Somerleyton Antiques Roadshow

This week we set off on an expedition to the most easterly edge of Britain.

Imagine a triangle with Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Norwich at the far points.

Well, we are in the middle of it.

Welcome to Somerleyton Hall in the beautiful Suffolk landscape.

Home makeovers ain't what they used to be.

Take Somerleyton Hall for example,

it used to be just your run of the mill 16th century pile, bit on the plain side, and then,

just after Queen Victoria perches herself on the throne, a builder with ambition and a few pounds,

buys it, and hey presto, a spectacular country house appears.

Behind the transformation was Morton Peto,

a self-made millionaire who built the Houses of Parliament and Nelson's Column.

In the process his company became the world's largest employer of labourers.

Peto was a devout Baptist with a dream to turn his country home

into his very own earthly paradise,

so he employed the top names and brands from the Victorian world of design.

Part of his social circle was Prince Albert, who recommended John Thomas,

a designer with an ordinary sounding name,

but an extraordinary imagination which he unleashed on Somerleyton Hall,

giving it its extravagant flora and fauna stone work.

The top horologist of the day and clock maker to four monarchs,

Benjamin Vulliamy designed

a prototype model clock for Big Ben in the 1840's.

Although the model was rejected, Peto built this magnificent tower for it instead.

Peto's efforts to transform his home into an earthly paradise were a great success and in the process

he built one of the finest mazes in Britain, but sadly he suffered a major credit crunch to the tune

of four million pounds, when his bank went bust, and even worse...

he had to sell Somerleyton.

Phew! 'In stepped the present incumbent,

'the Crossley family from Halifax, whose fortune was made by inventing a technique to mass produce carpets.

'They've been here for 150 years and have kindly invited us to their Victorian designer heaven.

'Over to our specialists.'

Well, where on earth did you a jewel that looks like that?

I found it at a car boot sale a couple of months ago.

What were you doing at the boot sale? Why did you go?

I went because I had a fall on the Thursday and I had a painful knee and I could hardly walk

and my husband likes them, so I said, "OK, we'll go and I'll sit in the car,"

and I thought, "No, I can't sit in the car because if I do, he'll take me to the hospital,"

and I didn't want to land up in the hospital with a poor knee, so I thought, "OK, we'll go,"

so he got out and off he went and I thought, "Get out of the car and make it to the first stall,"

which is what I did. And I saw the box.

And what did you think? I mean, was the box closed, was that...?

Yes, it was closed, I just picked it up, I thought,

"Ooh, interesting," opened it up, looked at it and just said, "How much is that, please?"

so she said, "£5," so quickly I gave it to her and went and sat back in the car.

This is the most marvellous looking thing.

It's a jewel in the Renaissance taste.

It's got curious parallels with the building behind us because that's also in the Renaissance taste.

-Oh.

-It's almost the same age as the building behind us.

-Is it?

They're both expressions of 19th century historicism really,

this is in the Renaissance taste, that's in the Renaissance taste,

-that's a bit smaller than that, but it's one and the same message.

-Oh.

It's the sort of jewel that would have been worn

by the girls who were swirling round the dance floor in Somerleyton Hall and it's made of the real thing.

Because it is gold and it is diamonds and it is pearls and that's fairly obvious.

What isn't obvious is that the cameo in the middle is actually made of black and white agate,

-it's a sort of sandwich of two colours within one stone.

-Oh.

And then the lapidary has very sensitively cut out

the face of this classical goddess from the white material to expose the black behind, it's a true cameo.

We normally see shell cameos here but this is a stone cameo, and it suggests that this is

-a much higher status jewel than what's normally found by us.

-Oh.

The slight mystery of it was where it comes from.

These cases, made of leather, lined with velvet and satin are a bit like picture frames

-and there's skill in recognising those and my view is that this might be Austrian or perhaps German.

-Oh.

How on earth it finds its way to the UK, how on earth it finds its way to a boot sale...

-A car boot sale.

-..to be revved up by you, honestly, I've never seen anything like it.

Um, I wonder what it...?

Just a hint of what it was intended for at the back because we can see a photograph

of what may well be the fellow that presented it to the girl, when she received it in perhaps 1870.

Would it have been a wedding gift?

Highly likely because it is a sort of locket as well as a pendant.

-He looks prosperous, doesn't he?

-He does.

He's got a very full beard and he's a well dressed

and rather sweet looking fellow, and that's probably all we'll ever know.

-It's a little jewel with a ghost in the back.

-Yes.

And with all that mystery and all that excitement comes a very handsome value really.

So I think you've really probably turned £5 into...

close to £1,000.

You're joking. Really?

Oh, brilliant.

When I first saw these figures, I thought I was looking at Hiawatha,

probably because of the pigtails and the banding here,

which is rather Native North American in design, but I was wrong.

-Who am I looking at?

-Well, we believe it's Salome.

-Salome, the famous Biblical figure who we all know about.

-That's right.

Who danced for King Herod and he was so entranced by her dancing that he promised her anything she wanted,

and, egged on by her mother, she demanded the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Herod was very upset by this, but he gave it to her.

Um, how did the figures come into your possession?

Well, they were actually Mike's parents'.

-Yes.

-And, um when we got married they gave us one

and we've just recently acquired this one, and after the war

they were in Jordan, until '55 and we're not precisely sure of the timing, but it was

somewhere in the early '50s we think and their doctor was an Italian

-and we think that they acquired them through the doctor.

-Oh, right.

We're not sure whether they actually ever met the artist.

-I think you have a photograph of the artist, don't you?

-Yes, that's right.

Wow, he was a striking looking man, wasn't he? And who was the artist?

-Tiscali.

-Not a name I know, Tiscali.

