Eastnor Castle Special Antiques Roadshow

We've come back to Eastnor Castle, near Ledbury in Herefordshire.

With its massive walls and picturesque turrets,

Eastnor is a perfect example of a medieval castle, except, of course,

that it isn't - it was built in the early part of the 19th century.

It's equally dramatic inside,

with some authentically huge pieces of furniture, a comprehensive array of armour

and a very fine collection of Italian artefacts.

We'll pick our way through these with Paul Atterbury.

Also, some choice moments from the Roadshow that you won't have seen.

When I was a child,

I was fascinated by ships in bottles. How did they get them in?

How do they get the masts up? But this is a much nicer one.

Much more complicated than one usually sees, because not only have we got the ship,

but also a row of cottages

and obelisks and a mast and sort of rather lush greenery.

It's super. Where did the bottle come from?

Er...my grandfather was a collector of antiques.

He went round different places to collect things, just that took his fancy.

-And these were from the same family source?

-Yes.

-So it wasn't that he was connected with the sea?

-No.

-He just took a shine to it.

-Yeah.

-I mean what is lovely about this, is not just the bottle, which is great,

but this incredible shaped stand that it's in.

-Yes.

-I have to say I've never seen a stand like that. No, it's very handsome.

One day, perhaps somebody will tell me how they get the masts up.

Now, let's move on to these, because these are...they, to me,

-have the same sort of naive folksy quality that the ship in the bottle does.

-Yes.

-But in this larger scale. We've got two different types here. Have you got any more?

-There's another one.

-One other...what...similar?

-Similar to that one, yes.

Right. Here we've got the, the...

ship against a rather nice painted background of mountains and scenery

-which I guess could be the coast of Scotland up here.

-Yes.

-Um, and...

above, it's against a plain painted background, but to me this is actually

the more interesting one, because there's so much more going on.

It's been rough-hewn by somebody who had a good feel for the sea,

but wasn't a trained craftsman, perhaps,

and the same relates to this.

The sails themselves are made out of carved wood

and then painted, but it does give

this wonderful feeling of movement

and the whole thing of life at sea,

and these lovely dimpled, dappled waves.

All these things are bound by what I've loosely called "folk art"

or "naive art" and that's a very powerful market force at the moment.

The little ship in the bottle...

we'd probably be talking about £200 or £300 because it's got a nice decorative background.

But it's really these that are the more interesting, and I would have thought

that we should certainly be talking about between £600 and £800 each.

My grandmother and my two great-aunts were all suffragettes.

My grandmother was married and not militant and the other two remained spinsters and were quite militant.

-They were really active?

-Yes.

-They were from around here?

-From Glasgow.

-This looks as if...

it's written in a very hasty hand.

-Is this because she was in prison or...?

-Yes. They went down to London

and threw bricks through... I think it was a lawyer's window, a sort of Chief Justice of the Peace,

in order to get arrested and they did and went to Holloway Prison.

They got two months' hard labour and they smuggled these letters out

describing the, um...treatment in prison and the forced feeding

that...they had to endure in prison.

"The hunger strike is a splendid weapon.

-"You have no idea how confused the governors, matrons and doctors were."

-Yes.

-It was finally beginning to have effect.

-Yes.

-We've got two medals that...

-They were given to my great-aunts from the WSPU in recognition

-of the forced feeding in Holloway Prison.

-And these of course are the suffragette colours, the green

and the mauve and white together,

that they would have worn on their sashes. And this?

Yes, this is my grandmother on horseback and her WSPU...

suffragette parade in Edinburgh.

-That's a lovely reminder of what they looked like.

-Yes.

-You can see their sashes in the photograph.

-Yes.

The collection is wonderful - something that people who are doing research into women's studies

-would be fascinated to see.

-Yes. Oh, I treasure them.

Yes, I'm sure you do. I think, probably,

they'd be worth at least £500 and could well fetch more to an interested collector.

A Victorian paintbox and it looks in remarkably good condition - have you had it a long time?

Well, it belonged to my mother, and I think...

-it belonged to her father before that.

-OK.

