Fairs & Markets (print edition)

Keeley Harris is so pleased with the way her vintage home shows are going that she is expanding them.

Ahead of IACF’s popular Shepton Mallet antiques and collectors’ fair from May 5-7, with up to 600 standholders, the organisers have announced that the March event showed an impressive increase in buyers’ attendance.

Maxine Stonehill of Pop Up Vintage Fairs has launched a vintage market at a new London location.

The opening of the Turner Contemporary in Margate in 2011 reinvigorated the tourism industry in the north Kent area.

Launched last year by Kate and Mike Button of Blackdog Antiques in the pretty north Suffolk town of Halesworth, the monthly Halesworth Brocante, held in the Old Print Works, has become become a regular and popular fixture.

As Fox & Moon Fairs, Tony Crellin has been running regular vintage events at the National Coalmining Museum in Yorkshire, near Wakefield, for the past four years.

Since its launch eight years ago, Derwen Fairs’ antiques and vintage market at the National Botanic Gardens of Wales has gone from a one to two-day run, trebled in size to 100 stands and has four dates this year.

The first of the biannual Antique Scientific Instrument Fairs due to be held on Sunday, April 30, at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel in Bloomsbury, London, has been cancelled owing to unexpected refurbishment work at the hotel, advises Don Edwards, the organiser.

“Seeing the vans arrive and all the wonderful things being unloaded and then built into something beautiful on their stands is a real buzz: we can’t wait.” These are the words of Richard Burgoin, director of Arthur Swallow Fairs, when talking about his ‘summer of salvage’.

Helen Bowman and Ben Wray of Bowman Fairs launched their first fleamarket earlier this month in the unusual setting of the Skipton Auction Mart in North Yorkshire. In its daily life, the venue is a cattle market.

A framed limited edition print is Cattle Market by Jo Willis priced at £170, measuring 12 x 12in (30 x 30cm). It will be for sale at the Reading Contemporary Art Fair this weekend.

This weekend Oxford hosts the PBFA’s 100-dealer antiquarian and out-of-print book premier fair, one of the largest in the association’s calendar. It is held at the Oxford Brookes Wheatley Campus on Saturday and Sunday, April 22-23.

Someone else who has seen a gap in the market is Gaynor Lloyd. Her new antiques centre opened last month in Neath, seven miles north of Swansea.

Back for its 10th year, the annual Modern Movement Design Fair is held in a watery setting alongside the outdoor pool at the Grade II-listed Art Deco Brockell Lido in south London.

Plans have been approved by Wakefield Council to create an antiques centre and café at the Grade II-listed court house in Pontefract.

One Tuesday last month, Edward Cruttenden of Sunbury Antiques, the organiser of the hugely popular fortnightly market at Kempton Park Racecourse, had his busiest day this year.

In Kent, the Design Gallery’s largest-ever furniture warehouse sale, including a basement clear-out, takes place on Saturday and Sunday, April 22-23.

Based in the West Sussex town of Worthing, Henry Nicholls began dealing in antiques when he was eight years old, rummaging through the clutter at his grandmother’s house and then selling anything that caught his obviously keen eye.

Fair organisers gear up for a busy weekend of antiques and collectables trading

Judging by some of the comments Naomi Knight has received from dealers at the March launch of her new monthly sister market to the wellestablished Bath Vintage and Antiques Market, the Vintage Vauxhall Market is on a roll.