Wiltshire

FOUR people will appear in court next month in connection with a series of frauds involving foreign-based credit cards used to pay for high-value jewellery at a number of auction houses.

A 19th century brass lectern stolen from a church in Wiltshire has emerged at an antiques fair in Romania.

Moorcroft Boy recorded one of the great comebacks in racing history when he recovered from a horrific injury at Aintree in 1995 to win the Scottish National the following year.

A VERY large, hand-drawn plan of the Titanic, used in the official inquiry after it sank in 1912, has sold for £220,000 at Wiltshire auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son.

Despite recent developments in the case against the notorious Johnson family, including the recovery of stolen antiques in Worcestershire, innumerable valuable works of art remain at large.

WILTSHIRE auctioneers Netherhampton Salerooms were celebrating a new house record on March 3 after a disbound album of Far Eastern topographical drawings sold for £43,000.

THE National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers will hold their annual summer conference between 10am and 5pm on June 15 at Manor House Golf Club, Castle Combe in Wiltshire.

Wessex Auction Rooms, a new purpose-designed saleoom, has just opened on the outskirts of the Wiltshire market town of Chippenham.

IT is almost 10 years since the noted Wiltshire glass dealers Delomosne last held an exhibition with accompanying handbook, and that was the collection of cordial glasses belonging to the late John Towse.

More details have emerged of art and antiques stolen during the multi-million pound raid on Ramsbury Manor, home of property developer Harry Hyams, on the evening of February 1.

Pictures released of some of the stolen items

SINCE 1986 Christopher Gange has been a dealer in 20th Century British Art at his Katharine House Gallery at The Parade, Marlborough, Wiltshire, but for the month of July, in a new departure, he is holding an important selling exhibition of British Studio Pottery, formerly part of his private collection.

CONTINUING the recent spate of sophisticated country house thefts, valuable antiques were stolen from two homes in the south east of England in the space of a week last month.

DEALERS should be aware of a stolen cheque scam that targets regular Internet bankers.

THE remarkable sums paid in London for high quality Islamic works of art arrived in the provinces in June.

WEST Country-based organiser Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs is having a busy summer, even if her last couple of fairs, the first Oxford County Antiques Fair and the established North Cotswolds Antiques and Decorative Fair, were quieter than she would have liked.

WILTSHIRE ceramics specialist Andrew Dando has been mounting annual selling exhibitions for more than a decade and the tradition goes on in 2004.

High quality mahogany carcase furniture continues to transcend any malaise experienced at other levels of the furniture market. The final lot of a small but nicely formed sale conducted by Finan & Co. at the Old Ship Hotel in Mere, Wiltshire on October 4 was this fretwork and blind fret decorated Chippendale-style and period mahogany library bookcase.

HAMPTONS re-open their Marlborough salerooms this week after a refurbishment that has taken the best part of a year. John Haycraft, formerly of Phillips, will head up the team there and will be assisted by Sarah Eames, who comes from outside of the industry.

Planning to shortly reopen their Marlborough saleroom, Hamptons have appointed John Haycraft, formerly of Phillips and Dreweatt Neate, as senior valuer and auctioneer.