Yorkshire and the Humber

Bailey, BADA and local firm all in action making September a month the town will remember: Well-used to antiques as they are, the citizens of Harrogate will be spoilt for choice this month with two major fairs in different parts of town, mercifully with a five-day gap between them.

IF his 34th Cheshire Autumn Antiques and Fine Art Fair at Tatton Park over the weekend of September 4 to 7 was an indicator then Robert Bailey’s Harrogate fair should turn over nicely.

As the many people in the trade who remember Joan Eyles will know, the Yorkshire dealer was a cat enthusiast. So when pieces from her own collection were offered at Tennants’ Leyburn rooms on 17-18 July it was no surprise to see the occasional accent on the feline.

One weekend every summer, this quiet South Yorkshire village is overwhelmed by enthusiasts, collectors and dealers of antique bottles, pot lids and advertising, who converge to participate in the collector’s fair, Elsecar National, and to bid in BBR auction’s major sale hosted on an adjacent site.

HARROGATE-based organisers Galloway Fairs do not have to leave their home county of North Yorkshire for the summer staging of The Duncombe Park Antiques Fair, which will be held this weekend from June 13 to 15 at the home of Lord and Lady Feversham at Duncombe Park, Helmsley.

It seems that in terms of arriving in numbers after none has been seen for ages, novelty lighthouse cocktail shakers are to Yorkshire what No. 9 buses are to central London. In Antiques Trade Gazette No.1589 dated May 17 we illustrated just such a silver-plated shaker which took £1250 at Andrew Hartley’s Ilkley, West Yorkshire sale on April 9-10.

MURMURS around the trade indicate that business at fairs is easier out of London than in the capital, which bodes well for one of our top provincial events, The Harrogate Antique and Fine Art Fair held from May 1 to 5 at the Harrogate International Centre, bang in the centre of town.

DOMINATED as the Doncaster sale at Wilkinsons on 23 February was by solid English oak, it also had its more esoteric moments in the high-price range. But in fact Sid Wilkinson was rather disappointed in the results on these two very different examples of carving.

THIS Saturday sale was one of the series of dolls and toys specialist events extending the West Yorkshire auctioneers’ Andrew Harley's reputation in the niche market beyond the more frequent antiques events.

Coming up in Buckingham: A clockwork model of a V5 Citroën half-track – the first vehicle to cross the Sahara during the 1922 trans-Sahara expedition – is expected to make over £3000 when it is sold by Vectis, the Teesside auction house, in April.

A support group has been formed by the 100 or so dealers with claims against Anthony Gilberthorpe, the previous owner of Stonegate Antiques Centre in York.

A secondhand bookshop in Glasgow and two Yorkshire dealers are celebrating a windfall of several million pounds after settling their dispute over the ownership of a lost cache of William Blake watercolours. The folio of 19 illustrations for Robert Blair’s poem, The Grave, one of the most exciting “finds” in art market history, have been sold through London art dealer Libby Howie, acting on behalf of an anonymous collector, for an estimated £4.9m.

THE country’s most famous antiques dealer David Dickinson, now a television superstar, did not work his magic on George Taylor, organiser of the Great Northern International Antiques and Collectors’ Fair at Harrogate’s Great Yorkshire Showground.

ENERGETIC Essex organiser Robert Bailey has been increasingly active on the marketing front and received praise for the gate at his recent Tatton Park fair, following the targeted mailing of nearly 4000 home-owners.

UK: POLICE have announced that they won’t be launching a full investigation into Stonegate Antiques Centre owner Anthony Gilberthorpe. Following their preliminary inquiries, Detective Constable Clive Rich, of North Yorkshire Police, said the force would not be conducting further investigations into either Mr Gilberthorpe or the centre in York.

“Stunning” was how auctioneer Ian Wright of Sheffield Railwayana Auctions (no buyer’s premium) described his December 7 sale. Taking £555,703 over the 550-lots, of which only six were left unsold, the sale showed how this buoyant market just keeps getting stronger and stronger.

THE future of Stonegate Antiques Centre in York has been thrown into confusion amid a legal row and a police investigation into whether owner Anthony Gilberthorpe should face criminal charges.

ONE of the most bizarre and unexpected results at Tennants’ sale in North Yorkshire on 21-22 December involved a collection of more than 200 19th century marbles, a selection of which are shown right.

RUPERT Toovey launches his huge new saleroom in Sussex in a week, Dreweatt Neate have just completed a major revamp of their Donnington Priory rooms near Newbury and a host of other salerooms around the country have announced new facilities, upgrades and launches. Here we detail some of these changes, which indicate that however concerned many may be about the state of the UK antiques business, there is confidence out there and the determination to prosper through improved service.

York Art Gallery have just scrapped admission charges. The gallery houses 600 years of internationally important British and European works of art including painting by Bellotto, Hockney, Hepworth and York-born William Etty.