Prideaux Place 2 Antiques Roadshow

This week we return to Padstow in Cornwall.

Since its founding, pilgrims have flocked here

along the ancient pathway known as the Saints Way.

Today, holidaymakers are still drawn here, but like us, they've arrived by a more direct route.

We've set up camp at the Elizabethan manor house, Prideaux Place.

The Prideaux family have lived here for 14 generations,

and a very hospitable clan they are, too.

So, let's not wear out our welcome. On with Padstow, show two.

-And what have you got?

-Well, it's this, rather unusual.

Oh, yes, do you know what it is?

I know what it is, yes.

Go on, tell me.

It's a cricket cage.

Is that the same as cricket box?

No, it's not.

So what do you do with it?

Chinese Mandarins in the 18th century

used to carry their pet crickets in it.

They liked to walk, take them for walks on summer evenings

and the crickets sang and it's one of those esoteric Chinese pleasures, you know?

Well, it's an early iPod,

if you know what an iPod is.

-Yes.

-I don't, I have to say,

-but I gather it's something that zizzes in your ear.

-Exactly.

Well, that's what this is.

As the insect stridulates,

which is the correct technical term...

Yeah, yeah, with its legs, yeah.

This vibrates, and it's a sound box.

Oh, it's a sound box, I see.

It's very clever.

The Chinese and indeed, the Japanese, loved to have crickets playing.

No radio, no television,

so they had these gourds,

and they were made from a clay mould

which was fired and they then grew the gourd inside

and it took up the decoration that was on the inside of the mould

and here we've got immortals and rocks

and with this collar round here, and then of course, the top is ivory.

And it's been pierced with this beautiful lotus and foliate decoration.

This actually dates from the Qianlong period which was 1736 to 1795.

-Yes. I thought that, yes.

-Mid 18th century.

Very nice.

The sort of thing which the Chinese market is now quite strong for.

-It would fetch a good £600 to £900, possibly even £1,000.

-Yeah.

Jolly nice, find yourself a...

-A cricket!

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you very much indeed.

Well, she's not exactly an oil painting, is she?

-No, she's not lovely at all.

-Did she used to frighten the children?

Not really, no, but they just knew that they couldn't touch her.

-Well, am I allowed to?

-Yes.

Thank you very much. We have here,

I'm pleased to say, a rather unusual doll

because I'm used to seeing dolls, carved wooden dolls, smiley faces,

pink cheeks and all the rest of it, but they're usually white,

and to have a black doll is a bit unusual.

What I'd like to do is to take her down through the layers, if I may.

-Yes.

-Is that allowed?

-There's a lot.

There are a lot of layers, aren't there?

I have a feeling this might take some time,

so talk amongst yourselves for a moment

and we'll get back to this when it's a layer or two down.

What, what do you do with him?

Well, he just stands as an ornament, really.

I don't... when you say, "What do I do?"

What does he do in so far as ringing or belling or whatever?

Well, that's it, exactly. Inside, we've got this mechanism...

-Yeah.

-..which is actually a bell.

-Yes.

So the idea would be, you're having dinner or something,

-and mostly they work actually by, say, pressing the tail.

-I see, yes.

And that then releases the bell mechanism

and obviously, then your servant comes along and does whatever.

So, they really are great fun.

This one almost looks as though the nose should do something as well.

Well, I thought the same actually, but it's never worked since I've had it, so...

-No, it is all a bit jammed up in there.

-It is, yes.

-Could that be put right?

-Yes.

I mean, it really needs somebody like a clock maker, I think,

or a clock restorer to work on it,

because they have the necessary skills.

-But to get that working, it needs a little winder on there.

-Yeah.

And it'd be great fun, the next dinner party.

-Yeah, brilliant.

-Yes.

-Absolutely.

-Do you know when it was made?

-No idea, and I'd like to ask you.

-Made in London...

-Yeah.

-..in 1902.

-Right.

By a chap called William Hornby...

William Hornby.

..who actually specialised in quite a lot of these novelty items.

-Oh, right. That's very interesting.

-Value?

No idea.

Well, pigs are popular. Table bells are very sought-after.

Yes, oh, good, yeah.

Auction estimate, I should think £1,000, £1,500.

-Really?

-Really.

Well, I'm pleased I came.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

For modesty's sake, shall I keep her drawers on?

-No, take them off.

-Shall I?

And what are your thoughts about the doll's age?

I really don't know.

I know she's... I'm about the third generation

that she's been passed down to and for a certainty,

she was passed before that, she's always been in the family.

