Lancaster Antiques Roadshow

This week, the Antiques Roadshow is in red rose country, we've come to the city of Lancaster.

Many events and many people contributed to the making of Lancaster.

One name that pops up more often than others is Gillow, a family of

craftsmen who did their first work from these premises back in 1720.

Gillow's work is characterised by its originality and inventiveness - look no further than Lancaster's

Town Hall, opened in 1909, when every child was given a box of chocolates to celebrate.

Picture the scene - a dinner party in the Mayor's parlour with just the

right amount of guests to fill this table, which is two metres across.

Then the Mayor decides to bring a few extra chums.

No problem, this table is centrifugal.

Allow me.

As it revolves, this mahogany marvel opens up and the gaps are filled by special leaves.

The result? 50% more space.

The only person not impressed would be the cook, who has to provide the extra food.

And, if you're wanting to spread out after dinner, you may need a bit more space.

Mr Gillow had thought of that already.

This wall weighs two tons, but with the combination of

a brilliant system of counterweights plus my own incredible strength...

Voila! Let the party commence.

The next day it's back to work.

The Council Chamber is impressive with panelled walls and a throne fit for a...mayor.

And, if the meeting goes on too long, the councillors can

always take a crafty nap, courtesy of the Gillow patent recliner.

Ah, the ayes have it.

This is really a place for Lancaster's Harry Potter fans.

As well as expanding tables and moving walls, there are portraits that behave very strangely.

These hidden passages are handy for our film crew to sneak their equipment through.

The floor of the Ashton Hall, where we're holding the show,

is sprung for dancing, so experts, take your partners, please.

GRAMOPHONE PLAYS

# Little Betty Bouncer is kind to her people

# And a nice girl, more or less

# But at present, no joke

# She's causing her folks No end of deep distress

# Little Miss Bouncer loves an announcer down at the BBC... #

-That's great.

-That was Flotsam and Jetsam in 1927.

-Wonderful!

And it could be said about any of Michael Aspel's fans, of course.

Now, this is a wonderful sort of time warp, a mid-1920s Columbia Grafonola

cabinet gramophone in wonderful condition with a period record. Are you a bit of an enthusiast?

I am really, I have about 10,000 gramophone records, mainly between the two wars, mainly.

So, when did you get hooked?

During my school days.

In 1969 I bought just a few...

-From this period?

-Yes.

Is this the only machine you have to play? Or have you also collected some other gramophones?

No, I have eight other gramophones, but this is one of my favourites.

This is terrific, and I tell you one thing that is great about this.

It's a great piece of furniture.

-We've got the very... I like the hi tech volume control.

-Yes, the volume control.

So this is very quiet and that's very loud, and anything in between.

-Underneath you've got storage for...

-Space for records.

-Space for records, but not space for 10,000.

-No, no.

-It's a great piece of furniture.

-Yes.

And, over the years, I have seen so many of these lovely cabinets changed into cocktail cabinets.

The fact that this is in its original condition, and very good original

condition, and it hasn't suffered the fate of so many others, is terrific.

I'm seeing also other pieces of ephemera relating to records and that whole period.

-That's right, period sheet music.

-Yeah.

-There's Amy Johnson.

-Yes.

-And this is to commemorate her flight to Australia in 1930. George Formby...

-George Formby.

Jack Payne...

-Jack's the boy.

-And Jack Holbert.

-Particularly, I like the Chinese Laundry Blues there.

-Yes.

-With that great photographic portrait of George Formby.

-Lovely picture.

That really brings him to life, and of course, Formby, Wigan man,

but I suppose if you're interested in dance music, it has to be Jack Payne.

I mean, he was the master of that period, on the Columbia record label,

it's called either "Do Something" or "I'll always be in love with you".

Now, as far as value's concerned,

I'm constantly surprised at how little these fetch.

I would have thought we're talking about £300 to £400 on a good day.

Of course, I only have them for the enjoyment.

Yes, you're not interested in selling.

-So, let's just hear Jack Payne "Doing Something".

-Yes.

OLD STYLE DANCE MUSIC

Do you know, if we'd have been chatting about, 60 years ago,

-the chances are that most people outside this Town Hall would have been wearing clogs.

-Yes, they would.

