Fairs and Markets

The Charing Cross Collectors’ Market, at the bottom of Villiers Street, near Charing Cross Station, has to be one of the longest running niche fairs in London.

Every year in July the railings on tree-lined Josephine Avenue in Brixton become a vibrant space; an open-air gallery exhibiting more than 1000 pieces of work from over 200 artists, printmakers and photographers.

A quintessential English village is how Buriton, near Petersfield in east Hampshire might be described. It nestles at the foot of the South Downs and boasts two pubs, a church, a large village pond with ducks and a village hall.

BADA has just unveiled plans for a smaller fair, BADA Collection at the Lanesborough, to launch in October (ATG No 2295). So here we ask: do smaller, more select fairs make better business sense?

Fully booked with 90 standholders at the luxury Chateau Impney Hotel at Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire is Two C’s Antiques Fairs’ summer fair on Saturday and Sunday, June 17-18.

The prolific 18th century writer Daniel Defoe, of Robinson Crusoe fame, wrote poetically of the River Waveney which forms the 50-mile boundary of the Waveney Valley between Norfolk and Suffolk.

Sue Norman is a practised hand at The Art & Antiques Fair Olympia (June 26-July 2). As an exhibitor at this west London event for 36 uninterrupted years, she knows the show well, is familiar with the crowd it attracts and approaches it strategically.

Norwich dealer James Brett vowed to continue dealing when he sold 300 pieces of stock at a Sworders sale in 2010. He has been good to his word and this year returns to Olympia for the first time in seven years. ATG spoke to Brett about his business and the wider market.

Six years after the Victorian Hastings Pier was gutted by fire, it reopened last year after a £14m redevelopment. The funding included £11m from the Heritage Lottery Fund as well as monies raised locally and regionally.

Harry Moore-Gwyn Fine Art brings a selection of 20 works on paper by English artist Sir George Clausen (1852-1944) to mark the 45th anniversary of The Art & Antiques Fair Olympia.

Asian art dealer Gerald Davison has taken a selling space in The Emporium in Berkshire, which he plans to run as well as his current space at Acreman St Antiques & Interiors.

Figurative sculptor Christy Keeney from Donegal, Ireland, has been an exhibitor at the Earth and Fire International Ceramic Fair in Nottinghamshire for 16 of the 22 annual events held so far.

The British Antiques Dealers Association (BADA) will launch a new collectors’ show this autumn bringing together 20 dealers for a “curated collectors’ event”.

The country house car boot season, mostly held to raise funds for charities, is dominated by the mammoth annual fixture held in the grounds of Wilton House, near Salisbury, the seat of the Earls of Pembroke.