Well, I don't think he was a very well known artist

but we heard that he would only do sculptures for people that he liked.

-Right.

-And apparently he was asked by Mussolini...

-Il duce.

-..or one of his aides... to do a sculpture of him,

and he refused, so he actually had to leave Italy,

so again, not sure whether he was in Jordan or not, but he did have to leave Italy for that reason.

-So he was exiled?

-That's right.

I think he was very lucky just to get away with an exile, wasn't he?

-Could have been a lot worse.

-Yes.

-Yeah, how fascinating!

And there we have a figure of Salome herself, this particular figure.

Well, I think probably more research is needed on the artist, isn't it?

-Absolutely.

-As you say, he's not a well known name,

but clearly he was a very talented person and had a lot of style.

Well, let's have a look at the two figures, and they're both of Salome.

They're very stylish, aren't they?

-They are.

-Very dramatic, and this one, the larger of the two figures, you can see the pigtails.

The wood is very close grained,

it's probably either box wood or lime wood and they're polychrome figures and they go down to the ebonised base

-and he's got a rather Art Deco style monogram, hasn't he, which he's put on both of the bases.

-Yes.

I like the movement of them, they're very free flowing, aren't they?

I would suspect, if they came up at auction, this smaller figure would probably fetch

in the region of £600 to £800 and the larger one, maybe £1,000, £1,500,

so you've probably got £2,000 between them,

-but the story of the artist and Mussolini absolutely makes it.

-Yes.

Shawls are back in fashion, in the sense of Pashminas,

but there was a time in the 1800s when, if you didn't have a shawl, actually you were a nobody.

And this is a shawl from that golden age of shawl manufacture.

What is the story behind it? Because it's an expensive shawl to have got,

so obviously you're from a pretty good family I'd say, looking at the cut of your jib.

Maybe, it was my great grandfather was a carriage driver in Norwich

and it was left in one of his carriages one night and has since been handed down the family.

How interesting, so a receiver of stolen goods. I had you...

Could be, could be.

I'm sorry, I had you marked out as the wrong kind of aristocrat there.

OK, well let's just talk a little bit about what we have. I mean, the word "shawl"

actually comes from a Persian word, "shal",

which has been anglicised and the Persian means "a woven fabric"

so that's how we get the word in English.

Um, and the point for me which makes it pertinent

is that it comes from Norwich, so it's an East Anglian shawl.

-Now you knew that, didn't you?

-Yes.

We have here, a bit of paper...

from the Norwich Museum Service and somebody wrote there in 1982. This was your...?

This was my husband's aunt who actually gave it to me.

That's lovely, she says...

she wants to know about the tablecloth and of course the answer came back from Norwich...

that it's not a tablecloth, but it is a shawl and they identify, as indeed I would have done,

to Clabburn Sons and Crisp,

who were one of the biggest and most well known of the Norwich shawl makers.

Now, shawls had an enormous popularity in the 19th century,

right from the early part through until almost precisely 1870.

Do you know what happened in 1870?

-No.

-The fashion designers invented the bustle.

Now the shawl had been wonderful draped over the sort of Neo-Classical dresses

that we all know from Jane Austen telly adaptations,

and over the crinolines it was wonderful to have draped over those big skirts,

but with the bustle there was no way of using it.

-Oh, right.

-So suddenly they went out of fashion

and they were then often cut up and used for dressing gowns, or made into jackets or whatever,

so to have one in its original state is great.

It's a good size, it's a square one, which would make me think that it's from the 1860's,

rather than the 1850's when they tended to be longer, and the nice thing is, on the back here,

we can see these weft threads that have been left long on the underside,

they haven't been trimmed, so we can actually see how it was woven.

Um, the value reflects, perhaps, its rarity and its condition

-and I would have no difficulty in quoting between £1,000 and £1,500 at auction.

-Gosh, really?

-Oh.

-It's an absolute cracker.

This is amazing!

I love the title here, "Somerleyton Village, Suffolk, as rebuilt from the designs of John Thomas, architect."

Now, what I know about John Thomas...

-of course he was the architect here who redesigned this for Sir Morton Peto.

-Indeed.

And Sir Morton Peto made an awful lot of money building the Houses of Parliament and Nelson's Column,

and this must be his design for the village, so how did it come to you?

Well, I inherited it from my parents.

I found it under the stairs after my father died, and it was all brown,

but I remembered it from when I was a child at my grandmother's house and I always loved it.

In fact, my mother used to say it was a "model village"

and I always thought that meant a model of the village at the time, but, um...

-Well, it is the model village of the Victorians.

-Yes, yes.

It's this idealistic view of how a village should look, it's wonderful.

-So do you live here?

-No, I've come up from Devon.

-What!

-When I found out I was researching the picture on the net...

-Yes.

-..and when I got onto the Somerleyton Hall website, I discovered that you were having

the Antiques Roadshow here so I decided to make the trip, thought it might be of interest.

You must have a badge for the longest travelled person here.

But it is a wonderful thing to bring here because when you look at this...

did John Thomas, the architect, actually paint this watercolour?

I doubt it.

So do I, but I think that this...

the way this is framed, this is mid-Victorian, and this is his view, the architect's view,

of how the village should look, and I would think that in his offices,

because he would have had other people working with him,

-he would have had someone from his plans, draw up his view of how the village should look.

-Yes.

I think it's wonderful and it's so original, and you've got the dome top frame here, and I just love it.

When you look at these figures here, when you look closely,

if you look at a proper artist, someone who exhibited at the Royal Academy or Watercolour Society,

-you get more detail, these are quite sort of basic...

-Yes, very.

..but you stand back, you get this wonderful overall view of what the village looks like.