Clogs are synonymous with Lancashire.

All the old folk I used to know told me, "There's nowt so comfortable as clogs."

So I bought a pair and I actually used to go out dancing in them, and then my wife - I nearly crippled her.

So, I do have an affinity with clogs.

I've also got an affinity with this pair of clogs.

-They could never be described as Lancashire, could they?

-No.

-No.

-They've no irons on.

No irons, that's important, but they do have, underneath, a mark.

-Yes.

-It's all in a name, isn't it?

-Yes, it is.

-Bizarre by Clarice Cliff.

-Yes.

Because, in all fairness, this is a pair of clogs that,

-stylistically, they'd look more at home on a Dutchman than they would on a Lancastrian.

-Yes.

The interesting thing is they are decorated with this geometric design.

-It's called Sunburst.

-Yes.

-If you look at it, it's almost like a chevron design.

-I mean, they are colourful, aren't they?

-Mm.

-Do you know if you've got a left or a right?

-No, it's puzzled me, that.

-Well, the truth is, there is no left and there is no right.

-Oh.

-It's the same clog, OK?

-Oh.

I actually do know somebody who collects clogs of this size, and it's me mother.

She hasn't got a pair like this, but if she wanted a pair like this,

what do you think she'd have to pay for them?

-About £75.

-£75... I think she'd be very lucky to get them for 75.

I think that you could put a nought on the end of that, because these are

-worth somewhere in the region of between £600 and £800.

-Are they?

-Quite easily.

-Oh.

-Oh, they're expensive clogs, aren't they?

-They are expensive clogs!

Well, it doesn't look like much like this, does it? But look at this.

Isn't this splendid? I think I could probably play for hours with this, but let's just start here.

Just feast our eyes on that, while you tell me how you got hold of this.

My father's had it for 50 years and it was passed to him by a Gillow's man.

-Right.

-Presumably that man got it from another Gillow's man.

-So it actually has been making Gillow's furniture?

-I suspect so.

-Yes.

-That's perfect, so we're in Lancaster, so that's wonderful, right.

There's such a tradition in the this area of furniture making.

Obviously Gillow's is a big firm, later Waring and Gillow, but what I think is fantastic,

when you see this, you imagine someone's tool box,

like a modern plastic tool box you carry around from job to job,

here was something handmade by the original craftsman.

He'd make it himself for his own tools and he's put all of this love

and care and attention into it, showing how wonderful his box was.

You're not actually a cabinet maker yourself?

I'm not, no, but there are tools in there from my father, my grandfather and my great grandfather.

How wonderful. This is a maker's stamp for marking tools by the look of it.

That's my father's.

-And that's his stamp.

-Yes.

Isn't that wonderful? And that's what they actually used for stamping the tools.

Yes.

I've seen something here which... Explain this to me, is it what I think it is?

Well, we used to play conkers as children and one evening my father

disappeared for several hours and came back with that.

-He hadn't been climbing a conker tree.

-No, no, no.

-He turned that himself.

-He made that.

-So you've been cheating with that, have you?

-He was.

-What, he really used it for conkers?

-Yes.

It's almost like lignum vitae or something, it's very, very hard wood.

-Yes, yes.

-Very, very dense.

That for conkers would be absolutely lethal!

It's so real, how glorious.

But this is what's so wonderful, I mean, I've had a few minutes just to flick through this book -

all the things he did.

-I think this is at the end of his apprenticeship.

-Right.

"April 15th, 1932", so we're talking about the '30s of the last century.

-Yes.

-But, you know, sashing windows, making a coffin.

-Yes.

-14 or 15 hours.

Well, he was an undertaker as well, so coffin making was

a prime part of his work.

That's fascinating because that's not just in the 20th century.

Thomas Chippendale and all his contemporaries worked around St Martin-in-the-Fields

in the centre of London, and they worked around the church, why?

Because there was a good business making coffins - when there wasn't

an order for grand furniture, they made simple coffins and boxes.

That's one reason why they had these big and wonderful, wonderful boxes

because they could carry it from one job to another with a mate's help.

You could put this on a train, you could go up to Glasgow for the sea.

You know, working on the ships.