There are lots of clues, here, about the age of the doll

and I have to say, that the body is not one of them.

The body I think has been added later.

-Certainly, the lower body has.

-Yes.

The doll herself looks a little bit like a skittle.

-Can you see?

-She's flat at the back.

She is, she has this flat area on the back here.

She wouldn't... She's almost certain to be English.

She is carved of a soft wood.

The eyes are enamelled and inset.

And her whole form, the size of her head, the sort of short neck, the sloping shoulders,

I think that she's dating from the last part of the 18th Century,

so between 1790 and perhaps 1800.

-That's my feeling.

-Gosh.

She's missing, obviously, the point of her nose there.

She doesn't have a chin and she has this rather...

I mean, they look like sort of piranha teeth.

She looks a bit like a voodoo doll.

Don't say that! I was feeling rather warm and sensitive towards her.

But she's not lovely.

Her hair, which is nailed onto the head,

is made of...

It looks as though it's made of dyed flax? Look, I don't think it's wool.

I think it's actually fibres, flax fibres that have been dyed.

Yes, I didn't know what it was.

And her whole body has been covered

with a kind of whiting called "gesso" and then painted black.

And originally, I would have said her lower legs would have been very similar to her arms.

-Yes.

-This is, this is spurious - that's been done later.

I find her, actually, rather appealing,

-don't you?

-Mm, I do, I love her.

-Does she have a name?

-Topsy.

Topsy! I like a doll that has a name.

I didn't call her that. She's always been known as that.

-And do you remember her as a child yourself?

-I do.

I was allowed to look at her and touch her, but never play with her,

and my mother was the same before that.

Which is why she's in reasonably good condition. It's hard to put a price on family.

I mean some members of one's family are priceless and others actually

-you'd be happy to give away for a couple of pounds.

-True.

And she's... Topsy has got good things and bad things.

On the down side, it's her condition -

the fact that she has new, additional lower legs, but on the up side,

she's black, and that that sort of balances it out,

-so I'd say that we'd be talking about between £1,000 and £1,500.

-Really?

Oh.

Well, she's not, she's not leaving home.

So even though she's been seen naked in public,

-she's not allowed to leave home.

-No, she's not leaving home.

So, can you tell me what it felt like when you saw what was apparently

your bracelet in this newspaper article

-about Princess Margaret's sale?

-Wow!

LAUGHTER

I was just absolutely stunned, really, and amazed.

Yeah, I mean, it's a piece of jewellery

that I don't actually wear very often. In fact, not at all any more.

-It lives in my underwear drawer.

-That sounds like a very nice place!

There was enormous press coverage

for what was a very high-profile sale, for obvious reasons.

And here we see it with this price ticket of £54,000,

so that must have been a bit of a thrombi-making session!

-Yes, mm.

-Yes, I bet it was.

Well, and here we have two

gorgeous jewels, one in the form of

an articulated tiger skin, isn't it?

Abutting tigers one to another,

and a brooch en-suite and made of enamelled gold,

set with diamonds, and tiny little emerald eyes.

Tell us about the history of this for you. Where did it come from?

It came from Kutchinsky in Bond Street.

It was a gift from my ex-husband.

I also had the ring, but unfortunately, that was stolen

many years ago. I don't wear the bracelet any more,

but I do wear the brooch.

Let's see what it looks like when we put it on you, because this is...

-There's something of the sort of femme fatale in all of this.

-Yes.

It's a type of jewellery made in 1920s and set with sapphires

and they were invented by Cartier

and I feel that Kutchinsky is making tribute to those.

-And the date of this brooch, of this bangle?

-It would be '68, '69.

So exactly contemporary with Princess Margaret,

and really, a wonderful thing.

-What do you feel like when you wear it?

-Fantastic.

Very good, excellent! Well, I'm not surprised really.

It suits you very well, I must say. And are there opportunities...

Do you ever take it out from your underwear drawer?

No, not really, no. In fact, I sort of...

I know it sounds awful, but I almost forgot I had it, until last week.

-And then it was a jolt, wasn't it?

-It actually fell off my arm once,

and I think that's probably why I don't wear it,

because I'm afraid of losing it.

I think that's a risk well worth taking

because it does look absolutely fantastic there

and I suppose for a second, we've got to try to consider

what's the difference between the £54,000 for a royal bangle at auction

and one that's owned privately,

that's here in Cornwall.

Unfortunately, it's an absolute gulf of difference.

