Surrey

FOR the first time conservation specialists will participate in the Dorking Street Festival.

DEALER and, more recently, fair organiser, Jan Hicks moves to the grounds of Loseley Park, a 16th century house near Guildford, Surrey, for her third Antiques & Audacity fair from May 12 to 15 next year.

IT looks very much like the end of the road for one of our long-running provincial fixtures, the Surrey Antiques Fair, the 36th annual staging of which was held from October 2 to 5 last year.

RIGHT: offered as the final lot of the day, this 21oz Guild of Handicrafts silver and enamel comport proved to be one of the stars of Clarke Gammon Wellers’ sale on September 7.

Furniture from Hills House, Denham, the property of Sir John and Lady Mills, will be sold at auction by Hamptons of Godalming on October 20.

THIS year marks the 200th birthday of the Royal Watercolour Society and many past members, such as William Callow (1812-1908), have been masters in portraying the detail and differing surface textures of building.

ONE of the pioneers of the vogue for Japanese and Chinese design in the 1870s, Joseph Theodore Deck was also one of the first 19th century potters to explore Isnik floral designs and colour schemes. It was during his efforts to replicate the Turkish palette that he perfected the turquoise glaze that came to be known as bleu de Deck, or Deck blue.

CONGRATULATIONS to Middlesex-based organiser Sue Cruttenden who this month celebrates 25 years of her fortnightly Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park Race Course, Sunbury-on-Thames.

AN auction first for specialist Gordon Patrick, the vastly experienced specialist at Clarke Gammon Wellers (15% buyer's premium), was the sleeper and undisputed highlight of the Surrey sale on July 27 – a 2ft (61cm) wide kingwood, rosewood and satinwood inlaid envelope card table entered with a £200-300 estimate.

THE story of the Boscobel Oak that gave numerous pubs a name also, after 1660, became an object of Royalist pilgrimage. By 1680 a protective wall was built round the trunk but, such was the souvenir hunting, by the early 18th century the tree had almost been destroyed. The oak at Boscobel today is almost certainly a descendant and not the one where Charles Stuart spent a sleepless night as he fled Cromwell’s heavies.

SOME steady selling of material which has been hard to shift of late provided some encouragement for the trade generally at Lawrences of Bletchingley's (12.5 buyer's premium) July 20-22 sale and among the 2000 lots – which totalled nearly £200,000 – there were enough of those quirky offerings which make provincial British auctions the fascinating events they can be.

THESE two half-length images of women, right, could hardly be more different in date or technique, but their prices proved as uncannily similar as their poses when they came under the hammer at recent fine art auctions.

SET in 200 acres of Surrey farmland, Cranleigh School is one of those ideal English settings for a high-summer fair, as Harrogate-based Galloway Fairs are well aware. They have been organising events at the famous public school for 11 years and their next Cranleigh School Antiques Fair will be held from July 23 to 25.

SAIREY Gamp and Tony Weller are two of the most commonly encountered Royal Doulton character jugs (and accordingly among the cheapest) but only very rarely are the two Dickens’ characters seen as bookends.

WHAT local organiser Cliff Woods of London Antiques Fairs terms his Antiques Shopping Weekend will be held on July 16 and 17 at the Royal Star & Garter Home for disabled ex-servicemen on Richmond Hill, Richmond, Surrey.

THERE is nothing like a modestly estimated, old English collection of Chinese art to lure London’s specialist trade to the provinces.

GIVEN the bob-a-long prices for run-of-the-mill furniture at auction, the fact that 917 offerings at Lawrences of Bletchingley's (12.5% buyer's premium) 2861-lot April 27-29 sale were furniture didn’t bode well for the three-day outing.

LIKE a number of provincial houses, Surrey auctioneers Hamptons (15% buyer's premium) have adjusted to the increasingly polarised and selective buyers’ market by cherry-picking the most commercial consignments for their triannual fine sales.

A SUBSTANTIAL reward is being offered after thieves smashed a dealer’s car window and made off with a large amount of jewellery at Sandown Park Fair on April 27.

FOUR house clearances of properties each valued at over £1m meant some long and frantic hours of valuing and cataloguing for Wellers (15% buyer's premium)auctioneer Tim Duggan – three heavy weeks rewarded when the March 13 sale day was one of the best ever at the Surrey rooms with 95 per cent of the 1200 lots getting away notching up a total of well over £100,000.