South-east England

THE 14th century Penshurst Place with its walled garden is the ancestral home of the Sidney family and is still in the family’s ownership.

The majolica market may have cooled a little since the white hot days of the 1990s but rarities still have the capacity to command imposing sums at auction.

BRIGHTON-based Geoff Rush runs Vinylman, the pomotions company which organises the Brighton Record Fair.

The hotels of Newbury were full of lovers on Valentine’s Day – lovers of Chinese jade. A packed room and a full bank of telephones were buzzing as Dreweatt Neate sold Chinese jade from the collection of the late June, Lady Horlick, including many pieces acquired from the London trade in the 1960s and 1970s and not seen on the market since then.

“We've timed it just right, opening a new fair,” said Trevor Vallis of Wyefairs, who is adding to his portfolio of events in Kent this year.

Not exactly your typical ATG reader – this great picture was taken by Lucy Naughton, a 27-year-old with a passion for photography who has been finding inspiration at antiques fairs.

THERE’S a fairs reshuffle in the medieval town of Rye in East Sussex.

ON December 28, 1792 Anglo-Irish statesman, orator and philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-97) enacted the melodrama in Parliament that became known as the Dagger Scene.

A set of 38 individual original metal printing plates used for the illustrations for John Lennon’s first book, are to go under the hammer on December 2 at Dickins of Middle Claydon, Bucks.

Auctions to centre on Nottingham, Bristol and Newbury as others become offices

ANDY Briggs of Fat Cat Fairs has added Woodstock Antiques Fairs to his other three fairs. However, for the next six months at least the name will not change and it will not be incorporated into Fat Cat’s/Silhouette Fairs’ other events at Abingdon, Burford and Lechlade.

DISCOVERY Real Time are filming at Take Five’s Art Nouveau/Deco Fair at Woking on Sunday, October 29 for their 10-part Real Deal series which focuses on two dealers selling their pieces.

RECOMMENDED by Fiona Knapp, who has recently designed a range of jewellery for the Biba label, as one of the best places to buy gemstones in London, the quarterly Rock and Gem Show is held at Kempton Park Racecourse with the next scheduled for October 21 and 22.

JAY Fairs’ Joy O’Meara is holding her Winter Antiques and Collectors’ Fleamarket at Didcot Civic Hall, Didcot, Oxfordshire on Sunday October 8.

A LONGSTANDING tradition going back over 30 years has resulted in an annual antiques fair in Cranleigh, Surrey supporting Leonard Cheshire, the UK’s largest charity for the disabled, which takes place this year on Saturday October 14 at Cranleigh Village Hall.

FINCHCOCKS, a Georgian mansion near Goudhurst in Kent, now the Finchcocks Music Museum, is home to owner and pianist Richard Burnett’s collection of more than 100 historic keyboard instruments, many in full playing condition.

This early George III kingwood parquetry and marquetry commode attributed to Pierre Langlois proved the highlight of the £812,413 Bolney Lodge collection sold by West Sussex auctioneers Toovey’s on September 20.

In conjunction with the Nottingham-based sporting memorabilia specialists Trevor Vennett-Smith, Dreweatt Neate sold the Keith Crump Collection of Cricket Memorabilia at Donnington Priory on September 26.

On September 18 the Dreweatt Neate team decamped to Boarsney House, a 16th century property near Robertsbridge in East Sussex to sell the property of Judith Hamilton, a collector of oak and country furniture and effects for 45 years.

The missing element in a rare series of vases by a celebrated Arts & Crafts designer has now been located for a Cheshire country house after it was spotted in an ATG advertisement.