A RARE 150-year-old photo book on China is expected to fetch more than £20,000 at auction.

Pioneering Scottish photographer John Thomson produced the book containing 14 sepia photographs painstakingly printed and pasted into each copy. Views On The North River, was published in Hong Kong in 1870. An inscription shows the copy going up for sale was originally owned by George Dods, the Acting Colonial Surgeon in Hong Kong. It has been in the hands of his family since then.

Only a handful of copies are known to exist. One is held in the National Library of Scotland, another at the Hong Kong University Library, a third is at Cornell University in the US and two others are privately owned.

The sale will take place at Dominic Winter Auctioneers in South Cerney, Gloucestershire, on Thursday.