If we look from the back first, we have a wonderful morocco leather backing

with gilt cartouche and the inscription "Winsor and Newton"

who were, as you probably know, a very well-known firm who made

artists' paints and the like, and produced a lot of boxes like this in the second half of the 19th century

and early 20th century.

It says underneath "manufacturers to Queen Victoria"

so we know it dates from before she died in 1901.

It's probably about 1870-1880 in date,

-and it looks like it's never been used.

-No, I don't think so at all.

-It's rare to find one in such good condition as this.

-Yes.

If we look inside, we can see all the various different paints.

Picking out a few here, you've got brown-pink, you've got

emerald green, indigo,

Prussian blue, which these days is an illegal paint because of the acid

contained in it, so you wouldn't be allowed to have that today.

Just lift it out.

Oh yes, there we have various brushes and the...

brush stand and these for doing...

-Gold and silver leaf, I think.

-That's right.

Little shells there. This would be the one for the silver and you've got one for the gold.

Again, you see, original wrapping paper. Quite astonishing.

Oh, you've got the charcoals here, if you wanted to draw in charcoal.

Wonderful. Let's have a look inside.

Inevitably, the wrapping paper again.

Have any of your family been artists or not?

Yes, well, my mother's father was an architect.

-Yes.

-And if it was older than that, her grandfather on her mother's side was a painter as well.

-Oh, right.

-I've never dared use it.

-No.

-That's probably wise, actually.

-I think so, yes.

-Because the glory of this is its condition,

which is truly outstanding.

Normally when paintboxes by Winsor and Newton come up on the market, which is fairly often,

ones in average condition perhaps fetch £300, £400, £500,

but because this is in such wonderful condition, I would think its value must be nearer £1,000.

Meanwhile, back at Eastnor Castle, we're in the long library. Very atmospheric it is, too.

We've established that the house itself isn't classically old, but lots of the contents are valuable.

Yes, exactly. If you build yourself a medieval 19th-century castle,

you've got to fill it with old things to give it authenticity, give it style and class, if you like.

You have to collect those together from sales, from local families, from the Grand Tour, what have you.

In this room, which is a fabulous sort of statement about 19th-century Italian taste,

we've got these tapestries - actually Flemish, but bought in Italy -

the fireplaces, which were carved by Italian craftsmen,

from Italian marble for this room in the 1860s, and this great collection

of pieces brought together to give the atmosphere of Victorian Italy.

Here's the archetypal Italian piece - Romulus and Remus.

Yes, absolutely, a 17th-century casket. Here we are at the very foundation of Rome.

Another wonderful piece is this cassapanca which is a large bench, as you can see. Medici coat-of-arms.

We're in the 16th century, a typical piece assembled in the 19th century to give this atmosphere of the past.

You had to feel everything had always been here.

But of course a room like this, this great library, designed in 1860

by George Fox, was also modern Italian work.

All the library shelves were designed by Italian craftsmen

and they bring together past and present in the way that was so common in the 19th century.

We've plucked one book from the thousands here, about a collection - a collection of armour this time.

-It's a sort of catalogue.

-The catalogues are very important.

This gave things authenticity, documentation.

Every family had its tame scholars, if you like, and they were great amateur antiquarians.

This catalogue is of the armour at Goodrich Court, a famous collection dispersed in the early 19th century.

That's how these collections were formed.

The catalogues tell you how things worked and how it all fits together.

Wonderful collections of armour here. These sort of pieces tell us so much

about the history of taste. Everybody wanted the sense of the Middle Ages.

I don't know if they actually walked round clanking in the armour but they certainly had it on display.

This very piece here is in the entrance to Eastnor Castle today.

You know, when I looked at...

this handle - or these two handles - these pieces had me completely fooled.

I thought they were Japanese and made in about 1920 and it just shows how wrong one can be.

I thought they were Japanese and made in the 1920s because of this colour which exists often in 1920.

-Yes.

-And this sort of rather spongy gilding.

-Yes.

Also, inside here...

you've got a rather Japanese design.

And this bowl, when you turn it up -

-it could almost be a hat - you see it's like that.

-Viking's hat.

Anyway, if you look at it on this lovely crab shape,

you've got the immortal word "Wedgwood".

