Montacute House 1 Antiques Roadshow

Any director of period drama

worth his salt will inevitably find his way to where we've come today.

This part of Somerset is Oscar-winning territory.

Roadshow Productions proudly presents Montacute House.

The Oscar was a result of a visit here in the summer of 1995

of a distinguished cast and crew to shoot some of the final scenes for Jane Austen's Sense And Sensibility.

OK, here's the storyline - the disillusioned Dashwood sisters have just arrived from London.

Their lack of fortune has sealed their fate, rather like the original residents here, the Phelips family,

who down on their luck sold all the family silver before leaving for ever in 1911, but I digress.

The Dashwoods have arrived from London.

Marianne immediately goes in search of her beloved Willoughby.

She crosses the east court into the open countryside which surrounds Montacute's 25 acres of grounds.

Cue Eleanor, played by Emma Thompson, to observe anxiously from the library.

This was the ideal vantage point for the director to film Marianne's progress.

When Marianne doesn't return, there's a great deal of floor pacing,

mostly here in the Great Hall, which it has to be said is perfect for pacing,

as our sound man will agree.

It all ends with a collective sigh of relief when Colonel Brandon bursts through the door

with a dripping Marianne in his arms.

Tissues all round, roll the credits.

Even Montacute village got in on the Sense And Sensibility action, stealing a scene or two.

Today, another epic drama of treasures lost and found.

Lights, camera, cue the experts.

What are the marks? Did you nick it from the library?!

That's a very good question, I think we'll start there.

They're beacons of horror. Where did they come from?

-It's obviously a library.

-It's from Czech Republic.

-Czech Republic?

-Czech Republic Library.

What was it doing in the Czech Public Library?

-It belongs to my sister, she got it like a gift from my mum's friend.

-Yes.

And he was a teacher in a college and they had a, you know, library or whatever.

-I think he got it from there.

-That's a jolly nice gift.

Here we are, it's Observations On The Theory And Practice Of Landscape Gardening by Humphrey Repton.

Now this book, I mean, the Landscape Gardening is a fabulous book,

but it has to be one of the biggest pieces of advertising,

most expensive pieces of advertising that anybody in 1803 could possibly do.

-Oh, wow.

-It's just quite incredible.

Humphrey Repton was a man who designed parklands for the rich and famous,

and he used to do things called Red Books,

which he actually wrote out what he was going to do, a sort of a proposal,

and they were all full of watercolours and all that sort of thing,

but then, because he was so popular, he decided to publish this,

and this is very exciting, it's a wonderful book because...

Let's have a look at Plate One, and what we've got here is Wentworth in Yorkshire.

Here is a view of a little quarry and people quarrying things out there.

There's a rather nice tower there, and this is how he proposes that he's going to make it.

We take that off there, he's made the quarry into a rather nice sort of open parkland.

Here are the deer, and there are the coach and horses going along there.

They're absolutely wonderful, glorious plates.

Here we are, West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.

What I'd have thought was a perfectly nice lake...

but Humphrey can do much better than that.

Make a way so that you can actually see to the house there,

which means cutting all that down

and I assume making the lake a little bit bigger.

It's wonderful. Put that back.

Last but by no means least, we come to this magnificent beast.

A general view of Bayham.

-Now that's a perfectly ordinary view really, isn't it?

-It is.

-It is?

But it is absolutely remarkable, the way he transforms Bayham.

-There we are.

-Lovely, isn't it?

Lake, castle...

He did everything and, of course, this is all...

They didn't have diggers apart from hand diggers. There were no machines.

-You say it's not yours, that it's your sister's.

-It's my sister's.

Let's have a look at the binding.

Binding, the binding's certainly not contemporary.

I would have thought late 19th century, and it is coming out of its binding, too.

-Yeah, it is.

-So it's got quite a lot of repair that needs to happen to it.

-All right.

It's such a funny thing to find on the continent, really. It's a very English book.

-It is very English.

-Very English book.

If it was in fabulous condition, let's go for that one first,

that's the good news, or rather it's the bad news,

-because I would say that in really super condition this would be worth £5,000.

-Right.

The bad news is that I suspect that in the condition it's in, probably £2,500 would be more like it.

That's good, anyway!

Well, a tremendous glaze, a wonderful glaze on a straightforward jug,

but there's something special about the jug.