I think it's fantastic and it's got to be worth somewhere in the region of £3,000 to £5,000.

-Oh, lovely.

-Because it's such a wonderful panoramic view of the village.

I have to say, it is the most extraordinary clock that I have ever seen on the Roadshow.

The most unusual thing. Tell me all about it.

Well, I inherited it from my wife's Dutch aunt who in turn acquired it

from, um, Joan's grandfather, so it came really out of the blue to me, this wonderful object,

but its provenance goes back to her grandfather who was a famous photographer in Holland

and great friends of this architect Michael de Klerk,

who was very famous for his work on social housing and is in all the architectural history books,

and this was a present from the architect to my grandfather.

Well, having just taken the back off the clock,

I see here...my Dutch isn't very good, but presumably this is manufactured, or made,

designed by M de Klerk, architect, and what does this word mean here at the bottom there?

That means "in the ownership of".

-OK, and so this, er...

-Bernard F Eilers.

Right, I am slightly familiar with Mr de Klerk,

but not terribly. I know he designed some fantastic buildings

in Amsterdam and presumably all over Holland. Is that correct?

-Mainly Amsterdam.

-So was he known for artefacts other than buildings?

Mainly for these buildings.

-Right.

-So I think the artefacts were a side line.

Well, listen, I mean, what an incredible thing.

Dated here 1914 so the dates fit in absolutely.

He died in 1923, if that's right, around that time anyway.

-Yes, yes.

-And then looking at the top we've got this wonderful mask,

a stylised pear-shaped body

on what must be skates.

The thing that lets it down from my point of view, is a very basic quality movement by Junghans,

which is of course a German factory, but that's just the sort of thing that he would have got hold of

just prior to the start of the First War to pop in this case.

Super chapter ring, lovely serpentine hands, just so unusual.

I really don't know quite how to value it,

so as in the case of anything, even during this recession,

"find me another", and the answer is, you won't.

If this went into the right sale,

-I could easily see this fetching between £10,000 to £15,000.

-My goodness!

-How interesting!

-It's a highly important bit of history in its own right.

-Yes, yes.

This collection reminds me of some shelves in my granny's sitting room.

They were glass shelves and they were piled high with figures like this, lacy ladies.

-Quite nostalgic for me, really.

-Oh.

-Where did you get these?

Well, basically what it was, me and my dad, when I was about five,

my dad used to go out to auctions and he used to take me along with him,

and I'd sit up on his shoulders and he'd look out for what he wanted to bid on,

and then when he was bidding on something, he'd just touch my knee and I'd put my hand up.

-You bid?

-Yeah, so I'd put my hand up, and then my dad would just look at the chap up in the box

and give him a nod as if to say that was OK, she's all right, so I put my hand up for him.

Many adults are nervous about bidding at auction, you were doing it at five, I think that's fantastic.

Is there one piece out of the things that were acquired there that really appeals to you?

My favourite piece is this one here, I just love it because of the... just the...

simplicity of it, just the innocence and the wings, and I just think it's really, really pretty.

So your favourite piece... It's got a mark on the bottom,

-crown, cross patterns and D mark of the Derby factory.

-Right.

That mark was used in the early 19th century, 200 years ago.

So is that 200...?

-This is a fake.

-No, that is a fake.

This is a fake made in the early 20th century in France.

-Right.

-Probably by Samson, who you might have heard of.

-I have heard of it, yeah.

-Sorry to tell you that.

That's all right, no problem, but I still love it.

-It doesn't matter, does it, it's still a lovely thing.

-No.

-It's not that valuable, it's worth £100 or something like that.

-Blimey.

How are these things displayed?

-I mean, you know...

-I've got a cabinet at home which my dad...

My dad died about ten years ago and he left me the cabinet with the antiques in it,

because it's something that we used to do and he wanted me to take care of them.

I mean, I've got a few favourite pieces which to me stand out.

This pair of vases is one.

-Right.

-And they've got a mark on the bottom too.

-But it's a genuine mark.

-OK.

-So mine's real.

-OK.

They're a pair of Royal Worcester vases, and they were made in 1902

-and they're painted by a chap called Chivers with these little wonderful groups of fruit.

-Oh, wow!

And when you look at that, that is hand painted.

-Incredible, isn't it?

-They are.

Works of art with raised gilding around the panels, they're beautiful things.

There is a bit of damage on them, but they're worth £700 or £800 for the pair, even with the damage.

Goodness gracious. I had no idea they were worth that much.

Any idea what my other favourite might be?

-I've seen you look at that a couple of times.

-Ah, yes, I couldn't hide it, could I?

No it is that, it is that, and the mark is - there we go -

Chamberlains Worcester.

-Do you think that's old?

-Well, we've probably had it in our family for a good 30 years

and we got it from auction so...

It's nearly 200 years old.

Oh, no!

-And it's beautifully painted. That's a nice thing too.

-Yes.

It's worth £1,000.

Oh, my goodness.

So you and your dad were a clever partnership I think,

a five year old and her father making a bit of money, so congratulations.

-Thank you very much for having a look at them for me today.

-It's been a pleasure.

-Thank you.

A little bird has told me that you've brought along

-a very bizarre item in this box.

-Yes.

-Can we have a look?

-Yes, indeed.

Now, what am I looking at? This here?

-Well, yes, really, yes.

-Unfold it?.

-Yes.

-Ooh.

What is it?

Well, it's the caul, the membrane, in which my grandfather was born in, in 1849.

So this is the amniotic sac or the membrane that encloses a baby within the womb?

Oh, my word!

And they were believed to preserve either the person who was born within it,

or anyone carrying one of those, from drowning.

The idea being that they were swimming inside the membrane.

-And it got stuck on this piece of paper.