I think people wanted to go to the Princess Margaret sale

to carry something away from her, and she was so glamorous,

to be in the public eye, in her youth, and so beautiful.

So it's strange that lightening should strike twice -

a princess, but also one of the most beautiful women in the world,

and she had a great sense of style in her clothing and in her jewellery.

Evidently, you have exactly the same sense of style

which is very, very good news, indeed.

But, um, but there is a huge gulf of difference and in that sale,

there was a set of three plastic umbrellas

that fetched £2,600 and I suppose if we had to take that down,

or amplify it up, rather, to look at your jewellery,

the difference between Princess Margaret's bangle at £54,000 and your own with its brooch,

is that yours is probably worth about £8,000

and the brooch something like £2,000, but it's just...

I think value's a complete red herring, really.

It's simply not relevant and curiously enough,

that shows that that's true, if nothing else.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for bringing it.

It's brilliant where it is. Thank you.

Now, when I first saw this picture,

I noticed on the back, an auction number from a sale in the 1940s.

-That's right.

-You're not going to tell me

-you bought it in the 1940s.

-No, I didn't no.

-Far too young.

Yes, my mother-in-law bought it at a local auction room.

She was very interested in art

and she probably didn't pay very much for it,

because just being ordinary working class people,

she had a perchance for art and bought quite a lot, and it's been in the house ever since.

Have you begun to think who it might be and what it is and what it represents?

Well, it is signed "A Cuyp".

-"A Cuyp" in the bottom left hand corner. Good and bold.

-Yes, it is.

But we believe, well I don't know,

but apparently the old masters, when they were young masters,

they used to just get their students to paint most of their work for them

and then they finish them off and sign them.

That's the story that I've got and apart from that,

I know nothing about it at all.

Well, Albert Cuyp was one of the most prominent old master painters

of the 17th century. He died in about 1691.

And following his death, he just got more and more and more famous.

So much so, that by the middle of the 18th Century,

people were scrabbling to get his work.

There was one collector, an iron master,

who had over 40 of his paintings.

-Really?

-And towards the end of the 18th Century,

the collecting became so voracious that, believe it or not,

although this man was born in the Netherlands, there were no Cuyps left in the Netherlands.

-Everyone wanted them.

-Yes.

-Particularly in England.

Now when that great collection was sold, many of these paintings made their way to English stately homes

-and now a lot of them can be found in America.

-Yes.

So Cuyp was zeitgeist.

Cuyp just hit a nerve with 18th Century taste and sensibility.

-Yes.

-And looking at this picture,

which does represent a Cuyp composition,

and as you point out, has a Cuyp signature,

looking at it, it's quite interesting to ask the question -

what was it that did it for 18th Century man?

What was it about this type of paint, this type of approach,

that just hit that nerve of exquisite sensitivity?

Well, I think the answers actually lie in this picture because,

if you look at the reading and theory on art in the 18th century,

particularly the work of Joshua Reynolds and his discourses,

they were a bit frightened of nature.

Man, then, in England, was a little bit scared.

-Yes.

-But somehow, artists who were able to tame nature,

make it look less wild, simplify it,

were those who were the flavour of the month.

And Cuyp was one of those people who could do that.

Nature being sometimes a little bit rough,

we've all seen cows in the field.

They can look a bit soiled and dirty and spooky sometimes.

He knew exactly how to make them look sedate and gentle,

-almost like great classical rocks.

-Yes.

Now, if this were by Cuyp, it would be worth an awful lot of money,

and you're already beginning to work out that he had assistants

-and that it may not be by the big master.

-No.

Well, I have to tell you, because of his fame, because this man

pushed all the buttons, there were a huge amount of copies.

Obviously, yes.

-So you're pretty well getting to the thought that this might be a follower.

-Yes.

-I'm afraid it's more than a follower. It's a 19th century copyist.

-Really?

If this were by Cuyp, it would be worth many, many hundreds of thousands of pounds.

-Yes.

-If it were a studio of Cuyp, or even an assistant of Cuyp,

-it might be, perhaps, 50, 60, £100,000.

-Yes.

But I'm really sorry to have to come right down for you on this.

Prepare yourself - it's worth about £1,000.

Oh, well, that's better than nothing, isn't it?

It was the interest to know, you know, we were just interested.

The value of the painting is...

Well, it would have been relevant if it had been a real one,

but it was just the interest of finding out a bit of the history of it and what it was all about.

Well, that's a great attitude.

-Yes, well, thank you very much.