And it's the handle.

Now you tell me about this.

It spent many years in an Antwerp flat of my husband's grandparents.

-Yes.

-And all I know is that whenever Grandpa came down the stairs and passed it,

he couldn't resist stroking it.

He couldn't resist stroking it. Well, you can see that, can't you?

It is a beautifully-sculpted figure.

-It's unusual to see something as well-sculpted like this on a straightforward jug after all.

-Yes.

-Now you can date this piece actually by the figure.

-Oh.

Because our notions of beauty change over time, so what is the perfect female ideal in the 1960s, Twiggy,

-is not the perfect female ideal around the year 1900.

-Yes.

When in fact the fuller figure was thought to be more fetching

and not only that, but her hair-do, this classic chignon,

the way her hair is sort of brought up at the back into the chignon,

That is absolutely typical of the Art Nouveau period.

The Art Nouveau basically is a fantastic movement.

It emerges through the late 19th century,

it's essentially inspired by Japanese design.

But at its heart is sex, organic growth.

I think you feel all of these things at work in this jug. You can see...

Are these butterfly wings or are they petals?

-Flower, leaves.

-Leaves, leaves coming out.

So the whole notion of growth, and she's looking into it, tip-toe.

Even her toes have been picked out

-with a tiny, tiny bit of colour there.

-Yes, yes.

Now this is the mark of a Hungarian factory in Budapest called Zsolnay,

one of the best potteries producing Art Nouveau pottery in that period.

Absolutely stunning, beautiful thing.

Well, you're going to have to insure it. I guess

if you insure that for somewhere in the region of...

let's say, £2,500.

Really? Gosh!

Better not drop it, had we?

Four and 20 ponies trotting through the dark

Brandy for the parson Baccy for the clerk

Laces for a lady Letters for a spy...

And lace! Here we are in the centre of the lace-making industry.

Honiton is very close by, and we're surrounded by Honiton lace.

And Honiton lace, as well as all other sorts of lace

-in the 18th and 19th centuries was incredibly desirable, wasn't it?

-It was, yes.

-Much more valuable than jewellery.

-And that was because of the time?

The time, yes. Approximately 10 hours for a square inch.

-For example, we have a wedding veil at the museum which cost £84 in 1868.

-My goodness.

And that was an average man's annual salary then.

So the question is, would you pay an average man's annual salary now for a wedding veil?

-I don't think so.

-Unlikely, I have to say.

The thing that I suppose most people will know is that Queen Victoria used Honiton...

-Yes, she did.

-..to make the lace for her wedding veil.

-Yes, she did.

But up until then, was Honiton really looked at as a prize lace-making area?

Yes, it was, but maybe not quite as much as Brussels, but yes, it was,

and the motifs that we make are much more realistic to nature.

Yes, if one looks at some of these wonderful motifs, there are roses...

On this piece here, we've got a lovely horse chestnut leaf

which fits so beautifully into the corners.

On the lappet over here, we've got a little mermaid down at the end and so on.

The actual way that the lace is made...

-It was made in a cottage-industry system.

-Yes, it was.

You'd have somebody who was a specialist in horse chestnut leaves

who'd do nothing but those.

-That's right.

-And then what happened?

The chief lady, she would gather it all together

and you would go in and say, "I would like a handkerchief."

She would look at her motifs and you'd say, "I like those on the corner,"

and it would be assembled for you.

-It was the putting together that was the real skill?

-Yes.

And when one looks at something like this,

-which is obviously a hand-made net.

-Yes, it is.

At some point that was mechanised, wasn't it?

Yes. In about 1820, Heathcoat came to Tiverton,

and he came and watched the lace-makers and he soon had a net-making machine.

Of course the industry went right down from practically everybody having hand-made net,

£5 maybe a square yard,

to 5p - I mean, it was, like, nothing.

So, that must have absolutely collapsed the industry.

It did. It was the end of earning your living, be it a poor living,

but it carried on and carried on and of course it's a hobby today, and I've been teaching for 32 years.

Amazing. And the future of lace?

Do you think there is a future?

I hope there is, but we've got to work hard at making sure.

It's been made in Honiton for over 400 years and we're not about to let it stop.

Well, it came from a friend who, um, I've known for many years.

-OK.

-I didn't know he had it.

