South-east England

This Martin Brothers stoneware model of a tortoise with a mirthful face was a very welcome discovery for auctioneer Rupert Toovey on a post-lockdown valuation in the Surrey Hills.

An extraordinary cache of garden statuary, unseen for decades, comes for sale at Summers Place Auctions next month.

Edward Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond (1944-2014) – the founder of the Norbrook pharmaceutical group in Northern Ireland – proved just as influential in the world of politics as he was in business.

In Tibetan Buddhism the elephant-headed deity Vignataka is treated with considerable ambivalence.

Suzanne Hall is the organiser of a small monthly midweek antiques and fleamarket in Old Windsor which is reopening as lockdown eases on Wednesday, September 2, at the Memorial Hall.

The so-called Elcho bayonet was designed for the Martini-Henry rifle in 1870 by Lord Elcho, the 10th Earl of Wemyss & March.

A mix of works across different periods and genres drew attention at the first Pictures through the Ages auction at Mallams (27% buyer’s premium) of Oxford.

Gary Wallis, organiser of the 'Henley Decor Fair', is delighted that all the exhibitors who booked for the original May/June event at Greenlands Park beside the Thames are on board for the reorganised dates following its cancellation due to the pandemic.

“We opened at the earliest opportunity two months ago and were immediately ridiculously busy,” said David Skeet, general manager of the Brighton and Lewes fleamarkets.

The FA Cup proved a happy hunting ground for Norman Whiteside in his playing days and at auction many years later the competition was still proving to be a big winner for him.

The timing could have been a disaster, but three dealers who opened an antiques centre in Dorking at the beginning of the month have been rewarded for their ambition by a very encouraging start.

Keeping score in the earliest days of the Football League was not as easy as checking the internet.

Dovehouse Fine Antiques Fairs’ mid-summer fair at the Dorking Halls on August 16 has been cancelled.

While Manchester United and early FA Cup match programmes often make the big money at auction, a group on offer at a West Sussex saleroom showed that far less famous names can also make the running.

Nathan Alexander is a busy man. He has opened three antiques centres in three years with two in Southampton and a third in Fareham, all under the same title of Robin’s Nest Emporium.

Jay Fairs aka Joy O’Meara, who launched her fairs in Oxfordshire in the 1980s with her sister Jill Napper, is excited about the return after a four-month absence of her popular monthly antiques fair at the parish hall in Benson, near Oxford, on Sunday, August 16.

Two 19th century ‘prestige’ knives from southern Africa attracted unexpected levels of bidding at Grand Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Folkestone. Estimated at just £40-80 each, they made a combined £9200.

The artist John Hurford was a key figure in the British psychedelia movement of the late 1960s.

Two works by Fred Stead (1863-1940) drew strong interest at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) in West Sussex thanks, in part, to here-to-be-sold estimates. They were being consigned from a deceased estate.