-Pleasure.

These are the sweetest little pair of pocket pistols

I've seen for a long time.

But tell me - what's a girl doing with a pair of pistols?

I was given them by a friend, quite a long time ago.

I'm not quite sure why he gave them to me. I don't know.

He was a very good friend

and I don't really know anything about them either, nothing.

I didn't enquire about them. I was just a little bit shocked.

They've just been in a drawer, they've travelled all over the country with us and today

just seemed the perfect chance to find out about them.

-So here I am!

-OK, well what you've got here

are a pair of early 19th century pocket pistols.

Now the fact they're contained in a case, really,

is because that's the way they were presented.

That's the way they were bought -

-a complete kit, if you like to call it that.

-OK, yes.

The pistols have got octagonal turned off barrels, brass box top mounts.

They're percussion pistols, made in the first half of the 19th Century.

Beautiful little things.

And to cock them, you pull back on the hammer and at the same time,

this little folding trigger flips out.

If you're worried by a footpad

or someone who you think is going to do you some danger,

you simply fire, pull the trigger.

-Would you keep it in your pocket like that?

-Yes, but you would keep them with the trigger folded,

so nothing catches when you're pulling them out of your pocket.

What I really like about this cased set

is this teeny-weeny, absolutely tiny little powder flask.

-It's a real sweetie, isn't it?

-It is.

And this is what you would have kept your powder in, your gunpowder.

You probably kept that in your coat pocket and you could...

You could keep your balls in the other pocket

and the whole thing would allow you to load and fire again and again if you wanted to.

And you'd probably get ten or 15 shots out of this.

The black powder would last you ten or 15 shots.

You wouldn't actually need an awful lot of powder

to fire the very small bullet.

-Have you ever thought about value?

-I haven't.

-My husband and I actually thought they were duelling pistols...

-HE LAUGHS

-I know...

-I shouldn't laugh. No, that's not fair.

-No idea at all, none.

-OK. Obviously, it does have a value.

I think if it came up for auction today, you'd probably get something in the region of £600-£800 for it.

It's amazing really, isn't it?

I mean, just for something so little. Golly.

"Mother Hubbard Deluxe, The Times Furnishing Ltd, London."

What a cupboard!

Yes, it's it's a real period piece of, I imagine, 60 or 70 years ago.

The sort of piece a lot of kitchens had,

but which a lot of people threw out when they became modern.

Well, you see, that is the whole point, because something like this

would have been the ultimate, the ultimate thing for the modern woman. Remember we're talking about...

About 1920, so after the First War, and this is for the sort of professional middle classes.

The kitchens have got smaller, so here you have this fabulous thing,

all singing, all dancing, and I'm dying to have a look inside and see

-what it does, but what I can see from here is you've got this lovely drawer slide enamel work surface.

-Yes.

Cutting.

-Rolling.

-Pastry.

All those things, just at the right height. Is this something you've had or have you acquired it?

-I bought it at a household auction in Truro about ten years ago.

-Right.

Along with, you know, the usual household junk.

And it just stood out.

-I think we need a trip round.

-A tour round the cabinet.

-You take me round your cupboard.

-I will indeed.

The first thing I think you... Is the most interesting is the household wants indicator.

-Oh, look at that! Isn't that fantastic?

-Yeah.

-Look what we've got.

We've got everything that you could possibly want for your shopping list.

So we've got "bulbs, electric".

That's very helpful.

We've got "fruit - dried, fresh and glace".

-Isn't it fantastic? And look - olives!

-I know, surprisingly.

We think of olives as the really modern thing but here they are.

So there you've got the storage cupboard. Now what about here?

Yeah, do you want me to open this? This is a...

tambour-fronted cupboard...

-with a sprung shelf.

-A wobbly shelf.

Now that's interesting.

You see here, you've got indentations so I would think this must have been

for somewhere for putting jars of things that needed perhaps being compressed or pressure put on them.

-Yeah.

-How extraordinary!

And then the ventilating hole at the back to keep everything fresh.

-Yes.

-So this is acting as a cupboard and a larder.

-Yes, it is, yes.

You've got the mesh there, which a lot of larders have, too.

I'm going to have a look in here. Oh, look! Isn't this fantastic?

It's a flour sifter.

-So you put your flour in here...

-Yeah.

-Out it comes here.

-There's the sifter there.

So does this... And out comes the flour here.

Ready to be made into the pastry and rolled here.

Yup, all in one.

-Eggs at the back.