-Yes, apparently...

-And sort of dried.

-Yes, indeed, and they were supposed to be...

-they were sold for as much as 15 guineas in the 1820's, 1830's.

-Really? What does it say in here?

That gave his date of birth, which again is unusual

because you get dates of Baptism, you don't get dates of birth so 28th February...

-"Birthright of Jesse..."

-Harrap - H-A-R-R-U-P, Harrup.

-"Born February 28th 1849."

And on that tiny bit of paper is says, "This is Jesse Harrup's, to be buried with him when he dies,

"it's his birthright, as born with it."

How extraordinary, but then obviously he wasn't buried with it.

-No.

-And it was kept.

-He and his wife both died in the flu epidemic of 1819.

They died within two days of each other and I reckon the hiatus of them both dying within a short time

and both being buried in a communal grave of 80-odd people in Paddington Cemetery in London

-that somehow it was overlooked and it's stayed with the family all this time.

-Do you know,

this is why I love this programme.

Now you've lost me for words.

-The pleasure's all mine. Thank you very much.

-Well, thank you.

This is quite a narrow little desk

and inside there's really not a lot going on. Do you use this as a desk?

Yes, we use it all the time.

So you can get more than it looks in there?

Yeah, it's usually crammed full.

But the simplicity of the top of the desk really belies what's going on everywhere else, doesn't it?

Because you've only got to look at the front here, to see these

amazing leopards, I suppose they are, but winged leopards sitting there

in really quite sort of chunky masculine glory with very elegant sweep of the wing up,

acting as a sort of support to the desk itself, it's a bit like...

the shape of it is a bit like a Davenport,

-but it hasn't got Davenport drawers and things like that.

-No.

And if you could help me just swivel this round so we can see the side.

There's more going on than you would ever know if you look at the front,

because there's no carving along the front, but here you've got grapes,

it would appear, a vine carved into the frieze, and then more fruit and strap-work

and really rich three dimensional carving into this bracket support

so it makes me think of a period in the middle of the 19th century.

And it doesn't immediately strike me as being an English piece.

Right, OK.

There's something not particularly characteristic about it.

It's walnut and that gives you this lovely close grain for carving, a very good carving wood.

If you help me twist it a bit more...

..it gets even more surprising and confusing because here,

you've got something completely different again,

a rather wonderful carving of two lovers.

Well, we've had it about ten years and my husband and I bought it

-as a wedding anniversary gift, a shared gift to each other.

-Right.

And we were originally looking for a traditional type of Davenport.

I fell in love with this immediately and my husband didn't like it,

he said he thought it looked a bit church like,

but I pleaded my case and got it, and we both absolutely adore it.

I've never seen anything like it.

Well, no, I would agree with you there. Nor have I, I have to say.

-No.

-It's very romantic, as you can see, and the subject matter

is actually a subject that was picked up by a lot of Romantic artists, and the subject is Paola and Francesca.

-Ooh.

-And the Francesca is Francesca da Rimini.

Now, you said to me that you bought it as a wedding anniversary...

-Yes, we did, yeah.

-Well, I have to tell you something rather disturbing.

-Is it a mourning piece?

-No... Well, yes and no.

-Oh.

-The fact is that Paola and Francesca were lovers, but they were adulterous lovers.

-Oh.

And they were killed by her jealous husband

and they were met by the poet Dante

in the first circle of hell.

-Oh.

-Floating round forever, locked in each other's arms.

-Wow!

And here it is, very clearly depicted but it's not exactly perhaps...

-No, it's not.

-..the subject that you ought to have chosen for a wedding anniversary present.

The disappointing thing perhaps is that in terms of value,

-because it's such a curious piece, it isn't necessarily going to get a huge amount...

-No, no.

..in the sale room, the market value is maybe £1,000 to £2,000.

-OK, thank you.

-But the story and why you've got it I think is fascinating.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Well, you know, I'm not often asked to look at bits of scrap metal.

I don't view it as scrap metal, I view that very much as living history.

It's pieces of aircraft, the gun sight that came from Rudolph Hess' Messerschmitt 110.

Hess who was Hitler's second in command.

That's right, the man that fled to Scotland.

There's a lot of mystery surrounding the events in 1941, but basically his idea...

Hess had the idea that he could end the war between Germany and England, or Britain,

by flying across and negotiating a peace if you like,

so he flew his twin-engined Messerschmitt across to Scotland,

he baled out, it crash landed and who did he meet in Scotland? Remind me.

I believe his plan was to try and connect with the British aristocracy, the Duke of Hamilton,

because he felt that there were sympathisers at that level that might help with this peace deal.

Might help to stop the war between Britain and Germany.

Yes, perhaps allow them to focus on Russia.

So, I want to know how your father obtained these. Your father...

You've got a photograph here - is one of these your father?

Yes, this is my father in the Royal Norfolk Regiment, 1933,

had actually gone up on leave with my two elder brothers and they saw Hess's aircraft come over.

Now, being an army man, he recognised the Messerschmitt 110

and knew that it was strange that it could be so far north, it wouldn't have the range to get back home,

so he was puzzled about it.

They saw the aircraft come down, then went and visited the wreckage

and because, being an army man,

the two soldiers guarding it, he had a chat with them,

and the boys were interested in aircraft parts

so one of the guards unscrewed the gun sight from the machine gun.

-This sight here?

-Yes, and passed it back to my elder brother, who's now passed it down to me.

-What a wonderful story.

-I think it's fascinating.

These are, historically, from a Second World War perspective,

incredibly interesting, really interesting,

and I know there can't be many pieces like this in private hands,

and actually they do have a value.

If they came up on the open market today, an aviation collector would pay,

I think, something up to £700, £800, maybe £1,000 for them.

