Fairs & Markets (print edition)

The launch on September 10 of a vintage market outside the 19th century Market House in the picturesque town of Castle Cary in Somerset has been postponed until next spring.

This bronze statue 'Embracing the Sea' by Jon Buck, created in 1998, sits by the entrance to the pier in the Kent coastal town of Deal, a three-metre tall monument to the town’s boatbuilding and fishing history.

A horological story rarely makes the national news, but the announcement that Big Ben is falling silent until 2021 as major conservation work begins rang loud and clear in headlines.

This is the story of how James Watkins went from being half of the electro-pop duo Chew Lips, performing at music festivals across Europe including Glastonbury – “we were the sort of late afternoon band you don’t really listen to” – to running an online business selling mid-century design, particularly furniture.

The Vauxhall Art Car Boot will hit the south-east Kent coastal town of Folkestone on the opening day of the Folkestone Triennial.

Possibly the most memorable press exposure the Folkestone Triennial has had was at its first event in 2008 when Tracey Emin left a trail of bronzed baby clothes and booties across the town to highlight the numbers of teenage pregnancies across the south-east.

The great flowering of the kimono was in the Edo period (1615-1868) when the merchant and artisan classes, or chōnin, could not use their new-found wealth to improve their social status, so rigid was the shogun military hierarchy.

The Giant Flea and Collectors’ Market at the Royal Bath & West Showground in Shepton Mallet is almost fully booked inside with 200 stallholders.

The popular annual Antiques in the Street event held in the market town of Ashbourne is being revived and will support restoration of an 18th century building.

So enamoured was Deco dealer Bill Jones of Style 1900 with the biannual Art Deco fairs held in the Great Hall at Eltham Palace in south London that he started his own: in Norfolk and East Sussex.

The ancient Tuscan city of Arezzo, with its Roman ruins, medieval walls, Renaissance architecture and murals by Piero della Francesca, has long been a magnet for art lovers.

Steampunk is described in earnest tones on Wikipedia as “a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th century industrial-power machinery”.

Nick Gerrard, who has been dealing in railwayana largely at the Pickering Antique Centre in the North Yorkshire market town, is rolling out his stock, moving on and expanding his business.

Alex Robins of Antique Fairs Cornwall (AFC Fairs) has run her biannual two-day antiques, vintage and decorative fairs at the Royal Cornwall Showground for nine years.

With a thriving antiques and retro trade business, Mike and Vicky Mills of Antique Interiors in the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough are also one of the UK’s largest dealers in stained-glass windows.

Back in the day, the most common overseas buyer at IACF Newark would have been American. However, a larger number now hails from the Far East, with visitors from Korea, Japan and Taiwan making up 30% of the overseas buyer numbers at the East Midlands event, according to IACF estimates.

After a successful 21 years of trading, 16 of them under the current management, Honeypot Antiques Centre is closing later this month because the site has been sold for redevelopment.

Hungerford is a handy hub for art and antiques fairs judging by two events held in the Berkshire town.

Isle sur La Sorgue, near Avignon, is one of the most ravishing towns in Provence.

Bookings are going well for the collaborative venture between B2B Events and Bentleys Fairs at the beginning of August.