-Yes, it's Wedgwood.

-It's Wedgwood and it has a date mark for 1886.

Here is Wedgwood making an entirely sort of Japanese design piece

in the 1880s. It's a salad bowl, not a hat, but... and you've got your crab there,

so presumably you're going to have a crab salad and you've got hermit crabs

inside these shells in the handles of the design.

It's very, very elaborate and well thought out.

And, of course, it's survived with its original plated mounts

and it is in lovely condition.

I've never seen one before.

Er...salad bowls and servers don't often fetch a lot of money, but this is such a good one,

such a marvellous instance of good design, I think,

-that I think it's probably worth between £800 and £1,000.

-I'm absolutely amazed. That's wonderful.

-Well, it's one of a pair. I've always understood it to be teak. Is that, is that, um, so?

-Yes.

-This is typical of teak. It's a wonderful colour. Rich in the daylight.

-Yes.

-Lovely rich colour.

Where has it come from? It's got a lot of different influences.

-You've got a generally French shape, this semi-circle with this serpentine top rail.

-Mmm.

An elaborate type of cabriole leg...

-with this extraordinary lion with his tongue hanging out.

-Lovely, isn't it?

-Very naively carved.

-Yes.

-But a very soft French feeling about it.

-Right.

-But it's of course made in the Far East.

-Is it?

-It's got a mixture of Chinese and Indian influence.

-Yes.

-It's actually from Burma.

-Oh.

-And it's typical of the sort of furniture made in the last century -

-sorry, the century before last now - the 19th century.

-Yes.

-Where...

colonial houses, plantation owners, would have suites of furniture made for the dining room,

-drawing room, bedroom even.

-Yes.

-With various types of furniture,

following the European models, and this vaguely follows a European sideboard.

The French influence again - underneath, you've got this very complicated stretcher.

-Yes.

-It's not necessary for the construction but gives it a French Louis XV feel.

-Yes.

-But of course 100 years later. I would date this to around - it's quite difficult - 1860 to 1900.

-Mmm.

-So it's about 100...100 to 150 years old.

-Mmm.

There's very little written about this sort of thing, so we can't be accurate about the dates.

It was very much native craftsmanship, and when you look at the detail...

I think it's probably, it's from a Chinese fox and vine motif

which you see on export porcelain, but it's...

a native craftsman, probably illiterate craftsman, working in a local small village.

Maybe he made this piece, another person made another piece and it was assembled in Rangoon or wherever.

-So they wouldn't have been made in bulk?

-Difficult to answer that one.

-One man probably spent his life making certain parts.

-Right, right.

But the parts would probably fit into a little davenport,

lady's desk or something, or other pieces of furniture.

The most common furniture is seat furniture of this type, with these elaborate but curved backs.

Another feature is this - it's charming.

I wondered if there was a story behind that.

But if you look at it, I can't think immediately of a reference.

My first reaction was Chinese willow pattern, Chinese influence.

-But no, it's not that little bridge on the willow pattern base.

-No.

-This is very Indian.

This capital here is typical of sort of Mogul, Indian decoration, and again here,

you've got this sort of arch, almost like a prayer mat in a way, almost a Persian influence,

-Islamic influence coming in here.

-Mmm, yes.

I think it's a Burmese equivalent of an Indian temple,

-so it's meeting two cultures.

-Yes.

-Well, three cultures.

-Yes.

-Chinese.

-Mmm.

-Er...Indian and European culture.

-That's amazing.

Made in solid hardwood, and that's so nice - it's almost indestructible.

Woodworm is not going to enjoy it.

It's really nice to to see this on Antiques Roadshow, but a pair is extraordinary.

-The market for this type of furniture hasn't performed very well in the last 20 years.

-No.

I remember thinking 20 years ago that they must be a good buy

because it was such a lot of furniture for your money.

It hasn't gone up a lot, but I suspect in India and the Chinese...

as these countries develop and become more and more Westernised and looking towards the West,

-and people have money to spend, they'll buy this type of furniture back, so its day will come.

-Yes.

-But even so, you've got to insure them for a very minimum - very rare to have a pair - £5,000.

-Mm-hm.

