Surrey

A major fire has caused significant damage to Bourne Mill Antiques Centre, home to about 70 dealers in Farnham, Surrey.

THE Wellers Group is reorganising its auction business at both its Guildford and Chertsey salerooms, moving away from fine art in favour of architectural elements and interiors.

It’s only recently in the decade-long boom in Chinese works of art that Far Eastern buyers have come to appreciate once again the merits of Export silver. Once a neglected area, academic interest has been piqued in the subject as the marketplace moves in leaps and bounds.

It may not look much today, but this camera was the latest cutting-edge piece of technology when it was first released for sale in 1899 – and it helped lay the foundations for the future of film and moving pictures. Then it retailed for £30, now it has just sold at auction in Surrey by Lawrences of Bletchingley for £7800.

It all started when Phil Sylvester was a lad, as serious collecting often does.

A Derby porcelain plaque and two Japanese plates have been returned by Surrey Police to two stately homes after they were recognised from an alert in Antiques Trade Gazette

This 13in (33cm) Macintyre & Co Florian ware vase dated to 1898 and designed by William Moorcroft is going under the hammer at Catherine Southon’s sale in Surrey.

Although missed at the cataloguing stage, this 13½in (35cm) Vincennes dish established a new house record for Wellers of Guildford when it sold at £70,000.

Wellers have just held their first back-to-back sales since inserting a mezzanine floor at their Guildford saleroom.

When fire destroyed the workshop of Glyn Elias’ Dorking antiques shop he was so determined to carry on the business he had it open the very next day.

Bassett-Lowke’s model of the bullet-nosed Pacific locomotive and tender, ‘The Coronation’, ranks among the rarest of all British toy trains.

Six pictures by Cambridge painter Lewis Todd are being offered for sale at Ewbank Clarke Gammon Wellers in Woking, Surrey, on March 20. However, the greater interest in these works is what can be found on the reverse – the brushwork of Francis Bacon.

Bonhams’ December 3 sale at Brooklands will bring a powerful symbol of the Battle of Britain back to its spiritual home.

It wasn’t too long ago that Newlyn School artists were ranked right up alongside the leading lights of the Modern British art market.

This silver-gilt centrepiece is believed to be a prototype for a set of four soup tureens in the Royal Collection designed by John Flaxman (1756-1826) and made by John Bridge (1755-1834) for George IV.

Two men have been jailed for a string of burglaries across the South East which included taking a rhino head from Haslemere Museum in Surrey.

This intricate ivory okimono group from c.1880 took £25,000 at the most recent sale held by Nicholson’s of Fernhurst.

Jacobs & Hunt of Petersfield, in association with consultant John Cameron, will offer the collection of the late record-breaking aviator Peter Twiss at auction on June 22.

IN February we revealed how Queen Victoria was an accomplished artist, but now her daughter’s skills have been highlighted by a Surrey auction.

HASLEMERE in Surrey has fallen victim to a gang targeting silver for melt, two weeks after thieves stole a rhino head from the town’s museum.