-Eggs, yup, absolutely.

What do you think these were for?

Jars of perhaps spice or sugar or something like that.

-Yes, sugar, yeah.

-Possibly, yeah, I should think so.

And more cupboard space down here.

-And there you've got a rolling pin, the original rolling pin there.

-Oh, look at that!

It really is what all, all ladies would have absolutely given their eye teeth to own something like this.

-Yeah, yup.

-And of course what you've got at the bottom is...

-it's on castors.

-That's right.

So you could move it round in the kitchen to get

exactly the place that you needed it.

Actually made in quite a simple wood.

I think the wood is probably ash or something like that.

Is it? Right, yes, I, yeah...

And I notice that you've been polishing it, which is fine.

-But what you just need to remember is the more you polish it, the darker the wood will get.

-Right.

So if you like the colour, all you need to do

from now on, is to give it a good old buff up with the duster.

Right. Not the polishing, yeah.

But you know, you've made my day and I have to tell you, if you and I had been at the auction together,

I would have competed very, very seriously.

Well, I'm very glad you weren't.

So what did you pay for it?

-About £250.

-How long?

-About ten years ago. Well, that was a lot of money.

-It was.

-You really must have wanted it.

I did want it a lot, and it's given me an enormous amount of pleasure.

-OK, so £250 ten years ago, and I'd say £600 today.

-Right.

And I think if we went round the group here, there are lots of ladies

who'd like to own this and I'm, I'm counting myself as one of them.

So do you love clocks, or is it a hobby, or what is it?

Yes, it is a hobby, yeah. Got quite a number, yes.

Is this one of your nicest or just something you've pulled out to bring me today?

It's one of the most interesting, I think.

That's why I thought I'd like to let you have a look.

-Well, you made a pretty good decision, to be honest.

-Yes.

-You obviously know it's a lantern clock.

-Yeah.

And do you know this maker at all?

-Thomas Bradford of London - are you familiar with him?

-Not, not really, no.

Well, I have to say that there were two working around just before and just after 1700 and then

another one recorded from sort of 1700 through to about 1760,

so I'm not going to try and pretend to you which one it is,

but I'm going to say to you, this is in my opinion just after 1700.

Yeah.

And the joy is that at the moment, as I'm looking at it, it's absolutely untouched.

We'll take off the doors which you know...on all lantern clock doors

you just lift up, slip the other one off as well...

Just look at the wheel work in there.

There is no wear on it. When did you last see this thing running?

Well, I've had it about 15 years.

My grandfather died in 1947 and to my knowledge it hasn't run since 1947.

So as a young lad, you never recall seeing it going at all?

No, no. I never saw this one going.

I think that's why it's in such fantastic condition.

I would imagine this rope hasn't been replaced for well in excess of 100 years.

So often these things have been respiked there,

so that they accept chains, but this has never been touched.

I can see under here that it's got a lovely verge escapement.

-The Victorians messed these things around so badly and this hasn't been got at.

-No.

And that's the joy. This is as honest as you can come across

and it's miniature, it's so scarce, so I'm probably going to give you...

Hopefully a rather nice surprise.

Are you?

As a collector of clocks, and you said you had a few.

-Yeah.

-You must have thoughts of what this is worth.

Yes, roughly.

-Give me a rough thought.

-Well, a thousand or so.

"A thousand or so." Gosh.

Well, I am going to excite you

because this, at auction today, would make between £6,000 and £8,000.

It's absolutely stunning.

Now word has reached me you've brought in some local specialities.

-Is that right?

-Yes, that is correct.

What have you got hidden in there?

Right, well now, this should have something on the bottom, does it?

-Yup.

-Yes, it does, it's Newlyn, so do you know what that means?

It originates from Newlyn?

Bang on, yes! It's from the Newlyn Industrial School, which made

these sort of hand-crafted copper wares in late 19... Oh, God!

-We've got another one!

-Yup, yup.

-Yeah.

-Right. And that's also Newlyn as well and, well, this wonderful because we've got...

-Do you know what this is?

-Troika.

-Troika.

-And where was that made?

-Newlyn.

I don't need to do my job any more, do I?

So shall we just hand it back to you and then you can, you can tell me what they are?

-Thank you.

-What do you think they are?

Well, this one we think...

-Well, an inkwell.

-Mm.

-Yeah?

-Right.

-Does it need a pot?

Yes, it would have had a glass liner inside but it's a really

nice example, these sort of octopus decorations are very typical, as indeed are the fish.