Well, from Eastnor to France, to this extraordinary monastery courtyard interior.

-Yes.

-It's a wonderfully mad picture, this, isn't it?

-Well,

-it's very, very unusual, isn't it? Yes.

-Well...

we've got these monks lining up,

holding guns, doing a bit of arms drill.

-Yes.

-And we've got this very splendid upstanding French general.

-Yes.

-Sort of putting them through their paces,

practically, isn't he? But what's going on here, do you think?

Well, it apparently was an incident from the Franco-Prussian war.

-Right.

-And I think a bit like in our last war, and Dad's Army,

the French were doing so badly, that I imagine

they just gave arms to everybody, and said, "You will go and fight".

-Yes, so they even had to call in the monks.

-Yes.

Here are some very specific-looking faces. Almost portraits, aren't they?

-We've discovered that this is a self portrait of the artist.

-That's the artist?

-Paul Robinet, yes.

-Fascinating! We've got the signature down here. Yes. PF Robinet.

-Yes.

Painted in 1901, but obviously what's depicted is an incident

-from the war 30 years earlier.

-Yes. He wasn't even born then.

-What more do we know about Robinet?

Um, the main thing that I know about Paul Robinet was that his wife, who was also French,

became co-headmistress of the school I was at, at Lawnside in Malvern,

and girls over the generations grew up with this hanging over the stairs.

Latterly, when girls were allowed to go up the front stairs, they said

"We can see ghosts at the window."

When I began to clean it, you can see...I think it's two old monks

-looking out of the window.

-You see figures looking in a ghostly way.

In fact they weren't ghosts, they were the old monks probably too infirm to fight.

-As a piece of painting, it's quite a memorable piece of work - a very typically French...

-Yes, yes.

Sort of late 19th... turn of the century in fact,

-almost photographic in its detail.

-That's right.

-And really...

-all I can say is it's a memorable image.

-Yes.

And um, what did you pay for it when you had to buy it quite recently?

Er, we... we had to pay £3,000.

The local auctioneer gave that as the top price.

-That sounds fair.

-It does? We weren't done?

-Insure it for a little bit more.

The owner of Eastnor Castle, for the past ten years, is James Hervey-Bathurst.

For him it's meant coming home because it's where he was brought up.

Well, suitably impressive dining room, and James,

this is one huge table.

It certainly is. It takes a large table to fill a large room,

and this is a terrific table, mahogany sections of wood,

made from Cuban mahogany... with extra leaves that we've added

because we needed just to fill the room up a bit more.

It's a really great experience dining here at night with the candlelight reflected in the wood.

Overlooking it all, of course, previous masters of the house.

Certainly. This is not just the master, it's the builder of the house,

John, First Earl Somers, painted by George Romney.

He set the whole thing going, finished it off

and would have handed it over to his eldest son over here,

but his eldest son had gone to join Wellington's army

to fight Napoleon in the Peninsular War and he was killed at the Siege of Burgos,

so his younger brother John, the Second Earl, inherited,

and he continued the decoration and collecting in the house

and added a lot to it during his time.

Now, this great solid server was actually made on the premises, wasn't it?

Certainly, a lot of timber for the house was produced on the estate,

lot of oak was cut down, and this is a nice piece because it's got

this little feature, a sort of Gothic arch which was incorporated in a number of other places

in the house, and is a sort of feature you'd expect to find in a castle like this.

A couple of tonnes of ceramics above.

Luckily it's strong enough to take them.

These two chargers were made in 1931 by Wedgwood and so was this vase,

um, dedicated to my grandfather, who commissioned it,

-painted by a family called the Powells - very, very nice pieces.

-All part of the ongoing collection.

I started when I was eight, and I saw Robin Hood, became a fan

-of Errol, you know.

-Oh really?

-But, er...then I was on the road.

-Yes.

-As a representative, covering the country.

-Yes.

-So...

-What for?

-For Warner Bros or for somebody like that or...?

-Well, no...I did work at Warner Bros.

-Oh, did you?

-Oh, yes.

-You said that you became a fan of Errol Flynn. Did you ever meet him?

-Yes.

