THREE paintings by Bassett-born royal portrait painter Derek Hill, which were owned and treasured by his friend the singer, songwriter, actor and playwright, Sir Noel Coward are set to fetch around £12,000 at an auction.

Mr Hill’s paintings are among 73 pictures from Coward’s collection which are expected to sell for around £500,000 at Christie’s South Kensington in London later this month on Thursday, March 19.

Derek Hill was born in Bassett on December 6, 1916. He was the younger son of former England and Hampshire cricketer and wealthy Bassett-born businessman, Arthur James Ledger Hill, who lived at Pinehurst, Bassett and later at Spursholt House, Romsey Extra, where the Hills became friends and near neighbours of the Mountbattens.

In fact, Mr Hill was a house guest at the Ear’s home in Sligo, Ireland, during the fateful weekend in August 1979, when Lord Mountbatten and three others, including Mountbatten’s grandson, Nicholas, were murdered by the IRA, who placed a bomb in Lord Mountbatten’s fishing boat.

Mr Hill would almost certainly have been on the boat, too, had he not left to go to Ballyshannon to receive a poetry prize.

Derek Hill went on to become a successful portrait painter. His portraits of two prime Ministers, Edward Heath and Sir Anthony Eden, and his portrait of Oscar-winning Hampshire film star, Sir Alec Guinness, are owned by the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Mr Hill also painted the Prince of Wales’s portrait on several occasions. He and Charles, an enthusiastic amateur artist himself, became close friends and the prince acknowledges the helpful artistic tuition he received from Mr Hill.

Charles says Derek Hill was “a priceless companion, a man of endlessly amusing, if naughty, stories about everybody who was anybody. As a painter, he was a perceptive observer of character, both of person and the landscape.”

Daily Echo:

The Railway by Derek Hill. Picture from Christies Images Ltd.

Mr Hill’s other friends included the legendary Hollywood star, Greta Garbo, who visited Mr Hill at his home in Ireland in the 1970s,an event which inspired Frank McGuinness’ 2010 play Greta Garbo Came To Donegal.

In 1999, Derek Hill was made an Honorary Irish Citizen by Irish President Mary McAleese, who told Mr Hill that he had become “more Irish than the Irish.”

When Mr Hill died, at the age of 83 on July 30, 2000, his body was brought back to his beloved Hampshire to be buried alongside his parents.

Among the Derek Hill paintings coming up for sale at the imminent Christie’s’ auction is a portrait of Sir Noel Coward, which Mr Hill gave to Sir Noel and which is now expected to sell for between £4,000 and £6,000.