Fairs, Markets, Shops and Centres

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.

A Suffolk antiques dealer who bought a cache of 19th and 20th century photographs and postcards of his home town at auction has used them to good effect by publishing a pictorial record in a book.

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.

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 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.

Antiques dealers of Portobello Road must jostle for space with souvenir traders. But a new breed of seller is determined to maintain the area’s antiques heritage.

It’s a full-on ‘green’ home theme for this year’s annual architectural salvage fest at the Fawley Hill Estate near Henley-on-Thames.

The 18th century Église St Sulpice in Paris’ 6th arrondissement is one of the city’s most ornate churches, full of architectural and ornamental masterpieces.

The fairs scene is largely thriving, as evidenced by the number of new event launches reported in Antiques Trade Gazette. This week brings news of two more, both in the east of England.

An early rare Lowestoft teapot and cover and a pair of 19th century glass marriage tankards from York are just two of the highlights at the third annual York Antiques, Decoratives & Fine Arts Fair.

Matthew Adams has announced that he has been able to fit in an extra date in June for his monthly Sunday antiques fairs held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London’s SW1.

A stand-out 1930s Art Deco onyx table lamp from Belgium is one of the highlights of Style 1900’s 20th Century Decorative Arts Fair. It will be held at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on- Sea in East Sussex on Saturday and Sunday, June 17-18.

If you don’t know which epic film opens with the phrase ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….’ then you may just be living on a different planet.

An 18th century silver mechanical lifesize musical swan that catches a fish out of a crystal stream entranced Mark Twain when he saw it an exhibition in Paris in 1867.

A sketchbook by the Bavarian artist Georg Johann Scharf (1788-1860) was discovered recently by ephemera dealer Valerie Jackson-Harris at the Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park.

Last October we reported that Oxford’s Antiques on High’s owner, antiquarian book dealer Tony Sloggett, wanted to retire and find a new owner for the antiques centre which has traded in the city for 20 years. The situation remains unchanged, however, and it is business as usual at the centre for now.

Built from the 13th century onwards and the ancestral home and seat of the Stonor family for more than eight centuries, Stonor House near Henley-on-Thames is the backdrop for the biannual country house boot held in the parklands of the estate.

Just as CDs and then downloads led to warnings of the demise of vinyl, the vintage camera collecting field was also predicted to be affected with the advancement of digital cameras. But both collecting fields are far from dead.