Yeah, does he know what it is?

-No, he hadn't the faintest idea and none of his friends have.

-Right.

-None whatsoever.

-So he sent you down as his ambassador.

-Yeah.

We love quirky and unusually-shaped objects on the Roadshow.

In a sense, you know, there's a connection between this

and this very magnificent wristwatch you've got.

-Oh.

-This is a time-keeping device.

I'm keeping a bit hush because my colleague on the clock section of the Roadshow saw this

and came rushing over, and I said, "No, I'm doing that."

-Ah.

-It's basically a whale oil lamp, spout lamp.

It was almost certainly made in the Low Countries, probably Dutch, circa 1800.

It all happened at the top here in this wonderful glass cistern.

So this is where you would put your whale oil, possibly a fish oil,

and of course you had to know how quickly the oil was going to burn

because down the side of the reservoir,

in a strip of pewter, is marked the hours.

And of course you would have a wick protruding,

and the wick would burn away,

so it gave you light and time-keeping at the same time.

Oh, I understand, yeah.

So, where did your friend get it from? It's an unusual thing...

Well, between him and his wife and relations and all that,

they moved all house and things,

-and some of the stuff all got put into the loft where he is now.

-OK.

And then some years ago they started sorting through it, and found that.

Yeah. Believe it or not, these are quite rare because obviously a lot did get thrown away.

I'm sure they weren't very good time keepers.

They probably made a hell of a stink as far as the actual lamp was concerned.

-Probably did.

-Fish oil.

-Yeah!

-And because of that, they're quite scarce.

-Yeah.

Well, you know you'll have to sort of

go back to your friend rather sort of steadily

because it's worth at auction between £600 and £1,000.

-I'm sure he'll be very pleased.

-Excellent.

What appears to be two fabulous bits of very early furniture, right?

One of them is 1920.

The other one is earlier. Now which do you think it is?!

-I would think this must be the 1920 one, then.

-Yeah.

Why do you think that?

Because the drawers inside were glued, they weren't dove-tailed.

-OK.

-It didn't look like it was properly made by a carpenter.

-OK, the drawers in this one?

-Yes.

A-ha! This looks very fresh, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

-Very fresh.

Quite right. This is glued, this is glued.

-That looks like quite an old thing.

-OK.

Well, we'd better start telling you what to look for.

We'll start with this one.

It's an inlaid front with geometric style in the continental manner.

Here you've got a panel which shows architecture with different-coloured stained woods,

and as early as the 16th century they were staining sycamore

with oxide of iron to make it bright green.

This would have been the most wonderful colours, and time has mellowed it.

But the thing about old furniture -

GOOD old furniture was made very precisely.

It was made with great finesse, it was never ever crudely made,

otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long.

Let's come back to where we were and now we look again inside.

Here you've got the most wonderful clean look, as I said earlier, but why shouldn't it be?

It's a candle box.

This was done with extreme care.

I mean, this is actually chipped out of this oak,

which is very hard and geometrically inlaid - very difficult.

So in fact,

the newer it looks,

-the more old it's likely to be. OK?

-Very perverse.

Yes, it is. Irrespective of the drawers which are glued together,

they were using animal glues, they didn't have to be joined.

Let's look at this one. This one, we will take it, maybe 1580.

Here we imported more work, more style, more design from the continent,

in this case mostly Holland.

-Split-turn columns, inlays of mother-of-pearl and ivory now.

-Yep.

But this is quite crude,

this is quite crude... And it has signs of wear where you wouldn't expect it.

Let's have a look at the bottom here. We open one of these,

and that one... Now look here, for example.

See all these scratches?

-Mm-hmm.

-Why would you have those scratches there?

If you wouldn't scratch the inside of a candle box, or the outside, why would you scratch here?

This was made in 1920, between 1900 and 1920, in the style of the 1640s.

For final proof, if you can give me a hand just to pull that drawer,

I want to look at the inside of the drawer.

Now look at all this white wood here.

Yes. New.

Now there's enough patination there for 100 years,

so it's 1905 or 19-whatever.

The point is, that there is not enough age in it to have oxidised, or the timber to become oxidised.

So this one is the copy - I won't say it's a fake.

It's a copy.

In its own right, it's an interesting thing, but it's just not an antique,

whereas that one, 1580s, the genuine article, on a new base,

but otherwise wonderful and very rare.