-What, for that? That really is...

-For two pieces of scrap metal.

That's quite surprising, I would not have put anything like that on those as a value.

We won't sell them, of course, because they'll pass to my son.

So here's a very, shall we say, vibrant picture by Colin Moss -

-1952, clearly inscribed, and I understand that it's you. Is it?

-Yes.

-I didn't recognise you with your clothes on.

-Yes.

-I had to say that, you do realise.

-Yeah, well, fine, it was inevitable I suppose, wasn't it?

Yes, exactly. Well, so how, what, why? You know.

Well, I first met Colin Moss when I began to be a student when I was 16,

and this was at Ipswich Art School, and shortly after I'd been there,

not very long afterwards, he suddenly said, out of the blue,

-that he was enamoured of me.

-So I suppose you ran screaming from the room.

Pretty much, yes, I did, and in fact it was a great shock all round.

However years later he rang me up and asked if I'd come and pose,

he'd always wanted to paint me and I said, "Oh, well, all right, you may."

Just that one session, and that was it, away I went.

And then many, many years go by, I was asked if I would like to

go to a show Colin had, and there I was on the front of it, you see.

-What, on the cover?

-Yes, and I couldn't believe it, I was horrified.

And my sons bought the painting for me.

It wasn't for sale and he wouldn't sell it to anybody other than to them,

on the knowledge that it would go to me, so actually it hangs in my son's house now because it's rather large.

Well, rather large, but, um, wonderfully colourful.

Yes, he's quite a well known painter in this part of the world.

He's certainly well known round here and he's also well known nationally,

he's not just a local hero, and a great champion of Expressionism in this country

and also Surrealism, which was a very powerful movement, you know, just after the war.

It's amazingly painted, very quickly, perhaps with feverish haste.

Yes. But he's chosen some good colours to go in here,

it's amazing to see that is green and it works perfectly, you know,

the flesh tones are well built up and I love this bit of purple here.

The whole thing is a blast of colour.

I can see why your sons wanted it, it wasn't just because of you,

you know, it's a powerful punchy picture.

How much did they have to pay for it? Do you mind me asking?

I think it was £2,500, something like that, I'm not really sure.

-Well, like a lot of artists, their day is yet to come.

-Yeah.

-I think he's dead now, isn't he?

-Yes, he has died now.

Um, and there needs to be a looking again at artists of this vintage,

-but shall we say that it's worth between £3,000 and £4,000.

-Yes.

I think it could well be actually, and great fun. Thank you very much.

I think it's the first time

we've ever had a whip collection on the Antiques Roadshow.

Tell me how it started.

It started because I've got a big interest in horses.

-I've been showing for the 30 years.

-What kind of horses do you show?

-Stallion ponies.

-Stallion ponies?

Yes, and this has taken me through with my interest.

I'm calling it a collection of whips but there are riding crops as well as whips.

Yes, these would be classed as riding crops, they're elegant,

and the hunting...the hunting crops have a gate handle which is...

-Like this.

-At the top, which would open the gates, and then it would have the thong.

They actually use the thong to wrap around the gate to keep the gate open as well.

Now, this one looks a very, very handsome one, gold.

Swaine Adeney Co. Piccadilly.

-Tell me about this one.

-Well, I purchased it from a friend,

didn't pay an awful lot of money for it and I qualified my horse to the Horse of the Year Show.

-Did you?

-And I was going to ride him with that whip to go in.

-Yes.

So Swaine Adeney in London, the top costumiers for hunting and ponies

and...

In fact, I would say this is probably dating to about 1920. What did you pay for this?

About £75.

-Well, it's certainly worth a lot more than that.

-Yes.

I would have thought several hundred, possibly up to £500.

The one I really am fascinated with, absolutely fascinating which must be token, it can't have been used,

because I am sure that this part is a porcupine quill,

so you've probably got a bit of coral on top, gold and a lovely silk tassel.

I think this is probably one of your early ones.

In pictures you see them around about 1860-1870.

-I was going to say mid...

-Very early.

..mid to second half of the 19th century,

-and I would put somewhere around £300 to £500 on that.

-OK.

And then you've got another gold one here.

-Is this a Swaine one as well?

-It is, mmm.

It is, now that's an earlier one because that just says Swaine & Co, London

so that is stunning, isn't it?

I bought a box of whips in a lot deal in a farm sale.

-That was at the bottom of the box and it was still in its original tissue paper.

-No!

I didn't realise it was a whip until I pulled it out, ripped the paper off and I found that.

It's in its brand new... brand new state.

-It is, isn't it?

-And I think it...

And that probably must be worth £1,000.

-Lovely, thank you very much for bringing them today.

-Well, thank you for looking at them for me.

I see by the fact that this has a Cyrillic inscription on the front

and has got a date 1794 that this is a Russian cup.

Have you any idea about its history and how it came into your possession?

Well, it belongs to a son-in-law of mine, who... It's a family cup,

so I assume it's one of his ancestors,

and as far as I understand, it's related to a horse race, it must have taken place in Russia.

And have you any idea what the inscription says?

-Well, I've got a letter here from the London Library dated 13th November 1893.

-Right.

And it says, "The goblet was made for the double victory of Marion over Bruce

"and presented by an amateur to Joseph Smith as a token of friendship on 28th June 1794."

Well, that's extraordinary. I mean, Marion over Bruce...

I hate to think... What are Marion and Bruce? It sounds Australian.

-Well, I gather they're horses.

-Oh, well, that's a big relief.

I think they're horses probably.

Ah, well, that makes a lot of difference then.

-I think they must be, yes.

