A pair of dentures worn by war-time British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were auctioned for 15,200 pounds, thrice the expected price.

The set of partial upper dentures was put up for sale by Nigel Cudlipp, son of the dental technician who made them.

Churchill used to hide his childhood lisp with the help of dentures. This accentuated his signature slurred diction.

Auctioneer Andrew Bullock of Keys auction house in Aylsham, eastern England, said that according to documents held by the Royal College of Surgeons, Churchill lived in fear of losing his false teeth and would always have a spare set in hand.

Meanwhile, plans are afoot to make available online from 2011 nearly a million pages of Churchill's writings.

The project is a collaboration between Bloomsbury Publishing, the Sir Winston Churchill Archive Trust and Churchill Heritage Limited.

The collection includes correspondence between Churchill and three American presidents; Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower; and state papers, private letters and photos dating from his 19th-century school days until his death in 1965.