South-west England

“After a very busy Easter event which was spectacular, our Shepton Flea is back in full force with our next flea on Sunday, July 17”, says Sue Ede.

During renovations of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1789, the tomb of the War of the Roses monarch Edward IV (1442-83) was rediscovered and his coffin accidentally opened while being moved.

A study of a figure wearing a robe and turban drew a fierce bidding battle at Eldreds (25% buyer’s premium) in Plymouth at the end of last month.

Captured on video camera and shared by the auction house on Twitter, this was the fistpumping moment of joy when historian Tom Holland bought a Psittacosaurus skeleton at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on June 30.

A jewellery dealer with years of experience honed at Portobello, Greenwich and Covent Garden markets now owns a busy antiques shop in east Devon.

The highlight of a Cornish auction on June 10 was an RAF logbook from Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot Flying Officer Arthur Peter Pease (1913-40).

This impressive carved and painted wooden half-block model of a salmon measures an impressive 4ft 10in (1.48m) across.

A collection of pop culture ephemera and football memorabilia found in a Cotswold bungalow was offered across 390 lots at auction.

These two oak boarded chests, made to similar techniques four centuries apart, were offered for sale recently.

A regular two-day auction of silver, art and antiques? Not at Whittons in Honiton, Devon, where the firm called its sale on June 8-9 a ‘Jubilee auction’ and auctioneer Ed Whitton donned a suitably patriotic jacket and tie to sell a good range of lots such as Georgian silver and Victorian jewellery.

Grisly figures burning at the stake reflected religious background of Staffordshire potters

In June 2008, Canterbury Auction Galleries claimed a record price for a Louis Wain ceramic when a version of the 11in (28cm) Futurist Cat in blue with Amphora factory marks sold at £8200.

Strong prices do not always have to be seven, six or even five figure sums.

A selection of Second World War ephemera with a distinctly Polish flavour estimated at £60-100 sold instead for £7600 at a Devon auction.

Three albums containing in all some 410 wood engravings by Gwen Raverat (1885-1957), compiled by the artist as a personal record of her work and sold by a descendant, made a total of £34,500 at Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) on May 11.

Flight Lieutenant Maurice ‘Mark’ Mounsdon was one of only four remaining members of Sir Winston Churchill’s ‘The Few’ when he died in 2019 aged 101.

A woodcut by German Expressionist Max Pechstein (1881-1955) brought overseas interest to Kinghams (23% buyer’s premium) back on March 3-5.

Spotlight on honours sold recently includes courageous lifesavers from civilian backgrounds.

London dealer Richard Green was the successful bidder on a Sir William Nicholson (1872- 1949) still-life sold for £440,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium).

The Our Gang range of Second World War ‘types’ were designed for the Bovey Pottery Company by architect Fenton Wyness (1903-74) and modelled by artist Gwynneth Holt (1909-95). Both were based in Aberdeen in the 1940s.