This type of decoration would be early 19th century -

mahogany with chequered stringing,

this star device, you see on clock cases and furniture. 1800-1820,

up to 1840 or 1850, so without any more precise family history,

I would say it is about 1850.

"The Lancaster Agricultural Society Challenge Cup

"presented by Lady Ashton

"for the best collection

"consisting of one horse, two cattle".

I love this! "Male or female,

-"and three sheep".

-That's right.

So, how do you come to have this?

-I'm a committee member of the Lancaster and Morton Agricultural Society.

-Right.

It was given so many years ago to the Society from Lady Ashton.

Oh, right. I notice the inscription fizzles out in about 1999.

Now that says something to me, and says foot-and-mouth.

We did struggle after the foot-and-mouth event, yes, we did.

-Right, so that's had quite a bad effect on the Society.

-It has, yes.

-That's sad.

-Very sad because it's been going over 100 years.

It's a large, it's an impressive cup, but it's very light.

-Right.

-It's always been referred to, sometimes rather cruelly, as "flash for cash".

-Right.

Somebody wanted a lot for their money. Nonetheless it's still got a value.

It does need a bit of attention.

In an auction I would expect it to perhaps to reach maybe £500.

Right.

But if you had to go out and buy a new one of similar size, it's going to be quite a lot more.

Oh, it is, look, that's what I wanted to see, Norris.

That's one of the Rolls-Royce plane makers.

Now, that's worth some money in itself, that's a wonderful plane.

It's in such nice condition, just needs a bit of a clean up.

So, you've got three Norris planes in there.

What else? What's this?

Are there any moulding planes and things?

Moulding planes are at the back of this compartment.

-Right, how many of those have you got?

-Well, it's full.

-Full of them, what 20 or 30 of them?

-Yeah, maybe, maybe 20.

This is a wonderful machine with a rosewood handle on a veneer scraper.

Really pulling, you know, taking the saw marks out...

The old horizontal saw, and just pulling them... Oh, my gosh, what hard work that must have been.

I haven't seen one of those before actually, it's interesting, and certainly not of that scale.

Thank heavens you rescued it, because it's obviously quite a valuable item.

-Right.

-Those Norris planes, at least £200 or £300 each.

-Mmm.

You've got 30 or 40 moulding planes, well they were

£30 each, they've gone down a bit now - probably worth about £10 each.

Must be, must be 60 chisels, I would think.

-So what are we going to put on it for value?

-Don't know.

-I mean the box is worth £1,000 and you've probably got £2,000 worth of tools.

-Right.

So a good £3,000, but more important than that, family and local history.

-Yes.

-What a wonderful thing.

A working man's livelihood.

-Well, you open the lid and it speaks volumes, doesn't it?

-That's great, I could have that in my front room.

Yes, yes, quite.

It's considered rude to look at other people's letters,

but I have to say that it's a thing that I do pretty regularly when I see something as interesting

as this collection of letters from the Crimean War.

Are they from a relative or from your family?

Yes, they belonged to my grandfather and he got them from his cousin,

Uncle Ken, who was a Bronskill and he lived in Brampton near Penrith.

This letter interests me because it's headed "Camp behind Sebastopol,

"December 20th 1854".

The Army had the Russians under siege and they were bombing the city

and trying to make it surrender. And you've transcribed this?

-Yes.

-That must have taken you a long time to do - very spidery writing!

Very difficult, yes.

They were freezing cold in tents and he'd be sitting there with a candle,

with a tiny travelling ink bottle and it probably took him a long time to write.

It starts with his service in September,

and the first battle was at the Alma and it said,

"And warm work it was with large shots came whizzing around our ears like snowballs,

"but did a great deal more execution, but thank God, I came clear of wounds

"except having my regimental hat shattered to pieces by grapeshot,

"and if I am spared, I will bring home a glazed cover which was over it, to show how my head escaped".

If it had been a foot lower, you and I wouldn't have been speaking today!

We then move on to Inkerman, which is another great battle, and that was appropriately on 5th November.

He said, "Now we commenced our gunpowder plot as early as six o'clock in the morning,

"and such destructive fireworks... was never seen in England".

And then you get the real horror of warfare

that his sort of jokey start really sort of tries to disguise.

The casualties of his battery were 20%

and over 30% of the horses put out of action,

which effectively made it useless as a unit any more.