In 1948, I actually screened a film for him, because I worked in a private theatre.

-How fantastic.

-We had a private theatre of six seats,

and I had a phone call to say that er...this guest was coming

-and wanted to see "The Blue Lagoon", Jean Simmons film.

-Yes, yes.

-Which Rank sent over,

-and it was viewing for 9.00pm.

-Did you know who the guest was?

-No.

-It was kept under wraps.

-Yes.

Ben, the security chap, rang up and said, "Your guest's arrived."

It was 9.00pm and out walked Errol. I couldn't believe it.

I was dumbfounded and because...

All I said to him was, you know...

"Do you want me to break the film half-way and make you a cup of tea?" He said, "Yes, please."

-And that was it! Your meeting with Errol Flynn. Fantastic. Oh, very good.

-Yeah, no, it was good.

-It's not just Errol Flynn here.

-No, no.

-We've got Johnny Weissmuller,

Bing Crosby, um, and George Formby - is this perhaps the earliest one you've got here?

-Yes, that's the earliest one I have here.

-This is 1830...?

-1939.

-'39.

Now, with film posters there are all sorts of things which determine the value.

The first is - who is the star, and what is the film, is it an original

-from the first run or is it a...

-Reprint.

-Reprint?

For instance, that very fine Robin Hood poster behind you is a later one.

I guess it's from the 1950s.

-It's certainly not the original.

-Not 1938, no.

-Not 1938, although...

it's very evocative and so on.

Whereas, if we look down here - "The Private Life of Elizabeth I"

with Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland -

-one of the absolute pinnacles of the poster art, I would say.

-Yes. Oh, yes, oh, yes.

That is an extremely desirable one.

-Yes.

-Captain Blood is extremely desirable, even in Spanish,

we're talking about perhaps £400.

-I think they make marvellous pictures as well.

-They do, don't they?

-They do.

-A picture with a story.

-Yes.

-Which is the best picture of all.

It's a rather nice travelling compendium altogether, isn't it?

We've got, on the top, a compass.

-Mm-hm.

-Here we've got the timepiece and then,

just rotating it round, a Centigrade thermometer and on the reverse,

-an aneroid barometer.

-Yes.

-And here we've got a Fahrenheit thermometer.

-Everything.

-Everything...

that the late Victorian traveller would wish to own.

-How long have you had it?

-I found it under the floorboards of the house after my father died.

-So...

-I'd never seen it before until I found it.

-So as a young lad,

-you never saw it?

-I never saw that in the house at all.

-You never saw it.

-No.

If you went for a shooting holiday in this part of the world - before wirelesses

or televisions or anything - you wanted to know what the weather was going to be like,

you'd look at the temperature, you'd look at the barometer and say,

"This could be a jolly good day for doing something."

-It's basically a rich man's toy.

-Is that what it is?

It's a rich man's toy, but what fun. And lovely to have the original box, in French throughout,

made in France for the English market because it's done

with English writing rather than French.

-Mm-hm.

-And we've got Henry Birks's name on the dial as well.

So clearly you have associated no value with it.

None whatsoever, I didn't even know how old it was. I thought...

-We can probably say it's round about the turn of the century.

-Uh-huh.

Well, certainly if I were retailing it, it would be at least £1,500.

You must be joking!

My great-great-grandfather left Edinburgh in 1826 for South Africa.

He was a judge, and he married the daughter of a senior naval officer.

These were a wedding present

-from the bride's father to the couple.

-1826 or thereabouts.

-About there.

Ostensibly. the style...

is late Regency, certainly of the cabinets, and you've got these

very typical anthemion motifs, for example,

fairly typical of Regency iconography.

Um, but what particularly interests me is the timbers used,

because we have here East Indian satinwood,

we have ebony and we have ivory.

All these woods come from further east, and the most likely source is going to be Sri Lanka,

but having said that, of course, South Africa and the Cape is on the trade route home,

so those sort of woods would not be scarce in South Africa.

Um, let's just open up and see what happens inside.

Because there we've got the most wonderful...

interior, absolutely super.

Now this must have been built for a purpose.

-It holds a collection of seashells.

-Do you think that was its original purpose?