-So this one today for insurance purposes, oh, between £800 and £1,000.

-Right.

This one, er...

restored with feet replaced, and in what we call concourse condition,

would cost somewhere in the region of £5,000.

As it is, probably £2,000 on the open market.

-Excellent.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-What made you bring it?

-It's such a tiddly little thing,

I thought I'd bring it along and see what the comments were.

Very... Yes, and very portable, this tiddly little thing, isn't it?

And tell me what you know about it.

I purchased it at a boot fair in a box

with small doll's house pieces in.

Then I realised what the mark was on the bottom.

I've met the lady who I purchased it from, at a later date.

We believe it was probably given as a gift after a Russian ship had come into Gosport in 1912.

That's interesting. Then the mark underneath...

What were you referring to about the mark underneath? What did you find?

Well, is the first word, "Elena", a ship?

The second word, we understand it to be the northern port of Russia.

Yes, well, it's certainly written in Cyrillic and it's certainly dated.

That's a marvellous story

and it's difficult for me to substantiate it at the moment.

I don't think that something that

came from a ship would have such an intensely personal inscription on it,

because this is not only an engraving,

but it's a facsimile of somebody's handwriting.

What we can be absolutely sure of

-is that it says Elena, and that it's 1912.

-Yes.

That's convenient because it is

pre-Revolutionary Russian. What about the mark there?

That furry mark above - did you ever think about that one?

Well, I have been told what it could be.

Yes, and what did they tell you that it could be?

They said it could be Faberge.

Well, it absolutely is Faberge.

And it's Faberge written in Cyrillic

underneath the imperial arms of Nicholas and Alexandra.

-And you bought it at a boot fair for how much?

-£5.

-£5. Do you think you overdid it?

-Yes.

Do you?!

I don't share that opinion actually, because it's perfect.

It says everything about Faberge in this particular mood,

and I think one should put it down for £2,500.

-Goodness me!

->

Gracious. Well, the best investment I've made recently!

Certainly better than any investment I'VE ever made, I must say!

Absolutely magnificent view of Mont Blanc.

Yes, it is lovely, isn't it?

-That's not just lovely, it's grand, isn't it?

-Yes.

I don't know it at all, I've been to Switzerland, I don't know that area,

but friends of mine who do know it say that this valley is exactly the same now.

I don't think it's changed except it has lots of chalets dotted around on the hill.

Oh, has it? Oh, yes.

For rich people to ski from. But what we're standing on, as it were, is the Col de Balme,

which is at the head of the Chamonix Valley looking west up the valley to Mont Blanc here.

It's signed and dated down here by William Collingwood Smith.

-Yes, that's right, yes.

-And it's dated 1860.

I knew it was quite early, yes.

-Yes, early.

-Because it belonged to a

great aunt of mine and her husband, and I've known it all my life.

I remember it in her house first,

and then it was in my mother's before it came to me.

Right, so you've grown up with it as well?

I've grown up with it, yes, I know it well.

It must have been a tremendously romantic thing to grow up with.

Well, it is rather.

Well, it's a big subject and it needs a big scale, and it really works.

-I just love this romantic cloud coming in here.

-Yes.

Because that kind of sits on a temperature differential, doesn't it, the cloud?

-It really does look like that, as if it's on mirror glass...

-Yes.

cutting the valley in half that way,

-and gives a fantastic impression of scale down there.

-Yes, it does, doesn't it?

-And then whoosh up to the mountain at the end.

-Up to the distance, yes.

I've seen few pictures by him, but never anything so big,

-nor in such good condition.

-Really?

At any rate, the mountain itself was climbed in the 18th century.

-Yes.

-So in 1780, some 80 years before this was painted,

but what's amusing is that 1860

was the heyday of the British public's fascination

-with the Alps and everything to do with them.

-Yes.

So I must just tell you about Collingwood Smith's namesake.

-Yes.

-He was called Albert Smith,

who, about eight years earlier than the painting was painted,

climbed Mont Blanc. But Albert Smith was an absolutely appalling climber.

Well, he was jolly brave to go up there.

He was very brave, but he was also very drunk.

Oh, dear, that's probably why.

He had a glass of champagne every mile or so, going up the mountain.

