Margaret Thatcher's wedding dress sells for £25,000

A midnight blue velvet dress worn by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at her wedding has sold for £25,000 as the auction of her personal belongings kicks off.

The late Baroness Thatcher wore the dress and matching muff at her wedding to Dennis on December 13, 1951 at Wesley's Chapel in London.

Her dispatch box and an array of power suits are also to be sold at the auction, which organisers hailed as "historic".

The dress sold just days after what would have been their 64th wedding anniversary.

Some 150 items are going under the hammer at the sale at Christie's auction house in Piccadilly, central London and another 200 lots are being sold online in the auction that closes on Wednesday.

One of the popular items included a signed typescript of Thatcher's famous speech, in which she quotes the words "Where there is Discord may we bring Harmony", which sold for £37,500.

She made the speech on May 4, 1979 when she became Britain's first ever female Prime Minister.

Another lot, her collection of writings from Winston Churchill, also proved a hit with bidders and exceeded estimates.

It sold for £32,500 - 10 times its estimate of £3,000 - while her editions of Churchill's biography of Marlborough sold for £18,750.

Bids for the items were placed from all over the world - including Australia, South Korea and America.

The sale comes one month after the V&A reportedly turned down the chance to exhibit the collection - a claim denied by the museum.