-I think so, but I don't know.

-I think the man who made this was trained in cabinet work. It's lovely quality.

I mean the cutting of the dovetails, the jointing, everything about it

is really very, very nice indeed.

In the interior here we pick up again the use of satinwood,

the use of the ebony and another unidentified tropical hardwood - it's really remarkable.

My guess is that the cabinets were made first

and the stands were made later,

because none of the motifs on the cabinet is matched on the base.

-Have you got them insured?

-They are insured, yes.

-What are they insured for?

-£25,000.

-Well, that's a hefty insurance price.

But I think it's probably about right.

And now we've come to the drawing room at Eastnor Castle.

Paul, another room, another style.

Yes, and this time it's the high Victorian Gothic dream.

This room was created by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, in the late 1840s.

He's known as the designer of much of the Palace of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament,

and he was brought...in a sense to bring up to date what was already a Gothic building.

He started, if you like, with the fireplace, where we can start.

You've got this family tree which descends through the ages, giving the historical background

that the family felt they needed,

and the great coat of arms which forms the fireplace - wonderful colour and carving.

And down below you've got the tiles, beautiful colours, new printing process developed by Minton,

and then the totality framed

by these brass fire dogs, which were made just for that setting.

And the centre of the room is this magnificent chandelier.

In a way they were Pugin's trademark.

if he had clients rich enough, he'd persuade them to have a chandelier made by Hardman of Birmingham,

a fabulous statement about modern Gothic, and they were designed

to be seen hanging against this sort of highly coloured ceiling.

When he came in, as an interior decorator, effectively, the ceiling structure was already there,

but he thought, "It's a bit boring. Let's bring it to life with colour and pattern and richness."

We think of that period as being rather heavy and dull and ponderous.

But it was very lively, the full pageant of the Middle Ages brought into the modern Victorian world.

-Is everything here by Pugin?

-Yes, Pugin was one of those very demanding all-round designers.

If you commissioned him, he wanted to do everything, all the components of the living space,

everything that made the room work and define his style.

In this room, for example there are candlesticks by him, now used as lamps,

there's very lovely pierced door plates and door furniture,

but of course the main thing here is the suite of furniture he designed for these rooms.

We've got the lovely bookcase with its fantastic marquetry panels,

but many people would like the desk best.

It's got that lovely carved stretcher rail beneath it,

which defines it and makes it a very strong piece.

-And of course this superb table.

-Yes, the octagonal table was one of his favourite motifs.

You can see here it's elegant, it's modern, it's decorative,

it has all this force of decoration in this room,

at the same time as with all his furniture - this and the chairs

conform to certain basic principles.

Let me show you on the chair.

Traditionally this is a very old- fashioned x-frame chair, but it's a very modern piece as he saw it.

He's revealed the structure. You can actually look at it and see how it all goes together.

It's a modern piece of design. "Honesty", "integrity" - these were words that he used.

"Truth to materials", and, in a sense, a piece like this defines modernity in the Victorian period.

So is it unique, to be found nowhere else but in this room?

These designs were used for other clients, but every piece was created for that particular client.

In the centre of this table is the "S" for Somers.

This motif was picked up again and again,

to make sure you know these were made for that family.

So Pugin was a high-class interior decorator?

Absolutely. You or I might have our bathroom or our bedroom done in the latest fashion.

He was doing that for a different sort of client, on a grander scale.

What he brought to Eastnor was the great modern Gothic style of the 1840s, 1850s.

And his legacy to us today is that here at Eastnor,

we have the greatest surviving example of a domestic space in the Gothic style of that period.

This is a lovely wine bottle

for decanting wine. You take this bottle down to the cellar,

pour the wine from the barrel into this, and serve it at the table.

Quite an early one, one of the earliest of the English wine bottles that one can have.

It's called a globe and shaft and actually sealed.

It's got the seal of the original owner,

-with a coat of arms - do you know whose coat of arms it is?

-Yes, um...

I did some research at Birmingham Library and found that it belongs to

Sir Richard Hanson, who was, um, knighted in 1665

-and then later on, in 1673, he was Lord Mayor of London.

-That's very interesting.

-How long have you had it?

