Essex

WHILE London auctions saw a 25% rise in value for 2011, sales outside the capital have also been growing.

THIS alabaster sculpture by Barbara Hepworth (1903-75), entitled Two Rotating Forms II and dated to 1966, began the new year in style for Sworders.

INTERNATIONAL Antique and Collectors’ Fairs have applied to Epping Forest District Council for planning consent to hold three one-day fairs this year at the North Weald Airfield, near Epping in Essex, one of the UK’s most heavily populated counties.

A TAXIDERMY rhinoceros head mount has been stolen Sworders auction house in Stansted Mountfitchet in what police believe was a raid planned by professional thieves.

LIGHT has been shed on the £52,000 price tag awarded an oak and gilt-bronze coffer on stand at a Sworders Interiors sale.

THIS 20in (50cm) high gilt and clear glass vase of Islamic inspiration is the central element of the three-piece garniture discovered by Rayleigh, Essex auctioneers Staceys in a home near Southend-on-Sea.

EAST Anglia auctioneers Sworders have ceased holding sales in Sudbury. The former Olivers saleroom in Burkitt’s Lane, Sudbury will now become an office and storage facility with all future consignments removed for sale to Stansted Mountfitchet.

There has been a happy ending to the century-long story of a missing pub sign painted in 1899 by Arts and Crafts artist Walter Crane for the Fox and Pelican pub in the Hampshire village of Grayshott.

ATG No 1871, January 3, 2009, featured a letter from Richard Peskett of the Grayshott Village Archive appealing for information about the whereabouts of the lost original pub sign from the Hampshire village’s only public house, The Fox and Pelican.

The Norwich dealer James Brett is to sell 300 pieces of his stock of English and Continental furniture and decorative items in a single-vendor sale at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on March 9.

There were local, or at least county, connections when this large linocut print, ‘Church and Thunderstorm’ by Edward Bawden (1903-1989) was offered by Essex auctioneers Sworders at their spring Country House sale.

Among the highlights of the sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet on February 17 was this William IV patent mahogany library armchair, with carved acanthus leaf sides, turned lobed front legs and outswept back supports.

THE Standsted Mountfitchet saleroom Sworders are to sell the contents of Lancotbury Manor, a timber-framed Tudor manor house near Dunstable that was the former home of David Cochrane and Bernard Gulley.

Around 260 people attended a champagne reception on Thursday, May 8 to mark the official opening of Sworders new saleroom in the presence of HRH Princess Michael of Kent.

Sworders moved into their much-lauded new environmentally friendly saleroom on March 31.

A pre-War fire pump and trailer were among items stolen from a collector at Great Totham, near Maldon, Essex sometime between Monday, January 28 and Friday, February 8.

North west Essex auctioneers Mullocks Wells are to close by the end of the year. Their Monday, November 19 sale of fine art and antiques will go ahead as planned but is likely to be the last at the Dunmow Sale and Auction Rooms.

THE imminent smoking ban and the government’s attempts to tackle binge drinking wouldn’t have gone down too well with the Reffley Brethren.

OPENED on August 26 by Tim Wonnacott is the new £1.2m Peterfield Antique Village in Gosfield, Essex where £20,000 of trade was done on the day by the 236 dealers working at the centre’s 12 shops and from the cabinets.

Essex centre to be environmentally friendly