And in the end he was so completely insensible with cold and alcohol

because they didn't wear proper mountaineering clothes,

-they wore ordinary clothes.

-Yes.

He sort of passed out, and his guides had to chip steps in the ice

and pull him up on a rope, because he was almost unconscious,

and when he finally got to the top,

he only spent half an hour there,

-enough time to drink quite a lot more champagne...

-More champagne.

..and passed out again, had to be

-carried back down the mountain.

-Good gracious.

-But Albert Smith kept a journal about it.

-Yes.

And Albert Smith found that the English were completely captivated

by the romance of the mountains,

-and this picture is really painted on the back of that.

-Yes.

Anyway, it's completely splendid, a very difficult to value.

-Have you ever even thought about it properly?

-Not at all, haven't thought about it.

I think I'd be crazy not to put eight, possibly more,

thousand pounds on this picture.

-Really?

-Yes.

I had had no idea of what it was valued at.

As I say, it was just a painting I'm very fond of.

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking,

but for this week's collector,

anything goes, because Rosemary Hawthorn

-is known officially as The Knicker Lady.

-I am.

I must ask you, how did you get into knickers?

-Professionally speaking?

-Yes.

Well, Michael, the short answer is

that I was interested in fashion and costume -

very interested in it -

and...but I was particularly interested in underwear.

I started to collect all sorts of underwear, and then kind of majored in knickers.

But when did women start wearing knickers?

Well, surprisingly, it's really about a couple of hundred years ago.

Up till then they didn't wear anything at all, they didn't bother.

What is the oldest pair you have?

The oldest pair I have, really, are pantalets, like these.

-Two separate legs blowing in the wind here.

-All for one person?

Yes! And the danger was the strings might become untied

and your could lose one of your leg ends.

But they were made all of this sort of pure cotton?

Lovely cotton or linen, and then they go on a few more years and we get to where -

that's sort of about 1800 or so -

and then we go onto the time of sort of Victoria's on the throne,

and now they've had a rush of modesty,

and they've joined up the waistband.

These had braces, and they were known as "free-traders"

and "ever-readys".

I've just heard of "Alan Whickers", that's as far as it goes.

Oh, yeah, "Alan Whickers".

Now, these belonged to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

-Herself?

-Herself. This pair have sat upon the English throne.

-She was a small woman, I thought...

-Well, I think

they are actually 45-and-a-half inches around the waistband,

but there is a small cipher at the back, the royal...

-Very discreet, on the waistband at the back.

-It says VR.

Yes, VR and a set number.

Victoria Regina rules the waves.

Look at that.

-Bless her heart.

-But how on earth do you get these things?

I mean, people don't bequeath their drawers, do they?

Well, no, there are one or two

people who have donated to collections.

I've been collecting for more years than I care to remember,

and as a clergy wife, you see, I have the pick of the jumble.

So your husband is a vicar?

Well, he's now retired, but yes, he was a vicar.

Known as the...?

-The Knicker Vicar.

-Of course.

-Yes.

And besides that, on one occasion John found a bra,

and it had been left in the holy water stoup in the church porch.

So people are really eager to cast off their underclothes.

-Sounds almost biblical, doesn't it?

-It does.

I have to say, it's quite extraordinary to see four 1966 World Cup tickets, including the final,

all signed by what would appear to be the entire England team.

How on earth do you have that?

Well, I was fortunate that in September '91

I took a team out to Singapore to play for a charity match.

Right, so this is this handsome bunch here.

Yes, this is me in the front here.

-Oh, right.

-I managed to get Kevin Keegan to come from Spain

before he started his manager upward career.

-Right.

-This is Tony Woodcock.

-Ah-ha.

This is Roger Hunt, Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Geoff Hurst,

Gordon Banks, Pat Jennings, Mike England and Martin Peters.

We played against an international Far East team for charity for the Children's Society of Singapore.

From then, just before that,

my elder brother died in Canada.

My sister-in-law passed me five tickets. She said, "I think Tony would like you to have these,"

so they all very kindly signed them for me.

These were old ticket stubs that your brother had kept.

Yes, he went to see them, I was working in Nigeria at the time,

-and then I was based in Singapore for a long time.

-Right.

-And I was...

-Hence this.

-Hence this.

-Right.

I mean, it is probably, certainly for English football,

the defining moment in recent history, really.