-48 years.

-Yes, and how did you come by it?

We were on the way back from holiday and we saw it in an antique shop window.

We went in and they were asking £5 for it

-and we could only scrape up four pounds ten shillings between us so they let us have it for that.

-£4.50.

-That's right.

-My golly. These, of course, have become terribly exciting and interesting nowadays,

especially this shaft and globe.

Well, one in slightly better condition, not so pitted, was sold last month

-for £18,000.

-Oh, that's not too bad, is it?!

-Wow!

I won't suggest this is quite that much, but it's a jolly fine piece.

-I think with the pitting, I reckon you'll be £10,000 to £12,000 for this.

-Good gracious me.

My husband was doing some building work on a old house in Moseley,

where we live, and he found it in a skip, so he brought it home.

-He didn't! Actually in a skip outside?

-Yes.

-So for free.

-Yes,

-Do you know what it is?

-Um, some sort of candle holder, that's as much as I know, or think.

But I liked it and it's been sitting in our hallway for years.

You're right, I mean it is a form of candle holder.

It's actually what we would call a rush light holder,

-probably made in the middle of the 18th century.

-Uh-huh.

And because candles were quite expensive, even in those days, for wax and things,

-they used to get little rushes, which were like reeds.

-Yeah.

And they would actually immerse them in animal fat,

bearing in mind this would probably be the only form of light in the old cottages.

What would you say if I told you it was worth £1,000?

My father was part of a Royal Navy air mission to Japan

-from 1922 to '23 and while he was there, a lot of these are gifts from the military...

-Right.

-And a lot are just items that he picked up while he was there.

-What was he actually doing there?

-Do you know?

-Believe it or not, he was a carpenter and his job was to repair aeroplanes.

-Really?

-All made out of wood and plywood.

-How fascinating.

-Yes, a long time ago, it was.

He obviously hit it off quite seriously with the Japanese

-because he was presented with a lot of really quite interesting things.

-Mm-hm.

We've got a pipe case here. These are popularly known as opium pipes.

Yes, I always thought it was an opium pipe.

They never are. Japanese didn't go in for opium, that was the Chinese.

I've always worried about getting it through Customs.

-You don't smoke opium in a pipe like this.

-Right.

-The Japanese actually take one pinch of tobacco,

-put it in, smoke it and chuck it away.

-Chuck it out again.

-And then have another one.

-Right.

And a very nice netsuke to go with it, with some of the gods of good fortune on top,

and a couple of bizen stoneware figures.

I think these are probably the earliest things on the table. THESE all relate to his period in Japan,

but these, I think, would have been old when he bought them

and they date back to the middle of the 19th century.

Nice cloisonne box. This is wire-less cloisonne, nothing to do with the radio.

-Right.

-But this is a technique of putting the wires in

and then etching them out again and so you get watercolour-like effects

and, um, that's actually a nice box. What have we got in here?

Cigarette case, that's nice quality.

Ah, and that's why. That is the mark of a maker called Komai

who did really fine quality inlay in gold and silver.

-Beautiful.

-I suppose that's nothing to do with it, is it?

-I think it may well be.

-Oh, look at that!

Bought of Komai, one damascene cigarette case.

-Oh, is that his...?

-That's it, that's it. How fascinating.

And that's dated 1923, again, obviously, when he was out there.

I think it's an interesting little group, um...

obviously having them together adds more to it

and somebody who was perhaps into militaria would find the whole relationship fascinating.

But pricing it up individually -

your two figures here are worth around £120 and £200 each,

-and I think these are probably going to be worth around, um, £300 to £400.

-Right.

And the cigarette box in wire-less cloisonne is going to be worth around

-£600 to £900.

-Wow.

-And the cigarette case

about £800 to £1,000.

-Really?

-So it's quite an interesting little group.

-Wow.

-It tots up.

-Thank you very much...

-Yes, thank you.

-..for bringing in

such a riveting piece of English-Japanese history.

When we came back from India, my parents and I, we went to my grandparents' home

and they had a big show case, that the Victorians, late Victorians, used to have,

and in it was this bust of General Gordon together with a whip,

and we know that because of this, that it was Augusta,

General Gordon's sister, who gave it to my great-grandfather, the Reverend Alexander Fullerton.