By the time you get a quarter to a third of casualties, a unit

really ceases to have its cohesion, and here he says, "After this day,

"for the longest day I live, I shall always have occasion to remember the 5th November". I should think so.

It's interesting as you get to the end of it, there's a slight hint about what's going to happen.

"But now...my health is not in any way good at present and it is very cold weather to live in tents",

and I think it must have been absolutely desperate, you know, because freezing cold,

complete ineptitude in the supplies system, poor clothing, no winter clothes and desperate.

-And then there's this rather sad little letter to...his mother?

-Yes.

From her sister, who'd heard second-hand that he'd died.

-That's right.

-And it said that he died at the hospital

-and I think that was Scutari where Florence Nightingale was.

-Really?

-So, you've rescued these letters.

-Yes.

I'm delighted that you did. What do you think you want to do with them?

Well, rather than sit in my home in this book, I'd like to give them to a museum

and let other people enjoy them, they're charming.

I think that's a very worthy aim. They have a commercial value.

They're worth between sort of £300 to £500.

-Yes.

-There's lots of interest in the Crimea, and I think

that you should edit them and you should publish them.

You could put them on the internet and that would be a really good resource for somebody.

And if you then wanted to give them to a museum they'd be preserved.

-Right.

-But what you've done, you've given this man a voice.

-Yes.

Otherwise he would just be a statistic,

-and that's an absolutely priceless gift. Thanks for bringing them.

-Yes, thank you, thank you.

Now here's an artist who really understood animals

and the English countryside.

I love the way he's got these sheep and the cattle, and also just here

you can see a goat coming up the hill, all together, and a farmer

will probably tell me that didn't happen,

but I feel that he understands his animals -

the sheep lying down like that, it's so perfectly convincing.

-Do you like this picture?

-It reminds me of where I live so it's...

-Where do you live?

-Up on the fells, so we overlook all the hills.

-Big open roaming countryside.

-Yes, it's lovely.

-Rather like this?

-Yes.

-The artist was Thomas Sydney Cooper and he's signed it, luckily for us, just here,

and inscribed it, "a sketch by"

and he's dated it - 1855.

We once had a painting by Thomas Sydney Cooper in my gallery, during Smithfield week.

A farmer walked in and said, "That's the best bloody picture of sheep I've ever seen",

and bought it on the spot, because he said that the artist had really understood it.

Although this is just a sketch, I think he has - he's understood

the countryside and the animals working in it, very well.

If I saw this picture in an auction, I'd be very tempted to pay

a premium, if you like, over what it might be worth, because it's so lovely.

It's a picture that ought to get quite a few people chasing it.

Could drive it up as far as £6,000 I feel.

Very, very pretty picture.

That's a nice surprise.

There's a touch of serendipity about this week's featured

collector because Brenda Lever was out looking to add to her

collection of powder compacts when something else caught her fancy, and that was, Brenda, scarves.

-Scarves, yes.

-How long ago was that?

-About seven years ago, yeah.

-And what started you off then?

Mainly, I like the graphics and I just thought

it was a very interesting subject and they were there, they weren't very expensive and I thought, why not?

It's capturing the 20th century.

If I don't do it, maybe nobody else will do it,

and it just sort of mushroomed from there.

I just had friends, they started collecting and it's mushroomed.

-And how many do you have?

-Approximately 1,200.

And are they all posh silk scarves?

No, no. A large proportion are silk, but quite a few are crepe because

during World War Two you couldn't get the silk, so they had to use rayon.

Just after the war they used rayon-crepe quite a lot, and then in

the '50s the silk sort of came back in again because it was, you know,

like, during the war they had to use it for parachutes so obviously it was in short supply.

And you've got some top designers as well, haven't you?

-Oh, yeah.

-Who are the top scarf people?

Well, Hermes, Paris, Ferragamo...

This one here?

Pucci, Pucci.

That's a good weight, isn't it?

-That is good. That is a good quality scarf.

-And how much would that cost?

-Now, today, you'd be lucky to find one of these under a couple of hundred pounds.

-Right.

You may be lucky if you traipse around, but to buy new you're talking a heck of a lot of money.

So what's the oldest one you've got?

This one from the First World War.