Any football collector, whether you're English or German,

would absolutely love to have one of these.

Obviously the final is worth much more than the others signed,

but it's difficult because it is quirky that they weren't signed at the time,

they were signed later, but you do have all of them on it

-and of course that's not possible to do again now.

-No.

I think they're probably worth somewhere around £15,000 to £20,000.

Oh, my God!

For the frame.

Really? Well, I wouldn't sell them, I just come here to get the insurance value.

-Yes.

-Because I'm going to pass them on to my son.

The exciting thing for me about the Roadshow is you never know what's coming out of the bags.

And when you started to unwrap this from a plastic bag, my heart jumped

-because I think it's such a wonderful object.

-Really?

-Yeah, absolutely.

Has it been in your family a long time, or have you just bought it?

-Well, I think it was probably my mother-in-law's grandparents'.

-Right.

And when my mother-in-law died, I inherited it.

OK. Were they a farming family?

Yes, in Devon.

-In Devon.

-Yes.

-Which part of Devon?

-Not far from Bideford, I think.

-Not far from Bideford.

Well, this jug then has probably been in your family since it was made,

because it was made very near Bideford.

We can see it says E Fishley,

and that's for a chap called Edwin Beer Fishley,

who worked at Fremington in North Devon,

and it's dated 1851 - so they're a North Devon farming family,

and they've got this jug

which has these absolutely super farming motifs.

It's done in a very naive sgraffito style, so it's been glazed

and then scratched through, just with the end of a piece of wood.

-Really?

-Or a pointed tool. And so you've got this prize bull,

huge great chest,

tiny little short legs.

Then turning it round, the farming motifs continue.

We've got, "Success to the farmer The plough and the flail

"Likewise to our commerce

"With peace in our Isles."

It's got everything, he's thrown the kitchen sink at this jug, fantastic.

-They're pretty scarce.

-Yes.

And if this appeared at auction, I would be there trying to buy it,

and £3,000 wouldn't be enough.

-Really?

-Really.

-Goodness.

You'll need to insure the jug for £5,000.

Well, chairs that have got this amount of repair

must have some sort of extraordinary history.

Why is all this like this? What's happened to these?

It's mainly because they've been through the Battle of Trafalgar.

-What? Literally?

-Literally, yes.

These were the chairs in the Captain's cabin of the HMS Africa,

which was one of the ships of line in Trafalgar.

When was the ship built?

I think it was built about seven to 10 years before.

1798 or something like that?

-Yes.

-So how many do you have? How many have survived?

It's a set of 12, and two of them are armchairs and 10 of them are chairs without arms.

Right, you can see all this repair.

This is certainly very early repair here, all this.

-That's probably the ship's blacksmith, I should think.

-Yes.

Clearly it must have been on the ship

and they'd have access to this sort of foundry work, fairly light, fairly basic blacksmith's work.

This repair is clearly 20th century which doesn't matter at all,

it's just to replace that rail,

but what's interesting, you say they are a set of 12,

and we wonder how many have survived, but can you see just down there?

-Ah, yes.

-14 in Roman numerals.

-14.

-Clearly there were more than 12.

-More than 12, yeah.

-A couple have disappeared.

We'll have a look around the house at home.

So you've got 12 of these at home?

That's absolutely amazing, it's...

I just can't get over the historical significance about these.

So this has been inherited, been passed down over generations?

-Yes, it has, yes.

-So what do you know about them as chairs?

Well, I really don't know anything specific about them as chairs

except the one burning question that we've always had is

whether in fact they came from his ship -

the Africa itself - when it was built.

In other words they were actually made for the ship,

or whether in fact they came from a Spanish ship or a French ship.

-How about neither?

-Or neither, or Dutch.

-Well, you've got it. They're Dutch.

-Is that right?

-They're Dutch.

-Oh, amazing!

That's why I was so interested to know when the ship was made.

-I've dated these to 1790-1800...

-Right.

..regardless of any history that you know about them, which is fantastic.

I'd be interested to see if there are

Admiralty records of that besides.

Was this ship commissioned with Dutch furniture?

Was there a particular Dutch dealer who was rather active at the time in 1790-1798?

So how do we value something so historic?

I take the view that the value is really in the history

and the personal belongings side of it,

so it seems to me it's not really something that you could put a value on.

