Surrey

UK: Auctioneer Paul Dunn, formerly of Atwell Martin near Bath and John Nicholson’s of Fernhurst, has set up on his own in Midhurst, Surrey. South Downs Auctioneers will conduct a wide variety of auctions, including agricultural sales, but also plan regular catalogues of antiques and general furniture and effects.

ONE of the oldest provincial vetted fairs, the annual Surrey Antiques Fair, moves for its 37th staging next year to Farnham Castle. It has always been held at Guildford Civic Hall, which is due to close for redevelopment, and while the closure has been on the cards for some years, it was finalised earlier this year. The last Surrey fair in Guildford is held this week from October 2 to 5.

ONE of the Home Counties’ longest running vetted, quality events, the Surrey Antiques Fair, will be held for the 36th year from October 2 to 5 and it will be the end of an era as this is the last staging at its original venue, the Guildford Civic Hall.

Weller King will erect a marquee in the grounds of Dial Post House, Horsham on September 23 to sell period oak furniture and works of art belonging to the West Sussex dealer Alex Sloane. A regular on the quality fairs circuit since his shop in Robertsbridge, East Sussex closed in 1996, the vernacular furniture specialist is retiring from the antiques business to live in Spain.

Galloway Antiques Fairs of Harrogate travel to the heart of the Home Counties for the weekend of July 25 to 27 for the Cranleigh School Antiques Fair. Galloway hold two fairs a year at the famous Surrey school, a 42-exhibitor event at Easter and this summer fixture which hosts around 35. Both are generally fully booked with a waiting list.

ONE place nowadays where the decorator regularly meets the antique dealer is in the garden, and as more and more decorators look outdoors, an increasing number of antique dealers are also tripping down the garden path.

THE series of chunky Perspex and silver-plated table lighters made by Dunhill in the inter-war years are always welcome auction visitors. The majority depict aquatic subjects – they are sometimes called fish tank lighters – and usually sell in the £300-600 bracket so it was something of a surprise to see the example right offered at Dorking, auctioneers P.F. Windibank (10% buyer’s premium) sell at £2800 on May 24.

IF THERE is one objet d’art that best characterises the antiques market at present it is the curate’s egg – good in parts, but bad overall. The flawed ovum’s brighter regions encompass most low-value collectables – ceramics included.

The Red House, the former home of designer William Morris acquired last month by the National Trust, is due to open to the public in Bexleyheath later this summer. But aficionados of the Arts and Crafts movement who cannot bear to wait that long should take a look at the Clarke Gammon sale in Guildford on February 25, where the residual contents of the Victorian house are being dispersed.

Sold for £180 as part of a Hamptons sale on August 1 was the handbill exhorting Englishmen! to take up arms against Napoleon, right.

CLARKE GAMMON's 584-lot sale on June 25 (15% buyer's premium) was most notable for the Sydney Oliver Trust costume and textile collection.

SEVERAL pieces of mahogany furniture from a dilapidated stables near Weybridge provided the core to this 544-lot auction at Ewbank Auctioneers, Woking on June 27 (15% buyer's premium).

THE Prince of Wales feathers to this Victorian gold fringe necklace, right, revealed that it was manufactured by Robert Phillips of Cockspur Street, London, whose signature the royal feathers were, but it may as well have been the work of any number of designers working in the Etruscan Revival style during this period – Carlo Giuliano, John Brogden or Augusta Castellani.

THE only problem with a number of highly-collectable Doulton pieces put into the January 30 sale at Dorking held by Crow’s Auction Gallery (10% buyer’s premium) was restoration, and estimates reflected this.

THE antiques trade was hard hit last year and the Surrey auctioneers Ewbanks are finding that the current uncertain economic climate is stopping private vendors from consigning their property to sale.

HOME Counties antiques entrepreneur James Podger is on the move again with his Great Grooms Antiques Centres. It was some eight years ago that Mr Podger saw there was a big future in the trade for smart, well-run centres featuring good dealers with quality stock.

CONTINUING the tradition of the old Phillips network, the Sevenoaks branch of new owners Bonhams moved to Ramster, the Surrey stately home for a winter event offering some of the better pieces consigned to the company’s various rooms in the South East.

Good stock furniture dominated this dispersal at Crowe's Auction Gallery led by a Regency walnut foldover card table.

A TAKE-UP of 570 lots of the 600 on offer at Clarke Gammon– mainly from a local deceased estate – and a grand total of £75,000 revealed a market in buoyant mood at Guildford on 11 September where the best of a number of highlights answered the current demand for early textiles.

UK: A number of auctioneers have remarked on a rather flat silver market of late but the Surrey auctioneers Crow's saw no such reluctance among buyers with a number of offerings going well above estimate.