You get sort of ships and little views of St Michael's Mount,

octopuses, spiky fish and things like that.

And the Newlyn Industrial School was established in the 1890s, in 1890 in fact.

It was part of that movement, the Arts and Crafts Movement we call it, where people were interested in

making industrial crafts and also passing on their skills to local people.

There's a similar school in Keswick, the Keswick School of Industrial Arts,

who made very similar products and these were made by local people and it's a very typical example.

Um, this one, if I give that back to you and look at yours, this is typical, as I say,

particularly sort of fish with nice sort of spiky fins and things.

-What do you think this is?

-Letters.

Exactly, a little letter rack, and again there's the mark on the back.

The great thing about these is the mark, because there's a lot of very similar pieces around, which people

often say are Newlyn because that makes it more interesting.

-Right, yes.

-But these are definitely marked - that's no problem.

Let's have a look at this bit of Troika.

Erm, these date, as I say, to the late 19th, early 20th century, circa 1900, give or take ten years.

-When do you think this one dates to?

-No idea.

-This one dates to the 1970s.

-Right.

So for all it was made in Newlyn just the same, it's a generation later.

The Troika factory was actually established in 1963 in St Ives

by two people, Benny Sirota and Leslie Illsley,

and they started off making quite fine sculptural wares which they found didn't sell.

So in the '70s they started making this sort of rough textured ware which has become very popular.

It's really a phenomenon of the internet age.

Pieces like this were in people's homes.

They became collectible and people started selling them on the internet.

I haven't asked - are these your pieces or something you've collected...

-They're our Nan's.

-Nan's, yes.

-Right, and why can't Nan be here today?

She's just had an ear infection so she's at home.

-So she's sent her proxies today.

-Yup.

-Right. Do you actually like them?

They're lovely. It's funny because we've all actually got things that we like.

-Yup, yup.

-Was that planned? That seems..

No, it wasn't! I really like them.

And have you grown to like them today, or have you always admired them?

No, no, no, we've always liked them. I've always said to my Nan, I want that in your will.

Well, I think we've got some good news for Nan.

Your piece on the end - £80-£120.

It's not yours yet, of course!

Your piece...

-Um, it's a nice piece, about £150-£180.

-Yup. Brilliant.

And your piece here, about £250-£300.

-Excellent.

-Does that make you love them any more?

-Yes.

That's so shallow, but never mind.

It's nice you love them.

A rather angry cat here, I think. Don't you agree?

I do agree.

He looks as though he's just kicked that teapot to pieces and of course the one artist

that one knows who does cats and dogs and humorous pictures, is Louis Wain.

And, er, you've got... Almost like a page from an album here.

-And you've had these quite a long time?

-Yes, nearly 50 years.

-Round about.

-Have you?

-Yes.

-I see there's a label on the back that says "Tuck".

Raphael Tuck and Sons. They were fine art publishers.

And did they publish these pictures?

Yes, they published those, yes. Published them either as a whole piece or as little individual cards.

-Well, I'm glad you kept them after you working for Tucks and you kept them.

-Yes.

Because Louis Wain's very interesting because he was born in 1860 and he started doing work for

the Illustrated London News in the early 20th century but of course then

he went on to doing these humorous pictures of cats and he became so famous there was a Louis Wain Annual.

-That's right.

-And unfortunately he was incarcerated into a mental home in 1924.

24.

When he was there, he was forgotten about and somebody went into the mental home and saw this person

drawing cats and dogs and said "Oh, you draw just like Louis Wain"

and he said "Well, I AM Louis Wain"

and this chap was very shocked and he was quite well to do and he got a subscription going to, erm,

rescue him from this home, to put him into a nicer home.

And he was moved. They raised enough money through famous people

to take him out of this home, to go somewhere else in Hertfordshire where he spent his days.

And, er, some years ago I had a phone call from somebody and I was actually asked to go to a mental home.

Not because I'd gone mad, but, to go and look at some Louis Wains

and it was the home where he had been put inside.

Anyway, when I got there they showed me these Louis Wains and they had

one right one and all the rest were wrong and I couldn't understand.

And they said "Well, they were painted by the inmates, they used to copy his work."

But it was an extraordinary experience.

But these are fantastic and very, very good examples.

Now I have seen many fakes of his work and how do you know about a right one and wrong one?

Well, I always look at the eyes and if they look mad, you know...

-Oh, yes.

-Stary, then they are, you know.

Well here we have, the one on the left here.

Not as pretty as some of his cats.