-Well, it's a fantastic looking cup and if we look at it more closely,

the engraving on it is beautiful, you've these lovely swags in the sort of Neo-Classical style

and especially down the bottom here, we've got this wonderful leaf calyx, absolutely beautifully engraved.

So whoever made this really was a good silversmith.

I'm afraid, I can't tell you who the actual silversmith was,

but 18th century Russian silver of this quality, you don't see very often.

And on a fairly technical side, the colour and the patination, ie all those tiny little scratches

that come on silver over a couple of hundred years that give it its lovely soft feel,

they are really wonderful on this, so this is a really, really good piece of silver.

So the value of Russian silver has gone up, especially with the influence of Russian oligarchs

coming over here, but it's affected the whole of the Russian market,

and good pieces like this have really gone up in value in the last five or six years. Have you...

-or your son-in-law any idea what something like this might be worth?

-I think he's absolutely no idea.

I think a cup like this is probably worth in the region of £3,000.

-Oh, he'll be very pleased, very pleased.

-Hopefully it won't make him go out betting on horse races.

No, no, probably not, he's a Yorkshireman.

-Definitely not. Thank you so much for bringing it along.

-Thank you.

We're having a very busy day here at Somerleyton, I'm glad to say, lots of people to see,

wonderful items, but I've managed to grab one of our specialists,

Bunny Campione, cos as I'm sure you know by now in this series,

I'm talking to our specialists about what is their most favoured item in their collections,

and what has been perhaps a little bit of a disaster.

Bunny, let's talk about the disaster first of all, come on, get it off your chest.

Well, this tea set which I had inherited from my granny

was sitting on a shelf in the drawing room that we used in the winter

and it had a glass shelf on top of it where someone, one of the family, had put a whole lot of books

and in the winter we went in there to light the fire, and there was a very smashed set

because the books had all broken the glass shelf and smashed to smithereens.

-So collapsed on top of the tea set?

-Collapsed, yes.

-Oh, dear.

So, just in case there was any value in it, I took it, in pieces,

to an expert at one of the auction houses and he said, "Bunny, I think you should sit down,

"because do you have any idea what this would have been worth?"

I said, "No, I just inherited it from my grandmother,"

and he said, "Well, it would have been worth £8,000,"

-and I did sit down.

-8,000?

-I was gob smacked.

-It would have been worth.

-Yes, would.

-Oh!

Because it's particularly rare or...?

It's particularly rare, it's Luigi Agostino of Savona in Italy

and the ground is particularly rare, it's late 18th century.

You've obviously had it restored because you can hardly see...

-Well, a friend of mine... Exactly. Well, if you look really closely, you can.

-Yes.

One of my friends was learning restoration and she said, "Could I make it one of my projects?"

and I think she worked on it for five or six years, and she's done a great job.

Now, I see here, I'm assuming that your most prized possession

isn't a photograph of Stewart Granger, gorgeous though he is,

but there's a family connection. Just remind me what it is.

Well, he was my mother's brother, he was my uncle and when his mother, my grandmother, died, he said -

he was in America - he said, "Will you go and sort out her paperwork?"

And so in sorting out her paperwork I came across this, which, um, John Martin was one of our...

I suppose most famous of the 19th century...

He died in...

one year after that was painted in 1852 and this is a study

for one of his huge works, possibly The Stilling Of The Oceans

or The Deluge which is in The Tate.

So hugely valuable to you, not only I imagine financially,

-but in terms of...emotionally, for you and your family.

-Absolutely.

How does this come into it all then, this rather, how can I put it, portly chap here?

Definitely, he was called Luigi Lablache, he was Stewart Granger's great grandfather,

my great great, and he was an Italian and he became an opera singer

and Don Pasquale was written by Donizetti in 1843,

he performed as Don Pasquale in Paris.

-What, it was written for him?

-It was written for him to be Don Pasquale.

-How extraordinary!

-And he came over to England and he became Queen Victoria's singing master.

-Really?

-Yes. So, um...

-Bunny, who would have thought it?

You are a scion of a showbiz dynasty.

We are so grateful, aren't we? You've come amongst us.

Bunny, thank you very much.

Thank you.

OPERA MUSIC PLAYS

I nearly didn't bring it along. It was at the back of the cupboard

and I'd looked at it in the past and been told it was quite special, it had no mark on it.

-I just thought it was a bit of a fake really.

-OK. A fake what?

God knows.

I thought it was china, but I'm beginning to think that maybe it's glass, I don't know.

-That would explain why you're doing it with me rather than with one of the ceramics guys.

-Oh, yes.

-So what do you think it might be?

-I just thought it was a vase.

OK, well, on that, we absolutely agree.

Where I'm going to be able to illuminate you is by telling you

first of all that it is a piece of glass, and it's really a quite special piece too.

Ooh, I can feel my goose bumps coming up as I'm saying this.

This is a really special thing.

It's English, made in Stourbridge by Thomas Webb,

the greatest of the late Victorian glass makers, won prizes all over the place

and it's decorated, I think, by its finest...the finest glass decorator in Europe at the time.

-How am I doing so far?

-Very good.

-I thought you'd be keen.

-Very good.

His name was Jules Barbe and he was a Frenchman

who left Paris after his wife was killed during the Franco-Prussian war,

he said, "I've just had enough and I need a new scene."

And he came to England and worked for Thomas Webb for whom he won prizes and acclaim across Europe

as the world's finest glass decorator, and you, unbeknownst to you, have an example of his work.

And this is an ivory base decorated in the Aesthetic style

with an amalgam, a mish-mash if you like,

of geometric Chinese lattice with Islamic, quasi-Islamic,

into a kind of European thing with Chinese symbols over Japanese fish

in a sort of Oriental wave pattern,

and it comes under the general heading of the Aesthetic.