But the whip is definitely General Gordon's also?

That's his as well. That's always what I've been told.

It strikes me a pretty good family history and I think that we can take that as read.

Gordon was undoubtedly the epitome of all Victorian heroes.

He was the personification of the British Empire,

of the desire to expand and also the "white man's burden" approach to colonialism.

He definitely thought that he was driven by the mission of God

to bring civilisation to all these wild parts of the world.

Gordon was sent to Khartoum to actually organise the retreat, a decent retreat,

but he said, "I don't want to do that. I think we should stay".

He actually went against the policy and he had the public behind him in a big way.

Um, to cut a long story short,

he died in Khartoum and of course that made him THE super-hero.

This Goss model was issued in... It's unclear,

It's under there, but I think I see it says 1886 which would be

almost exactly at the time of his death.

This is a memorial bust to the death of perhaps

the most eminent, the bravest of all Victorian leaders.

-Now Goss in itself is a collectable factory.

-Yes.

That adds a certain value but your family history is infinitely more interesting than a financial value.

To a Goss collector or an enthusiast for General Gordon, it's probably worth somewhere in the region of

maybe £300 - £400.

It was a travelling case that was belonging... to my great-great-grandmother.

Although the case outside is rather tatty, it looks lovely inside.

We've got a beautiful brass-bound

coromandel wood case and it's got the name "Flora Campbell" - she was what relation, again?

-My great-great-grandmother.

-Your great-great-grandmother. Yes. One thing I love

about these cases is that they are a perfect example of a real bygone age

where style was often more important than comfort.

Now any self-respecting woman who travelled would have had

a decent case like this and this looks a real beauty.

Where did your great-great-grandmother travel to?

-Well she was married in Brazil in 19...in 1846.

-In 1846?

-Yes.

Right. Well I'll just have a look. I can see that it's got the initials FC

and these have some hallmarks on here...

and I can see that it's got a date letter here for 1840,

so it was made a little earlier than when she was married.

And it's got a maker's mark here, GR, which is George Richards,

who was a fairly well-known maker of these sort of things.

One of the great features of these cases is the attention to detail -

the cutting of the glass, for example, you know,

absolutely beautifully done and not really any expense was spared.

They usually have a secret catch under here to release... if I can find it...

-You know about this?

-Yes.

-Right.

And look at that, the original mirror with this lovely brass inlay all round the outside,

This is where the letters would have been kept and it actually has a label.

"Hallstaff and Hannaford, manufacturers, Regent Street".

-Yes.

-So they were the retailers rather than the actual makers.

George Richards was the actual silversmith who made this.

If we look at some of the objects inside - they catered for absolutely everything.

This lovely little piece with a screw fastening top...

is a travelling inkwell

and...you know that was a necessity for, you know, writing home or taking notes.

And very often they have other compartments inside and if we lift these here...

What's this?

This is a photo of... the one in the middle is my great-great-grandfather,

that's Charles Campbell, Flora Campbell's husband.

-That is Flora Campbell herself.

-And this is the great lady herself?

-Yes.

-Isn't that wonderful?

It's so unusual to have all these things still together. And lastly,

they have these secret drawers.

Slightly stiff.

I see it's been well used.

-Yes, you can see that.

-Oh, and that's where all the...

um, you know bracelets, necklaces, rings etc, would have gone.

But a lovely set and the most important thing about these travelling sets

is whether they are complete or not, and this is absolutely complete.

I think we're looking at probably in the region of £4,000 to £5,000.

-Yes.

-Thank you very much for bringing it in.

-Thank you.

It was the 3rd Earl Somers who, in the middle of the 19th century,

filled his home with fine furniture and works of art,

but we've only had time to look at a little of it today.

Interestingly, one of the most exotic objects that he acquired was mislaid and only discovered

just a few years ago when one of the cellars was being renovated.

There, leaning against a disused oil stove,

was this Assyrian tablet, nearly 3,000 years old.

It's now been restored to a place of honour and the Earl would have been delighted.

From Eastnor Castle, goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd