AN auction of promises has brought in a stupendous £41,000 for the Ramsbury recreation centre Project 2005 appeal.

It will enable the trustees to go ahead with the purchase of a further two and a half acres of land adjacent to the sports centre in Hilldrop Lane.

Chairman Ian Smith said the land acquisition would give the centre a total of 13 acres and "square-off" its site.

He said Saturday's auction was no normal auction of promises.

Charity auctions of promises usually include an evening's babysitting for a few hours gardening or ironing.

There were none of those going under the hammer on Saturday in the Memorial Hall where 80 people sat down to a black tie supper catered for by Sally Bruce from Lambourn.

There were almost 30 lots that former racehorse trainer and Daily Telegraph sports writer Charlie Brooks put under the hammer.

They included a holiday home in Barbados for two weeks to sleep eight which was sold for £13,000, and a game shoot for eight donated by Ramsbury Estates which went for £7,000.

A pair of earrings to be made by Ramsbury goldsmith Peter Page to the design of the buyer went for £2,200.

Other lots included a clay pigeon shooting day for a party of up to 16 and a holiday at a time share in Portugal.

Mr Smith said: "We deliberately aimed high because we had to make a lot of money."

Even so, he said, he had been delighted at the generosity of the bidders and the total at the end of the evening.

He said many of the guests at the auction evening came from outside Ramsbury.

"We have not milked the village of another £42,000 although villagers have been extremely generous in the past," the chairman said.

"There is only so much you can take out of a village and we purposely attracted people from outside Ramsbury."

On top of the auction a raffle for a jeroboam equivalent to four ordinary bottles of Veuve Cliquout champagne raised a further £450.

Project 2005, is a scheme to give Ramsbury sports and recreation facilities virtually unequalled by a village of similar size.

Mr Smith said that eventually the improvements to the recreation and sports ground will cost the village a total of £650,000.

He said: "All this money is having to be raised in the village because we have not been able to get any external help with funding."

He said applications for help from the National Lottery had met with no success.

The first phase of Project 2005 is completed with the levelling and draining of another area of land purchased to extend the grounds. This will be used as a cricket pitch. The next phase will be a fifth tennis court.