So it's a lovely thing and it probably would have won prizes in its time,

and I tell you it would win prizes today.

The thing that it wouldn't win prizes for is it's the filthiest, dirtiest, most mucky piece of glass

that I have ever had the misfortune to lay my hands on.

What you've been doing to this, I have no...

-Has this been in the garden?

-No, this has had plants, flowers.

-Flowers?

-A few years ago.

-Looks like cow pats!

which is not a very good thing to do to a vase that's worth between £3,500 and £5,000.

GASPS

Well, maybe it got your attention.

-It jolly well did that.

-I don't believe you,

as you well know, but I'll accept your word because you are an expert.

-Absolutely wonderful!

-I've never been so insulted in all my life.

Julia Margaret Cameron, a magical name in photographic terms,

she signed every piece by hand and she transformed portrait photography

throughout the rest of the 19th century, so massively important.

I don't know if you've ever seen those rather stultified daguerreotypes of Victorians

and they're all sort of standing there very upright, not moving, whereas she portrayed people

in a much more sympathetic way and more like paintings, and they have great charm

and great personal emotion goes into each of her portraits and that's why they're so collectable today.

Um, how did you come by them?

-I was left them by my granddad. He left them to me when he...

-Was he interested in photography?

Yeah, he was a very keen photographer, he's now...

Did a lot of portrait work, to be fair, so I imagine that's why he bought them.

-So he obviously appreciated the quality.

-Yes, I imagine.

Now, the thing I find interesting about Julia is that she was given

a camera by her daughter, I think, quite late in life, she only was a photographer eleven years

and if you can imagine back in the 1860s,

ladies weren't expected to get involved with the latest technology of taking snaps,

so she was very, well, far ahead of her time,

and she did produce wonderful images of some of the most famous people of the period.

So there was Tennyson, there was Burne-Jones,

there was all the Pre-Raphaelites and we have Henry Taylor,

who's not so well known today, but he was a famous poet in the 1860s,

and then GF Watts who is very well known as a symbolist painter and I think they're absolutely enchanting.

I think the Watts one would fetch certainly between £800 and £1,200 at auction,

and the Taylor one between £400 and £600, so we're talking about £1,200 to £1,800, which I think...

-They're gorgeous. Thank you very much for bringing them in.

-Thank you very much.

Now, you two practically followed one another in the queue, didn't you?

And you both had Japanese objects. Now, whose is whose?

-This is my mother's, she's away and I've brought it for you to see.

-She doesn't know you've brought it?

She's in Italy and she's no idea.

OK, and that's yours, therefore.

-That's been in our family for quite a long time.

-OK.

They're both Japanese, this is a typical piece of Japanese Tokyo School carving.

Tokyo School because there was an art school set up there,

to get back to the quality of carving that the Japanese had traditionally done.

And they had a zoo in Tokyo and they would have seen monkeys like this.

And this is such a charming group of the mother ape

and her offspring

after a frog.

It's so delightful a carving, and so sensitively carved.

It's signed on the bottom, Kosan,

-and it would date from about 1880, somewhere around there.

-Right.

So I'll put that down there.

Now, this looks like a lump of... I don't know what it does look like.

It doesn't look as if it's got any form to it at all

and the two are separated by about...

30 years probably.

This is a hare...

..and it is...awfully hare-like.

I mean, that is exactly what a hare does,

and every little blob tells a story about the animal.

It works beautifully

and I think that the sculptor here

had seen European sculpture

by people like Rembrandt Bugatti.

It's modernist, and it's probably about 1920.

'15 to '20.

-Do you know what it is?

-I wondered if it was for incense,

whether you put a stick in there and that's all I could think of.

So what do you do with the hole in the mouth?

Well, maybe he's a smoking hare.

Well, actually, what you do, you get a bucket of water

-and you put him in it, like that, and he fills up, bubble bubble, and he's now full of water, right?

-Yes.

Put your thumb over the hole at the top,

here's your ink, you grind it on a stone and you want a bit of water, lift your thumb off and out comes...

out comes a little stream of water.

-Fantastic.

-So it's for making ink, it's a water dropper.

-Wonderful.

He's signed too.

I can't make sense of this, but that says, "Heedenau,"

which is definitely the artist's signature, the other two I'm not sure about.

So,

do we like them?

I think we do.

I think the hare

would make, um...

..£600 to £900,

and I think that would make £2,000 to £3,000.

Ooh!

Mum will be pleased.

I can ring her up and tell her what I've done now, can't I?

-She's not prone to heart attacks, is she?

-No, she'll be thrilled.

-Thank you very much for bringing them in.

-Thank you very much.

Well done.

-So these are primitive ship portraits and they're just so vivid...

-Right.

-..of the fishing life of Lowestoft, aren't they?

-That's correct, yes.

My father was a fisherman and his father was a fisherman

and I've lived in Lowestoft all my life.

We've been collecting these for quite a few years, you know, and I fish myself

and the smell of the sea brings back a lot of memories, you know, when I used to go and meet the...

my father from coming in from sea, you know.

You were sent down by your mother or something.

Yes, that's correct, yes, sent down the harbour to meet my dad coming home to get the money

before he went into the pubs and spend it all after a bout of fishing, see what he made.

There was me, my sister and brother, we used to run all the way home to my mother and gave her the money.

-Absolutely brilliant.

-And wait till he came home in the evening, wonderful, wonderful.

Now, there's hardly any trawlers.

-Fishing's gone.

-Fishing has gone from Lowestoft now, yes.

-A bygone age.

-Yes.

Well, these are very, very evocative of that age.

-Right.

-This one here, by an artist called Tench.

-Yes.

-That's 20th century, isn't it?