-OK, well, as a historian, I'm happy with that.

-Yeah.

Thank you very much, absolutely amazing.

Have you ever had this looked at?

I took it into a shop once

and they said that they thought it was probably worth perhaps £100,

but I ought to get it looked at by such as yourself, to get a value.

You would like to know the value?

Well, I think it is for me something that really appeals.

This reminds me of when I wake up in the morning, I have a big fig tree in my garden full of birds,

but I don't see little things like these parakeets

which are absolutely beautifully done, with their little pink cheeks.

What's so nice about this is you've got all the shading in the leaf,

which is extraordinary when you think this is actually made of bronze.

It's bronze, bronze birds, bronze leaves, cold painted.

One factory comes to mind when you look at something like this, which is the Bergman factory.

Now, normally things like this - you'd expect it to be marked.

If you turn it upside down, there is a mark, and many people fall into the trap here.

-All this says is, "Patent applied for."

-Oh, right.

So that's not the mark.

And Bergman things are very collectable.

-Yes.

-This has got all that appeal, it's got real sex appeal in my view.

Well, I think there are many people who would like something like this,

the vibrancy, the sheer delight of it.

And a conservative estimate for this would be somewhere in the region of £1,200 to £1,500.

-Really? Gosh, that's a bit more than £100, isn't it?

-Yes.

Now this is a great moment for me because I love postcards.

I'm not a collector, but I find them irresistible

because they are moments of time captured for ever.

Now, are you the postcard collector?

No, they're not mine, they were my brother's.

When he died, he passed them on to my daughter.

-So she owns them?

-Yes, she does.

-Lucky girl.

What was his interest?

He collected postcards for many, many years

and he just liked to have any subject within local history,

-or Burnham and Highbridge.

-What started him?

I think it was just purely he was a great historian, he loved history.

-Right.

-Postcards were one of the easiest and cheapest things to buy.

Well, they are wonderful moments of history,

-so we've got here obviously albums containing, I presume, local views.

-Yes.

-How many did he collect?

Um, it must be nearly 10,000, I should think.

Gosh. Where are they all now?

All in albums at the moment.

Right. I love them because, as I say, they are absolutely history as it was lived.

This pile out of the album, let's look at these.

Most postcards are worth very little money, they're local views,

they're interesting to people who live there,

but they don't say anything to the world as a whole.

Once you get early delivery vans with those boys posing,

suddenly that moment, in whenever it was, 1910, suddenly comes to life.

Now there we've got a mining one, the Somerset coalfield,

but there we see the simplicity,

the basic-ness of that sort of style of mining,

again early in the 20th century.

Early flying, Martock, 1911.

Pioneer aviation, and again with a local reference.

This is what I like, we're really absolutely here and now.

Now, isn't that great?!

"Captain Milles' educated dogs, almost human."

"The Italian Circ. Burnham on Sea".

Those sort of cards are just great, they're never to be repeated.

Um, he's got thousands like that.

-Very much so.

-Very much so. Now you must be aware that some of these cost quite a lot of money.

I'm aware some of them are, yes.

There are cards here that will be worth £100.

There are cards that will be worth £50, there are lots of cards worth £10 and £20.

If you've got 10,000 local history cards like this, if you take an average of £10 a card,

-you know, that's...£100,000.

-Yeah.

Well, we have an alcove each and three crackers between us.

Where did you get these wonderful nutcrackers from?

These were acquired by my father.

He was an avid collector of antiques and this would have been in the late '40s and early '50s, after the war.

Did he have a thing about nuts?

-He did indeed.

-He must have had a sense of humour as well.

-I think so, yes, yes.

-He mostly collected Oriental antiques but these obviously appealed to him.

-Absolutely.

Now this one's made of walnut.

-Yes.

-And it's a wonderfully carved ape's head wearing a mob cap.

-Right.

-It's almost certainly German.

-Is it?

The eyes are real glass,

and they've been sort of inset into the well-carved features.

-Yes.

-And it might interest you to know that at auction,

I would put an estimate of between £300 and £500 on that one.

Really? That surprises me, I wouldn't have thought...

-That's a pleasant surprise.

-Absolutely, well, let's move on,

because this one is even finer quality than that one.

-Yes, indeed.

-This is carved from cherry wood,

and this gentleman has the most wonderful walrus moustache.