It has the words, "It's a long way to Tipperary" printed on it.

As you can see, it's cotton.

-It's more a neckerchief.

-That's weathered very well.

Oh, it's weathered well and God knows where it's been, your guess is as good as mine.

-Perhaps it's always been wrapped up nicely.

-Yeah, possibly.

-What other historical ones have you got?

This was a freebie, given away with the newspapers in America,

celebrating the Japanese surrender in 1945. Silk.

Flimsy, you know, not particularly expensive, but very historical nevertheless.

What about the scarves of famous people? Do you have any of those?

Yeah. I have one with Grace Kelly.

Where are you, Grace?

This one was actually given to me by a lady

who had worked in Monaco alongside Grace Kelly.

Grace Kelly actually had a boutique, I believe, in Monaco and this lady rang me and she said, "I would like

"you to have the scarf because I'm getting old and I don't want it to be

"thrown out and I'd rather it went to a genuine collector".

-Grace Kelly.

-Yeah, has her initials.

Ah, lovely, you haven't got Isadora Duncan's, have you?

No, no, she was strangled by a scarf!

I'm afraid so! I tell you who really should

-be conducting this conversation, because he's a collector as well, and that's Paul Atterbury.

-Really?

Paul, look at this selection. Are you overwhelmed?

I'm completely green with envy.

-A fellow scarf collector.

-You've got all the ones I haven't got and I've wanted to have for years.

-Really?

It's a great, great thing to collect because

scarves are wonderfully decorative, they're period - you can say '50s, '60s whatever, straight away.

Most important, they're one of the few collecting areas that are still available.

You know, you go to a charity shop, rummage through that great bundle

of scarves and, who knows, what you're going to find for 50p or £1?

What people think when they see me rummaging through ladies' scarves, I hate to think.

This is amazing, you've done wonders.

-Thank you very much.

-Brenda, thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael.

Well, this caught my eye. How did you happen to get hold of it?

Well, I found it in a charity shop, Barnardo's Charity shop.

-Right, and how much did you pay for it?

-About £14 or £15.

Right, well, it caught my eye because I think that,

with a little bit of magic wanding, we can actually transform this.

So I propose that we get some silver cleaner and we have a little go at

-this and see what we can transform it into. Are you game?

-Yes.

-Great.

Well, bewitching this object certainly is.

Fantastic, with this diminutive bra

and girdle with suspenders on the bottom here.

It's a good job we haven't got one of the older experts here

because I think those chaps would be getting all hot under the collar!

It's a great object. What made you buy it?

I just fell in love with her, and I went back to the shop about four

times to try and barter with the man for the price and he wouldn't shift

-on the price, he said, "No, I love her as well".

-Oh, no.

So that was that, so I ended up with her in the end, so that's good.

OK, hit me with it, what did you have to pay?

-£100.

-Ten years ago.

-Yes.

You were buying retail, which is at the top of the market,

but I have to say if there's one area in the antiques business

which is doing OK at the moment,

it is 1950s, 1960s, and this sort of fits right in the middle there.

It's not a great piece of design.

What it is is a great bit of kitsch.

If I saw it in a shop, I'd pay £200 for it, no problem.

I think you got a good buy.

So, here we go.

This is just a basic silver cleaner you get from any shop and it's a question of elbow grease and just

work at it, and look at the filth that's dripping off it already.

This is oxidised silver - this is silver we're cleaning and you can

already see how it's coming up,

so with a great deal more elbow grease, I think we're onto a...

You'll see a pretty radical transformation.

This bronze rat has a bit of a waggle on its tail, why is that?

My wife's grandparents used to use it as a doorstop.

Really? What a use for it!

And I see also it's got a mark on the bottom, have you had that read?

Well, I've actually asked a Chinese friend of mine if she could read it

and she said it didn't make any sense to her at all.

-Well, you asked a Chinese and these are Japanese.

-Ah!

Made around 1900.

In Japan, the rat is a sign of good luck

and it's often associated with the god of good fortune, Hotei.

He often has a sack of good things and rats are often seen breaking into it.

So they're a completely different concept - in Europe we don't like

them so much, but in Japan they are a great object of reverence, almost.

Now, from doorstop to what sort of value do you think they've got?