-That's quite early, it's 1909 dated and it's very flat, isn't it? The way it's painted.

-Yes.

You've got the sea and the sky, then the boat stands out rather starkly in very sharp profile.

-Yes.

-And the lettering is very carefully done.

As I understand it, the lettering often was so carefully done because the artist who painted them

would ordinarily be painting lettering on the side of the actual ship.

-Right.

-In other words they were jobbing sign painters

who turned their hands to ship portraits for the skippers and crew and the owners.

-Yes.

-And I think that really comes through, because it's a man who understands boats.

-Yes.

-I would imagine your grandfather would've looked at that,

and not being able to fault the rigging, he'd have said, "That is exactly how it was."

Yes, he did actually, he said that's how they were, and he used to say,

"The sea was rough and we had a horrible trip out to sea," and this and that, you know.

Well, there's something of the sea's fury up here in this one.

-Yes, that's right.

-Because we know that that is the rescue, isn't it,

-of a lifeboat full of survivors from the shipwreck of a German passenger liner en route for New York.

-Yes.

It's picking those people up and there's a small child being sick over the side, look at that.

-Yes, I know.

-And there's a chap losing his hat on the foredeck...

-Yes, yes.

-..which is good, and they're putting their sails down to take those people on board

and they were the only survivors from more than 350 passengers and crew.

-Correct, mm.

-But what's good about that one, in contrast to the first one,

-is how natural and real the sea looks.

-Yes.

-I mean, I think that this artist, whose name is Burwood...

-Yes.

..he must've really understood the sea and had the skills to paint it.

-Yes.

-So these Burwoods are 1890s, I think.

-Right.

This one's actually dated 1893, and then this fourth one down here,

-that's actually in Naples, we can see Vesuvius there and it's by an Italian artist.

-Right.

And also I think it's actually naval rather than commercial fishing boats,

so this is the one that sticks out as not being belonging quite so much,

-but it's quite interesting to see how the Italians did it.

-It is.

-Again, very formalised, and that is much, much earlier.

-Really?

That's very early 19th century, yes.

-What's the most you ever spent on one?

-I should think about £600.

-600?

-Mm.

-Which one? One of these?

-Yes, this one.

-This one.

-Yes.

-I think it's the best of them, you know.

-Yes, yes.

It's got a drama and a story, and I think that's probably worth about £2,000 to £3,000 now.

-Really?

-Yes, yes, I really do.

And this one, also by Burwood, I think that might be worth as much as that, although I don't prefer it.

And this artist, Tench, who's maybe a generation later,

-I'd have to say that he's probably a little bit less, something like £800 to £1,200 for that.

-Good grief.

Yes, well, and this Neapolitan one is probably worth about £400 to £600.

Oh, my word!

-Absolutely lovely, thank you.

-Well, thanks ever so much indeed.

Well, this is a bit of a thriller for me

because in this box is something that isn't bad, it's something that's really, really good.

Now, out it comes, I'm going to give it to you to hold while I just get rid of the box.

There we go. Tell me about it.

Um, I won it in a competition in 1991 from a national newspaper.

And it is...

let's be honest about this, this is Michael Jackson's fedora.

-Yes.

-It was very much his trade mark during the Bad tour,

which was 1987, 1988,

and then...you won it in a competition held by a newspaper, and what did you have to do for that?

Um, that was just a phone competition.

-Right.

-And obviously I phoned up and they said that I'd won it, won first prize.

You must've been a Michael Jackson fan or you wouldn't have bothered to go in for the competition.

-Are you still?

-Yes, still a fan, yes.

-It's been terribly, terribly sad.

-Yes.

-The world has lost Michael Jackson.

-Yes.

And, as a result, I think that he is going through a renaissance in popularity

and anything associated with Michael Jackson,

I think is going to, just at this moment,

have a renaissance too.

The great thing is that not only did you get the hat,

-but you also got a letter of authenticity.

-Yes.

-Because that actually is what it's all about.

The object is one thing, the proof is the vital missing piece of the jigsaw, and here it is.

It's from Head of Press from Epic, which is a division of Sony, Sony Music,

which was Michael Jackson's record company, and it confirms that this was thrown from Michael Jackson

-at his 30th birthday, during the Bad tour.

-Yes.

-Have you ever worn it?

-Yes.

-Only tried it on.

-I was going to say,

I was sort of hoping that the last head of hair that it touched was Michael Jackson's, but it's yours.

-Yes.

-It feels slightly like the Holy Grail,

it's in great condition, it's got Michael Jackson written on the inside,

-just in case, I suppose, he forgot who he was one day.

-Yes.

He could take his hat off and be reminded,

but it's a valuable thing.

With Michael Jackson's recent death,

his name, and anything associated with him, really is at an all time high.

Earlier on,

one of Michael Jackson's gloves sold in Australia. I don't know if you've heard about that.

I know that they did, you know, I have heard that...

-You've heard rumours.

-Yeah.

The glove that was sold in Australia went for a lot of money, but I think that this will go for more.

I would put a figure, starting at the glove price,

which was the equivalent of £25,000.

-And go up from there.

-Really?

The moment is now.

-I will say no more.

-Yes.

-I know you're a huge fan.

-Yes.

But I think that the shares in Michael Jackson PLC, if you like, have never been higher

and my feeling is perhaps now is the time

to put your...to put your fan feelings to one side

and think about the money.

LAUGHTER

Things are drawing to a close here at Somerleyton Hall, and we've had some of our longest queues ever.

Look, I found our longest ever pencil as well.

So, "what's the point?" you may well ask.

Well, I thought I'd just draw a line under proceedings

and sign off, so from the Antiques Roadshow team...

..bye bye.

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