PHOTOGRAPHS and mementos documenting the incredible career of one of Britain’s finest actors and filmmakers are set to go under the hammer.

Candid images and film set memorabilia from the incredible career of Richard Attenborough will be sold at a special auction later this year.

His family are selling part of his archive because they say they do not have the room to store all that he collected and saved from an astonishing 65 years at the peak of filmmaking.

Lord Attenborough, who died in August last year, holds a special affinity with Sussex thanks to his distinguished decade-long spell as the University of Sussex chancellor, his chilling portrayal of Pinkie in the 1947 rendition of Brighton Rock and his directorial debut Oh! What a Lovely War which was filmed in and around Brighton.

A heart-warming photograph of Lord Attenborough taking time out from shooting Brighton Rock to enjoy ice-cream with a bevy of adoring young ballerinas in Pavilion Gardens will be among the items sold and is expected to fetch £1500.

A rare poster, with the film’s original title The Worst Sin, is expected to fetch a similar figure.

A clapperboard from his 1982 epic Gandhi, for which Lord Attenborough won an Oscar, is expected to sell for £3,000 while an amber topped cane containing a prehistoric mosquito could sell for £5,000.

The auction lots, which will be sold by Bonhams on October 21, also include Lord Attenborough’s extensive private collection of 20th century British paintings.

Lord Attenborough's prized Rolls Royce Corniche with its distinctive number plate, RA III will be sold separately at the Beaulieu National Motor Museum on September 5 and is estimated to fetch up to £15,000.

His son, the celebrated theatre director Michael Attenborough, said: "My parents had impeccable taste, they never bought anything as an investment, but simply because they loved it, and they lived by the firm conviction that beautiful surroundings had the power to humanize, to enrich one's relationship with the world."

Jon Baddeley, managing director of Bonhams Knightsbridge, said: "Richard Attenborough was a much loved public figure and also, of course, respected and admired the world over as an actor and director. This sale will illustrate the many facets of his long life and I know it will attract a great deal of interest."