Well, I wouldn't have thought an awful lot to be honest.

Hence the doorstop mentality!

-But perhaps when I tell you they're worth between £600 and £800 the pair...

-No.

You'll stop using them as a doorstop.

-Definitely!

-Thank you for bringing them.

Wow, thank you!

Well, with about five minutes of elbow grease, this is what we've arrived at.

This is a Renaissance revival bon-bon dish.

It's English,

dating about 1865, silver plated with a frosted glass insert.

-They're not really at the height of fashion these, but you paid...fifteen quid for it?

-Yeah.

Well, I reckon we've added at least two quid to the value by cleaning it.

That's lovely!

So there we go, a little bit of spit of polish and I think you know, I mean you can see the difference.

-Yes.

-Great.

Now it seems to me that you must be an actress or a theatrical person.

No, nothing of the sort.

Oh, why have you got all these extraordinary pictures then?

-Well, they actually belonged to my late husband's family.

-Right.

They belonged to his great-grandma,

who was an English lady but moved to Glasgow with her husband.

-So they lived in Glasgow?

-Yes, they did.

-And when are we talking about?

-Probably 1908.

-So, before the First World War.

-Oh, definitely, yes.

-So they were based in Glasgow, and what did she do?

-I know she had a boarding house.

Ah, so are we saying that these are all people who came to stay at her boarding house?

Yes, what she used to do is, people used to stay and obviously she must have made them so welcome, they used

to get back in touch, but obviously they didn't have the phone then,

so they used to send postcards ahead to book a room.

This troupe are coming round dressed as Girl Guides,

"Mrs Ferguson, we're working at Burns' Palace, Armadale this week.

"We'll be pleased to see you and Mr Ferguson on Saturday, if you can come".

-So they're not staying with her, they're just saying "here we are again".

-That's right.

-It's great. We're straight into the sort of the last days of the Victorian-Edwardian music hall.

-Yes.

These are all musical performers, singers, dancers, novelty acts.

What I like about this, is it brings to life that extraordinary period of popular theatre.

You know, the music hall was a great thing, everybody went to it.

We can't imagine the scale of the music hall and the popularity,

and every night there was a different act, a different turn.

-That's right.

-And all these people had their own postcards, trade cards, to promote their acts.

-That's right.

-And, as you say, they probably used these to say, "We're on our way, give us a room".

-Yes.

-Part of the novelty thing was also, I think, the dressing up.

-Yes.

So, whether these were actually Scottish people, or were people

-acting out Scottish roles,

-who knows. Yes.

Now, they certainly aren't Japanese, but they're doing a Japanese turn.

-Yes.

-Sometimes the comments are just great.

I love this one -

"In Ragtime Impressions of a Rapid Review of Modern Dance".

This is dated 1910.

-Very early.

-And look at her skirt.

-She's showing her knees.

Exactly.

-Yes.

-And that's what she did on the stage, so half the people

-were going there to be sort of titillated by pretty girls.

-Yes.

-Knees, you know, bits of things they never normally saw.

-Yes.

"Clarke and Davis in their clever Hebrew act".

I mean, you couldn't say that now.

-No.

-But again it's part of the sort of comedy process at that time.

I long to know what "educational tit-bits" are,

-and also "legitimate dancing".

-Yes, that's right!

I'd rather see the illegitimate dancing!

It's great, I mean obviously you never knew her.

I didn't, no. I have a picture in my bedroom of her. We call her "Ma".

-What does she look like?

-She's beautiful, she really is.

When we look at a collection like this, it's about bringing to life a period.

It's about bringing to life your late husband's history, isn't it?

-Yes.

-He must have been very excited by all this.

-He treasured them.

-If you were simply a buyer or a collector, none of these are worth much.

-No.

-The signed ones are interesting, they're personal, they're to Mrs Ferguson.

But I have to admit, there's no-one here who actually would have changed

the world, so the value is not there, but the history is.

A Britain that's completely vanished.

It once used to sit on Morecambe Promenade, which is very close

to Lancaster, and it's part of the Morecambe and Lancaster history.

Well, you've got the evidence to prove it, haven't you?

-Because you've brought along a couple of photographs.

-Yes.

This one... This clock tower is still there...

