Churchill's 'Goldfish pool at Chartwell' could fetch £80,000

Sir Winston Churchill's final painting - which he gave to the bodyguard who helped prepare his brushes - is going under the hammer.

The Goldfish Pool At Chartwell, depicting the wartime leader's "most special place in the world", is expected to fetch £80,000 at auction.

Sir Winston gave the abstract work to his bodyguard, Sergeant Edmund Murray, in the last few years before the ex-prime minister's death in 1965.

Murray, who served Sir Winston for the last 15 years of his life, would help the politician prepare his easel and paint brushes before he painted.

The painting of the goldfish pool at his Chartwell home was Sir Winston's final painting, completed in 1962, but also the last work Murray helped set up.

It remained with Murray's family, who treasured the painted, and has never been exhibited before.

Sir Winston made around 544 paintings after he took the hobby up in the 1920s and it became an "integral part" of his life.

An earlier, but larger, painting by Sir Winston of the same subject, which was owned by his daughter Mary, sold for £1.8 million in 2014.

None of his works were sold during his lifetime.

The Goldfish Pool At Chartwell is expected to fetch between £50,000-£80,000 when it goes under the hammer as part of Sotheby's Modern And Post-War British Art Sale in London on November 21.