'English Giant' Frederick Kempster's underwear sells for £550

Giant-sized underwear belonging to a record-breakingly tall man have been sold at auction for £550.

Frederick Kempster, thought to be one of England's tallest men in the early 1900s, owned the 5ft (1.5m) long-johns.

The 27-stone man, known as the English Giant, was born in London in 1889 and moved to Blackburn, Lancashire, where he died in 1918.

Mr Kempster was in the Guinness Book of Records as being 8ft 4.5in (2.5m), but evidence suggests he was shorter.

His underwear, which was sold earlier, was found at a house near Clitheroe, Lancashire, in the 1970s.

The shorts and nightshirt were expected to sell for between £150 and £250 but went for £550 at Tennants Auctioneers in Leyburn, North Yorkshire.

Also sold with the undergarments were newspaper cuttings about Mr Kempster, who was so tall he could stand on a street and shake hands with someone in an upstairs window.

The items were discovered by John Jardine, of Hurst Green, Clitheroe, whose uncle, Tom Cook, was friends with Mr Kempster during his time in Blackburn.

Mr Cook's mother owned a Blackburn pub where and he and Mr Kempster became drinking companions.

While in Blackburn, Mr Kempster contracted pneumonia and was taken into hospital but never recovered.

He died at the age of 29, on 15 April 1918.

He featured in the Guinness Book of Records from 1967 to 1993 as one of the tallest men in England, in which he was reported to have measured 8ft 4.5in at the time of his death.

Photographic evidence suggests however that his height was 7ft 8.5in (2.35m).