.

Titanic, on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, sunk on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg off Newfoundland. A total of 1,522 people died including more than 500 from the city.

Other lots included a letter by passenger Alfred Rowe which contained a chilling premonition of the disaster.

The businessman described the ship as "too big" and a "positive danger" in a letter home to his wife Constance.

The letter, on Titanic headed notepaper, was offered for sale by Mr Rowe's family and went for £28,000.

Mr Rowe, a wealthy farmer and landowner, boarded Titanic in Southampton and took an instant dislike to the 46,000-ton vessel.

He wrote: "My dearest girl, she is too big. You can't find your way about and it takes you too long to get anywhere. She has no excessive speed and is a positive danger to all other shipping."

The 59-year-old posted his letter from Queenstown in Ireland on April 11 - the last port of call before the liner struck an iceberg and sank four days later.

Mr Rowe was found frozen to death on a piece of ice the following day by rescuers.