South-east England

As well as being an actor, playing Alfie Moon, the landlord of the Queen Vic pub in the soap EastEnders, Shane Richie is a singer and last year recorded a country music album.

An Arctic Medal with a provenance indicating it was awarded to a member of the doomed Franklin Expedition which vanished searching for the elusive Northwest Passage has surfaced at a Surrey auction house.

A small painting by Scottish artist Robert Gemmell Hutchison (1855- 1936) took a mid-estimate £6000 at Surrey saleroom John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium).

Rising rents and business rates in central London have forced Rountree Tryon Galleries to downsize.

The studio ceramics offered at the Mallams Oxford (20% buyer’s premium) Design, Modern British and Post-War Art sale were the major talking point (see ATG No 2324), but furniture by major late 19th century and early 20th century makers also made an impact.

A restored wall mask made by and indeed featuring the famed Art Deco ceramics designer Susie Cooper is one of the intriguing pieces for sale at Style 1900’s '20th Century Decorative Arts Fair'.

He was among the most prolific and longest serving official war artists of the Second World War, yet Anthony Gross (1905-84) remains an obscure name among 20th century British talents.

Algernon Newton (1880-1968) is one of those British artists whose pictures went unnoticed for many years.

Whatever chaos faces hundreds of thousands of commuters on the railways as we enter the New Year, the better-ordered world of model trains steams on to continued success.

Jane Alexander of Dovehouse Fine Antiques Fairs is doing so well with her 70-dealer monthly fairs at the Dorking Halls in Surrey that she is taking extra space at the venue.

The inaugural Design at Home sale, put together by Mark Hill for Dawson’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, included a trio of pieces by ‘hot glass’ pioneer Sam Herman (b.1936).

Following the multi-million-pound sale at Sotheby’s in 2015, more items from West Horsley Place, the remarkable Grade I listed mansion in Surrey, are to be sold at auction to raise money for urgent repairs.

Peter Wells trades as Form & Function in Brighton. He stands at The London Art Antiques & Interiors Fair at ExCeL London (January 12-14).

“Modern British sculpture is making extremely good money at the moment – it is a market moving as quickly, if not slightly quicker, than paintings.” So said Philip Smith, department head of Mallams (20% buyer’s premium).