A 19th Century five pound note has been sold for more than £20,000 at an auction of rare antique currency.

The rare bill, issued by the Bank of England's Portsmouth branch in 1849, was the most valuable of a set of "white fivers" made by regional banks that went under the hammer at Bonhams in London yesterday.

Only six notes from this branch, which opened in 1834, were known to be still in existence and this was the earliest example ever to go to auction.

The final bid of £21,150 was well above the £10,000 to £12,000 that auctioneers had expected, while the sale raised an "astonishing" total of £96,938.

Other bills from Portsmouth as well as from Newcastle, Plymouth, Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester were auctioned.

A spokesman for the auctioneers said: "They are incredibly thin, almost like tissue paper.

"All they have is a picture in the top left of Britannia and in the bottom left 'five' in a gothic script."

Provincial branches of the Bank of England began producing the currency in the 1820s to supply financial centres growing rapidly with the increase in trade and industry.