It's still situated on Morecambe promenade.

And there we see not just one, but we've actually got a pair of these pots, haven't we?

-To be frank with you, it probably needed a visa to get here.

-Right.

Because this has come from over the border, as we say in this part of the world.

This has come from Yorkshire, I think.

-Right.

-I can't help but think that this started off life at the Leeds Fireclay Company.

-Right.

Sometime in the sort of 1880s, 1890s so...

I reckon this weighs probably around about 500lbs or thereabouts, and I would reckon

a pound for pound, so if you wanted to go out and buy another one of

these today, if you could find one, I reckon you'd probably have to pay somewhere in the region of £500.

-Do you fancy the idea of owning a pair?

-Definitely.

Once you've got a pair, you've got to go out and get that clock tower, haven't you, to put between the two.

-I'm sure Morecambe's got one to spare somewhere.

-I'm sure it has.

It's a beautiful hand.

Gorgeous handwriting, very simple, very elegant.

It's a table of all the receipts contained in this book, so it's a recipe book.

Yes, and it also has remedies for illnesses.

-Oh, really?

-Which, of course, were homemade - you didn't

rush to the chemist, or buy something over the counter - you had to make your own.

-You boiled them up in the kitchen.

-You made them in the kitchen,

so I think a lot of cookery books of this time did combine recipes and remedies.

Indeed. When do you think this was made?

Well, it came from a farmhouse in Westmoreland, which belonged to my

husband's family, and it was passed on to us, I don't know who Mrs Buck,

the authoress of the book, is...

From the look at the handwriting, the manuscript was made either at

the very end of the 17th century or the beginning of the 18th century.

It must have taken her a long time, no rushing for a word processor.

Absolutely, so she's telling us to preserve walnuts,

to make good cheese, to preserve lemons or sweet ones.

-Isn't that lovely?

-That's lovely.

Quince cream, Spanish cream, these all sound absolutely delicious.

What's surprising is the sheer variety of diet.

I think we sometimes think that people just lived on bread and water at this time but they didn't.

-Not a bit of it.

-Pickling cucumbers, marinating trouts.

I'm fascinated by the medical side of this.

As you say, it's a time before the family doctor,

everything had to be done in the house, but there are some really quite extraordinary recipes here.

This is one that caught my eye - the snail water.

What's snail water?

"You take a peck of snails,

"newly gathered, we put them in a large pipkin

"and let them stand for 12 hours with three handfuls of red sage".

Quite what we do with snail water I don't know.

And does it say what it cures?

If it does, it's a little bit difficult to read, you're putting me on the spot here.

I hope it's a medicine and not a starter, don't you?

I hope so, yes, I hope so, might be quite delicious! One just doesn't know.

My hunch is that some of these recipes were passed around.

I think one woman would pass them to another woman,

that woman would copy them up in her book

and that's the way in which recipes were transmitted, if you like.

This is before printing, before recipe books were printed -

you're transmitting everything in manuscript.

So it's a wonderful insight into the way in which people shared information about food.

You know, there's no Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, to tell us how to do

it, but they were getting on and making the most wonderful things.

When these things have come up at auction in the past, I guess they

fetched somewhere between £600 and £800, sometimes a little bit more.

I find this one very attractive, I must say, and it's lovely to know

-who it's by, it's lovely to know that it's Mrs Buck's.

-Yes.

-So perhaps we're talking a little bit more than that. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

It was bought by my husband's father and since he died we've had it in our house since then, yes.

-And did you take it willingly, with open arms, or was it thrust upon you?

-Yes, we did. Yes, we did.

Oh good, because it is just glorious isn't it?

Every time you look at a corner, you see something else.

Domestic embroidery like this

really was the culmination of the training of a young girl.

She'd start off with plain sewing, then she might do

-something a little bit more complicated, but this really was the sort of scholarship piece.

-Yes.

And it was very, very popular,

this type of embroidered picture, in the 17th century.

It's got a lot of different stitches on it

and there's lovely chenille work here with the moss.

It has satin stitch,

there's couched work, which was actually very clever.

Here we've got couch work, which is where you laid a thread on the top

and just did a little catching thread every now and again, so

of course all the expensive thread was on the top, none of it was behind where it wouldn't be seen.

