The other week I voiced my worries about the future of the spiral staircase in Birmingham’s former Central Library. For 40 years it has served as an elegant – albeit impractical – link between the sixth and seventh floors of the 1970s’ city landmark.

When they come to demolishing that library, I fear for the staircase’s safety, much as I feared for my own safety every time I climbed it.

It transpires, however, as with the staircase itself, that we have come full circle.

Back in 1974, when the Victorian Reference Library in Radcliffe Place was being pulled down, the contractor had the same concerns over the fate of its ornamental ironwork. One staircase found its way into the new library, one went to the Black Country Museum, while the rest found its way back to his home.

Perhaps, like Citizen Kane, he intended some fabulously palatial house in which to install the ironwork. If so, he never quite got round to it, and time’s whirligig caught up with him.

All that metalwork – staircases, treads, hand-rails, balconies and more – are now at Biddle & Webb, auctioneers, in Icknield Square, awaiting their fate in the firm’s January sale.

The firm’s Jeremy Thornton is calling the library ironwork the star lot at next month’s auction, and has every right to do so. I popped down to Icknield Square to inspect the haul last week, and was staggered, both by the sheer quantity of it, but also by its quality. Dating from the early 1880s, this is high status work, cast, sadly not by a local firm, but by the St Pancras Ironworks of London. I guess they must have tendered the lowest bid.

Much of the metalwork comes, I think, from what was called the Iron Room in the Reference Library, though there were plenty of balconies and spiral staircases elsewhere in the building too.

My fingers are crossed that the collection goes to an appreciative owner, with similarly grand plans for reconstruction. Repainted, the ironwork could make for a spectacular interior somewhere. Ambitious Indian restaurants, please take note.

Jeremy estimates that the work might go for £6,000 or so. This does not, of course, take into account spiralling costs.

* Dr Chris Upton is going round in circles at Newman University Birmingham