He looks very angry.

-But this one is wonderful.

-Yes.

He went through a psychedelic period and some of his pictures, I mean,

they're like 1960s but were done much earlier, because he died in 1939.

But they're like, like the hippy things of the 1960s - bright colours.

This is very interesting because it tells four different stories.

I love this one here because here, wonderfully mad stary

eyes there which as I said, talking about how you know, his, I mean...

You know, he wasn't insane but his sort of wonderful sort of spontaneity about painting these cats

and the stary eyes come out and there's a really good example,

and that's what you don't get in the fake ones.

Absolutely fantastic. And then they turn around and leave the dog on its own down at the bottom there.

Wonderful. The one on the left here, it is certainly quite valuable because

people like his work today and I think that would probably make about £2,000, certainly £1,500 to £2,000.

-Yes.

-This one, I think, is the more valuable and,

would certainly make somewhere in the region of £2,000-£3,000 at auction.

-Oh, well.

-But very good examples.

-Have to come out from under the bed then, won't they?

-Yes.

Ever since I was a little boy, I have been fascinated by big guns.

I remember sitting having a photograph of me taken

when I was five years old, sitting astride a great cannon at Carisbrooke Castle.

This is a great gun. Where did you find it?

Where did I find it?

Well, funny you say when you were five years old, when I was about

five years old, the cannon was discovered in the garden and it was up at the end of the Green Walk

and during the war, the garden had become completely overgrown.

-This is here, is it?

-This is here. The gun originally was on, was defending the estuary in Padstow.

-Right.

-Was moved here, latter half of the 19th century, I suppose, and

um, rumour had it that there was a cannon in the garden.

It was completely overgrown. It was my uncle, Tim Parr, armed with a compass, a machete

and old garden plan, hacked his way through the jungle to find the mythical cannon, and... and he did.

And aged five, finding Henry VIII's cannon was quite, was quite something.

-Well, it's fascinating because we've been calling it a cannon.

-Right.

Now interestingly enough, at this period, and of course it is Henry VIII in period, at this period

all guns had names and a cannon was a name for a specific size and type of gun.

-And a saker was a particular type of gun, and this is a saker.

-Right.

Now, a saker is a gun that is very long for its bore.

-And you can see how this is very long and narrow and has a relatively small bore.

-Sure.

But what's more interesting is that it's made not of bronze,

as the majority of guns were at that time, but of cast iron.

And the reason why that makes it quite rare is because the cast iron

technology, the industry, was in its infancy at that time.

Henry, of course, had limited funds, but he wanted to arm his country. Particularly the south coast.

And so he wanted a huge number of guns and wanted to buy them cheaply.

So in order to do that and to reassure himself of supply, he

decided that he'd import gun founders from Europe, particularly Italy and France. I think this is quite early.

Erm, I think probably this dates in the 1540s

and actually, if it is, this makes this the

earliest known gun, cast iron gun, still in existence in this country.

Have you ever thought about the value?

No. I mean, for me it's just always been utterly priceless.

It's quite difficult to put a value on a piece like this because it's incredibly rare.

It's incredibly early.

I think it's probably worth between £25,000 and £35,000.

Wow! Wow!

So here's a little bee brooch and it's buzzing away in the sunlight, isn't it? Scintillating like mad.

Tell me about all about it.

I worked here for 40 years and Mrs Prideaux-Brune died and she left me in her will.

-Oh, isn't that marvellous?

-Yes.

-And what was your work here?

-I was cook-housekeeper.

-Mm, oh, that's very good.

-I came for a week to try out, a big party up here, and I stopped for 40 years.

So you were a sort of temp, really, then?

Yes, I was, for a week.

Fantastic, and you actually lived...

Where did you, you lived on site?

Yes, in the front, the front of the house, overlooking the deer park.

-Lovely rooms.

-Goodness, and so 40 spectacular years.

Did you see lots of wonderful jewellery worn when you were here?

Oh, marvellous, marvellous, marvellous, yes.

-Mm, I bet.

-Marvellous, marvellous.

And what a touching thing to receive, actually.

I don't know whether you've thought about the fact that it was a bee.

-Have you thought about that?

-No, no, no.

Because it's actually a very interesting emblem of love, frankly, and that's what it was.

And it's "bee" and then "sure of my love".

And in diamonds, so it's forever. Now, and also it's decorated with

black enamel, the wonderful sort of buzzy bee body there is, is black enamel.