In the centre we've got spangles - metal discs with a hole in it,

with a little bead on the top,

and of course everywhere catching the light as I tilt it.

We have gold thread, we have bits of mica

and all in all it has...

If you had a tick list of all the things that you wanted

to see in a 17th century embroidery, this has it actually with knobs on.

Oh, gosh!

It really does, because of all this raised work.

Now if I put my finger in here, we can actually see the depth

of the raised work. Some people call it stump work.

-Yes.

-But actually the correct term is raised work.

-I see.

And you have a wadding inside,

probably wool, over which these stitches are created, so we have

this wonderful frog and then we have slimy snakes and in fact,

right over on my side, we have

a tangle of snakes. I can almost feel that they're writhing there.

She would not have designed the picture herself - there were lots of woodcuts and engravings

which then were copied by pattern makers, and those patterns then were available for the girls to use.

And this one, I think, it's almost certain to be a figure of Ceres,

-the Roman Goddess of plenty.

-Yes.

And of the harvest and so on, and Latin being the language of scholarship, it would mean

that the girl was trying to show that she was educated,

as well as proficient in her stitches.

The colours are incredibly bright still

and I think altogether it makes into an incredibly desirable object.

As far as value is concerned, I would be absolutely confident

it would fetch between £8,000 and £10,000 in auction.

I wouldn't be surprised if in a very smart shop in the middle of London,

-you didn't see it at a much higher price when it came to resale.

-Yes.

But for auction, I would have said between £8,000 and £10,000.

I'm so pleased that I've been able to explore this enchanted garden.

Thank you very much indeed, thank you.

A friend was moving from a big house with a garage to a small house,

so he had half a garage full of stuff he couldn't take with him,

so I bought it all off him and this was some of the things.

He was happy, I was happy, especially when I saw the stuff.

We've done a bit of jiggery-pokery.

Originally it would have been a lime light in there with gas.

-Oh, yes.

-Or an oil lamp in there,

a bit dangerous for health and safety today, so we've put our own

lamp in it, and hopefully if we switch it on it's going to work.

So, why is it called a magic lantern?

Back in the 19th century, no TV, very little to do in the evenings.

The only way you could project and show images was by magic lantern.

Your collection is interesting - it's not just views

from the Holy Land or nursery rhymes. These are slightly special.

They're all hand painted on glass and they're only about that size,

so by the time you've blown them up into the village hall and they're

a metre across, you can imagine the quality of the paint, so...

If we make this work, you can see why it's called a magic lantern.

LAUGHTER

So she's transformed, it's a transformation mechanical slide.

Makes people laugh today, it did 100 years ago.

It's the first time I've seen it work.

Well, let me show you a couple of others.

Here we have the young Queen Victoria,

again all hand painted.

You turn the handle...

She doesn't look very happy!

It's as though she was looking around the room

and to all of her subjects. But my favourite slide is this last one.

And again, when you consider that these were all hand painted,

normally by 12-14 year-old girls, they could only do it

for a very short time because after a while they lost their

eyesight, you can see what it is...

Can you see the sea moving?

I feel seasick!

-Now, this is 150 years old and it still entertains people today.

-Yes!

People still give magic lantern shows.

-It's got a good colour still.

-Very good. Very bright colours.

-So how many slides have you got in total?

-About 200 in all.

About 100 that work like that with the arm mechanism, and about

100 that you just put in and you move the glass.

The most desirable ones are the ones that work on the winding ones,

-the slipping glass ones are not worth so much.

-No.

But even if we average them out at, say, £30 each,

-30 times 100 you're talking about £3,000, could be more.

-Wow!

So, can you remember what you paid for the garage contents?

I paid £150 to £200 for the whole lot, not so bad.

Well, let's hope he's not watching this show, he's not going to be your friend any more.

No, well, thank you very much,

-that's great.

-It's fun, thank you.

-Thank you.

Looming over us all day here at the Ashton Hall has been the mighty

organ, which has been here since 1909 and is in need of a little TLC.

It should be in perfect condition for the centenary.

It has over 3,000 pipes and I'm told the work

is mostly being done by one man with a toothbrush and some vinegar.

Not to be tried at home.

Meanwhile, until the next time, from Lancaster, goodbye.