A SET of playing cards which feature Warrington is expected to sell for between £3,500 and £4,500 at an auction on Tuesday.

The fifty three cards (an explanatory card and 52 suit cards) were produced by cartographer and publisher, Robert Morden, in 1676.

Each card depicts a different English or Welsh county and Warrington appears on the Lancashire card, which is the three of clubs.

The court cards have the King depicted as Charles II – in whose reign the cards were produced – the Queen, his wife, Catherine of Braganza, and the Jack, various male heads.

Auctioneers Sotheby’s said: “For many counties, the Morden playing card is the earliest separate printed county map to show any roads.”

Catherine Slowther, maps and atlases expert at Sotheby’s,said : “The first set of playing cards bearing maps of English and Welsh counties was thought to have been produced by William Bowes in 1590.

“Robert Morden,the cartographer and publisher, produced a fine set of playing cards in 1676.

“This first edition set (coming up for sale at Sotheby’s) has the maps in a square panel in the centre;in the top section is the name of the county, with the number of the card in the left in small Arabic numerals and on the right in large Roman numerals.

“The court card bears a head in the circle on the right.

“As playing cards were normally a gambling device, one might not expect to find them adapted to educational uses.

“The output of playing cards was seriously curtailed during Cromwellian times, when both cards and play were regarded as sinful.

“This puritanical attitude resulted in the wholesale destruction of many fine sets of cards.

“They were replaced by packs of an instructional or educational nature.embracing geography,history and similar subjects.”

The cards have been put up for sale at Sotherby’s in London on Tuesday following the death on January 3 of the man who used to own them: Jaime “Jimmy” Ortiz-Patino, who created the Valderrama golf course in Spain.