‘Royal’ fruit bowl at centre of High Court case

A Westmeath man has given an undertaking at the High Court not to dissipate any funds connected with the estate of his late mother, said to include a valuable Wedgwood fruit bowl which was part of a dinner service specially commissioned by Queen Victoria.

Correspondence, including from London auctioneers Sotheby’s, suggested that Michael Carroll had sold the bowl back to the family of the duke of Devonshire for Stg£100,000, the High Court previously heard.

Michael Carroll’s family allege the bowl, used by the British royal family at their summer residence at Balmoral before it later passed to the family of the duke of Devonshire, is part of the estate of their late mother, Mary Elsie Carroll, after she bought it in England in the post-war years.