But the real key to what this is all about

is this box which, curiously enough, when you're involved with jewellery,

the boxes are a bit like picture frames and you can instantly tell where they're made.

-Yes.

-And just looking at that, I know it's a French box.

-Yes.

-And in the top of the lid I was completely amazed to see

that it was made by a firm called Rouvenat and Lourdes.

And they were an enormously important jewellery maker in the, in the 19th century in Paris.

And Rouvenat's greatest claim to fame was that he showed at the L'Exposition Universelle

in Paris in 1867 an enormous spray of lilacs and diamonds, a completely naturalistic one.

And it was bought by Empress Eugenie who was the wife of Napoleon III, so at that level of patronage,

it goes without saying that this is of the highest possible level of craftsmanship and inspiration.

-Oh, I see.

-The highest possible level of everything one could expect from a piece of jewellery.

And curiously enough, perhaps not so much to do with the weight of the diamonds or anything, but for the

fact that it's a little piece of history which almost would have been lost if the case had been lost.

What do you feel like when you see it? What does it... What do you feel?

I treasure it to think that Mrs Prideaux-Brune gave it to me.

I really treasure it. I wore it a couple of times but I think it's marvellous.

Yes, a very exciting thing for me to find, I must say, a sizzling

-piece of French jewellery with a wonderful, wonderful history.

-Yes.

And a rather startlingly desirable thing.

-I mean that sort of measured value is to do with how much people really want things.

-Yes.

People really would want this very much.

It's very compact, very wearable, it's full of history and context.

And so, astonishingly, we have to value it today for, well, £9,000.

Oh!

Oh, no! Oh, dear!

Marvellous, thank you very much.

-It is marvellous news.

-You've made my day.

You've made mine, absolutely. Dreamboat stuff, really marvellous.

This is a crackingly pretty little portrait of a girl. What do you know about it?

She was left to my father in a will.

And, it's a family ancestor called Harriet Cockburn.

Just wanted to find out the date.

We think it's probably 1818 but we're not sure.

Well, I'm sure it's one of your ancestors, but it's earlier than 1818.

By the style of the dress and the handling of the head, this is a work of the 1780s.

And there's one artist who this reminds me of very, very strongly, who was working in the 1780s.

He was an artist who went on to become the greatest definer of the Regency face and Regency glamour.

He's the artist through whom we know George IV, and many of the great figures of the early 19th century.

And that artist's name is Sir Thomas Lawrence.

Thomas Lawrence - young Tom, as he was known then - was a boy genius.

His father was the owner of an inn, The Bear Inn, which was on the road from Bath to London.

And he was one of those incredibly ambitious dads

who forced his son to do all sorts of things to prove his cleverness.

At the age of eight, he got him to stand on the tables of the inn and recite fluent Milton.

And, er, he was also encouraged to draw people, and he showed early on a great skill of drawing.

Now because this kid was amazing, his dad took him to Bath. And there, can you believe it?

At the age of 14 years old, he was given his own portrait practice.

Bath then of course was the great fashionable centre of Britain and high society

flocked to his doors, flocked to the doors of this 14-year-old child, to be painted and drawn by him.

But why do I think that it's by Lawrence?

What are the characteristics of this picture that make it so compellingly

like the greatest portrait painter of the age, at this tenderly young age?

That hand pointing with the arm raised, in a most unusual and ambitious gesture for that date.

Now, if you're looking at your average pastel painter of this period, your provincial pastel

painter, because pastel painting was quite a business in those days, you would never see something

that was quite so theatrical and, if you want, avant garde, for a child.

If you turn the picture over,

I notice that there is a later label identifying her as Harriet.

But underneath, you can see the remains of a label

and this rather exciting-looking, probably oak, panel, on which the pastel is applied or laid.

That would have had a message on it.

The young Thomas put, on every one of the pictures that he did, a little

message telling clients to keep it out of the damp and the light.

Well, Thomas Lawrences are very desirable. They're very sought.

The late works are the ones that the museums want and American

and Continental collectors are particularly interested in acquiring.

This is nonetheless a particularly fine and charming example of an early Lawrence.

And I would have very little hesitation

about putting a valuation of £12,000 to £13,000 on this.

Right! It's well loved anyway.

It sits on my father's wall and will

stay there for a while yet, I hope.

I'm glad to hear it.

Now is the time to say goodbye and now is the time to heave a sigh

and prepare for what, for some of us, is the long drive home.

Many thanks again to the people of Padstow for joining us.

And from Prideaux Place, until the next time, goodbye.