A spinning wheel used by Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi while in prison has been sold at auction for about £110,000 ($180,000).

He used it to spin thread and make clothes in Pune's Yerwada jail in the early 1930s.

Gandhi gave the wheel to the American Free Methodist missionary Reverend Dr Floyd A Puffer in 1935.

Auctioneers Mullock's said it had been sold to an anonymous phone bidder at Ludlow Racecourse in Shropshire.

Richard Westwood-Brookes from the auction house said the price had "exceeded expectations," after it was earlier thought to go for between £60,000 and £80,000.

"Once the interest started to come in online and on the phones it took its own momentum," he said.

The portable spinning wheel, called a charkha in Hindi, "folds into a bundle about the size of a portable typewriter and has a handle for carrying.

Gandhi spent time daily on spinning and often described it as a form of meditation.

bbc.co.uk