Somerset

A militaria section at Lawrences’ (15% buyer's premium) October 28-19 sale featured a quality, privately entered, 12-lot cache of weapons which suffered not one casualty and racked up a £30,000 total.

SOLD at £1650 in a July 6 sale held by Lawrences of Crewkerne was a group of ten volumes, mostly in contemporary full or half calf, that were grouped under the heading ‘Scandal’.

IN rebacked old panelled calf, a 1584 first edition of Welsh historian David Powell’s “corrected, augmented and continued” version of the Historie of Cambria, now called Wales left in manuscript form by Hugh Lhuyd, was sold for £1350 in a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6.

OFFERED as part of a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6 was ‘The Valehouse Collection of Letters to Mrs W.K. Clifford’. Though little read nowadays, ‘Lucy’ Clifford was immensely popular in late Victorian and early Edwardian times and was even classed with Edith Wharton, Joseph Conrad and H.G. Wells as one of those whose books “will never die”.

BOUND in contemporary panelled calf, a 1704 first of An Historical & Geographical Description of Formosa..., the two folding engraved plates (of 16 in all) torn but skilfully repaired, realised £600 in a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6.

RIGHT: translated by William Hamilton, the 1661 first English edition of Blaise François de Pagan, the Comte de Merveilles’ Historical & Geographical Description of the Great Country and River of the Amazones in America..., contains this important folding engraved map showing French ambitions in the area.

RIGHT: translated by William Hamilton, the 1661 first English edition of Blaise François de Pagan, the Comte de Merveilles’ Historical & Geographical Description of the Great Country and River of the Amazones in America..., contains this important folding engraved map showing French ambitions in the area.

IS there currently a better performing area of the ceramics market than Beswick farm animals? Aided by a proliferation of books and guides and an enviably large collecting base that includes a loyal following within a nostalgic farming community, prices have seen some dramatic acceleration in recent years.

PROBABLY the best-known and the most coveted of the novelty table lighters made by the Ronson Lighter Co. is the 1936 patent Touch-Tip Bartender.

THERE were few head-turners at Greenslade Taylor Hunt's (15% buyer's premium) 738-lot specialist book and clock sale on May 13, with dealers and collectors bidding selectively for the best quality works.

ONCE criticised for its sometimes curious aesthetics, William IV and Victorian furniture is today more likely to be maligned for its relatively poor performance as a ten-year investment. However, there are still aces out there that merit the chase – and one turned up at Bruton Knowles' (15% buyer's premium) on May 27.

THE jacket was torn with loss and four of the five paintbox pictures had been partly coloured, but a copy of The New Adventures of Rupert, the 1936, first Rupert annual, was sold at £580 in a May 13 sale held by Greenslade Taylor Hunt.

FOR a summer boost to their Somerset showground fixture, DMG Antiques Fairs are introducing outside pitches to the Shepton Mallet Antiques & Collectors Fair to be held over the weekend of July 9 to 11.

FROM May 22 to 29 there will be a selling exhibition of antique patchwork quilts at Pennard House, East Pennard near Shepton Mallet in Somerset.

THE Somerset auctioneersGreenslade Taylor Hunt were taking a bullish view about August sales. A month of “traditionally smaller sales and fewer buyers but not in Taunton” was the official line after a two-day event of more than 2100 lots on 28-29 August.

The Somerset-based restoration and conservation specialists Everett Fine Art Ltd will launch what they believe is the first emergency service for art and antiques this month.

AT OVER 1000 lots, the May 22 sale held by Greenslade Taylor Hunt of Taunton was certainly one of the bigger sales of that week, but only a single lot topped the £1000 mark – a disbound, incomplete and defective English Bible. Apparently a 1540 reissue in smaller format of the Great Bible that Thomas Cromwell ordered to be placed in the country’s churches so that “parishioners may moste commodiously resorte to the same”, it was bid up to £1250.

The little underglaze blue decorated cream pails or piggins made by Lund’s Bristol around 1750 are very rare specimens of English porcelain. Only six examples are known to exist, three of them now in museums, so West Country auctioneers Bearne’s were very pleased to offer this 23/4in (7cm) wide example, which they discovered in a local, private Devon house during a routine insurance valuation.

Thieves plagued West Country churches over the summer, stealing monumental brasses and, in one case, a misericord. Experts suspect the thefts are the work of one gang, targeting villages close to the M4 and M40. It is thought the thief must have at least one accomplice to act as lookout as several of the churches are popular with summer visitors.

The firm of Wright & Mansfield (1860-86) are often cited as the instigators of the Georgian Revival and, unlike many of their contemporaries who produced Victorian pastiches of earlier styles, are renowned for their craftsmanship, using high quality materials for accurate recreations of the Adam and Sheraton style – often difficult to distinguish from the 18th century originals.