All things considered, he's from the 1880s.

-Right.

-He would be worth at auction between £400 and £600.

-Really?

-Oh, yes, but it's this one that really took my heart.

-Yes.

-This lovely Bavarian carved example is a rabbit's head.

I love it, it's got little sideburns.

Look at those eyes, really magical.

People go mad for these, and I would have no hesitation

-of putting this in at £600 to £800.

-Really?

-So you've got a lot of value in just three nutcrackers.

-Indeed.

-Quite amazing, isn't it?

-You're very lucky.

Well, we're sitting in a garden, and in a way this is a little

celestial garden that you've brought to me today, isn't it?

Where did these wonderful jewels come from?

Well, that was left to me by my mother.

Through my mother from her mother, so I know where that came from.

-But when our mother died... This is my sister here.

-Mm-hmm.

..we went through various little boxes

and things of nothing in particular,

and we each had a choice, and this was my choice.

I don't even know if it's real.

We never saw it, my mother never wore it,

and my father didn't know where it came from, never seen it before.

My goodness! Well, it certainly is real. It's a most fascinating jewel.

There was a huge revival for

everything 18th century in the 19th century,

and to all intents and purposes

the use of the enamel, the use of the gem setting,

the whole composition, is inspired by 18th-century France.

But we can say with absolute confidence

that this ISN'T an 18th-century jewel,

it's an 18th-century revival one,

and blue enamel, diamonds, a little ruby in the front...

Turn it over and there's tightly-fitting locket at the back,

but one would be able to remove that and put a photograph or a lock of hair in there.

Have you worn it?

I do, I do wear it, and I love it.

Good, that's marvellous.

So you love your jewellery - what do

you feel when you wear the jewellery?

-I think a sort of regal, I think... Yes.

-Do you think it makes you...?

Yes, well, that's fantastic, it's

a sort of shot in the arm, or a shot somewhere anyway - with jewellery.

Now tell me about this one, this is a most extraordinary bug, isn't it?

It's almost a bug that's been living

too close to Sizewell B, he's gone all blue and shiny, hasn't he?

He's wonderful. I've always thought

it was actually bought for my grandmother.

-And what date would that might have been?

-Er, 18...?

-1890s.

-Yes.

-Well, that's absolutely perfect

because one CAN look at jewellery,

and it IS dated, and dated by design,

and that's what we really look for, actually.

This is a superb gem-set bumble-bee brooch,

or at least a bee brooch - and a Victorian one.

But actually, thanks to the box,

which has been rather carefully preserved,

we know perfectly well that it was

made by a firm called LaCloche Freres.

-It's difficult to decipher.

-Isn't it?

But it's absolutely there and a very distinguished firm

running in competition with Cartier,

so there's a maker

for a superb gem-set bumble bee.

The thing about the bumble bees is that they are a message, in a way -

it's a bee, and with the pin,

it's "bee sure".

I know, it's rather sort of corny, in a way,

but it's even more corny when

the thing's rather conspicuously valuable,

because the body is made up of rather

silky-looking Ceylon sapphire, isn't it?

Although not the most intense colour,

it's a very, very pleasing colour,

and very nice bright diamonds

and rather menacing little ruby eyes.

And furry feet and antennae and things. Any ideas of value?

Well, I know that Pa had that valued at about £4,000.

And that, well, we didn't even know it was real so...

No, no, so that's up for grabs, isn't it?

My goodness. Well, £4,000, that's a little while ago, because

I think that's a very desirable thing,

it's very concentrated, it's very animated,

it's by a superb maker, and everybody wants this thing.

Honestly they do. And value is to do with

-measured want - that's all that value is.

-Yes.

And I'm going to tell you that in measured want,

that that's £10,000.

Good God!

And measured want again here - not off the hook quite yet.

Not quite the same gasp-making figure,

but quite enough at, erm, say, £4,500, £5,000.

That's very gasp,

if you think that it was sort of loose, and Ma never wore it.

-Well, superb, thank you very much.

-Thank you, lovely.

Well, I think we all agree that went with a bang, which is quite apt,

as the man who built Montacute House

opened for the prosecution in the trial of Guy Fawkes.

There are more interesting facts where that came from, and I shall

let you have them on our return trip to Montacute House,

which will be very soon.

Until then, from Somerset, goodbye.