I remember the coldness of the round iron rings as I climbed the ladder on my first visit to the tomb of Sir Richard Burton (the Arabist, not the actor).

I remember the coldness of the round iron rings as I climbed the ladder on my first visit to the tomb of Sir Richard Burton (the Arabist, not the actor). He lies in a coffin on trestles, with that of his wife Isabel beside him, surrounded by Arabian lamps and camel bells, the roof painted with seraphim and stars.

This is not Damascus but Mortlake, south-west London, behind St Mary Magdalen’s Church, since, whatever Sir Richard Burton thought he was, Isabel was a firm Catholic. In 1890 she gave him Catholic burial in a tomb built like an Arab tent.

In 1975 it was restored, its crescent moons and stars regilt and its inscriptions remade. Thus it was that the strangest lot in a sale this week at Forum Auctions in London came to market – the original memorial stone from the tomb, with a sonnet in memory of Burton by Justin Huntly McCarthy. It was expected to fetch £3,000-£4,000.

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