Tatton Park 1 Antiques Roadshow

The Roadshow's pulled off the M6, just south of Manchester,

to visit the vast Cheshire estate of Tatton Park.

And there's the mansion.

In its day, it was home to the smartest house parties going.

Just what we've got in mind for today.

Tatton House was a stunning place to be entertained, with its lush furnishings and elegant decor.

But today on the Roadshow we're going for a garden party.

Just a few hours ago, the Roadshow team were busy getting things ready.

Come on, boys, put your backs into it!

We chose the Italian Garden, which I think looks pretty nice.

It was part of a massive makeover of the whole 2,000 acre estate

more than 200 years ago.

All is revealed in the house library

that guards a book our specialists would die for.

It was hand-written and illustrated in 1791

by the landscape gardener Humphrey Repton.

It's a master plan for the owner at the time, William Egerton,

and it showed how the estate could be made to look more impressive

by a few clever, cunning tricks.

Here, for example, is a view of

the approach to Tatton from neighbouring Knutsford.

And then, by peeling back the overlay,

Repton shows his client the proposed entrance.

And today the gatehouse is shrouded in mature trees.

And to achieve the illusion of the estate

being an entirely natural landscape,

Repton openly admits using deception.

In fact, there's a whole chapter in the book dedicated to justifying it.

He wrote, "I'm aware of the common objection to all efforts

"that may be deemed deceptions. But in landscape gardening

"everything may be called a deception.

"We plant a hill to make it appear higher than it is and every piece of

"artificial water must look natural, or it will fail to be agreeable."

Today it looks as if the mansion was

built by a large lake that just happened to be there,

rather than one dug later to show off the mansion.

All part of Humphrey Repton's grand illusion.

Looks like we're in for a busy day, and I trust no one will be deceiving

our specialists as they discover what wonders have been brought here to Tatton Park.

What a lovely clock. Do you like it?

-I do. My father doesn't.

-Why not?

I think he just thinks it's very ugly! It's not his taste.

But I think it's quite simple, in an obviously quite flamboyant style.

Does he know what nationality it might be?

-He thinks it's French.

-He's right.

-The giveaway is the dial, isn't it?

-The name, Le Roy.

Le Roy, and that's horologer to the King. Clockmaker to the King.

This particular man

was by appointment to Napoleon.

And then, after the end of the Revolution,

to the King of Westphalia. So, a great maker.

Do you know what the clock's made of?

No, I don't.

It's gilt bronze, what we call ormolu.

And the subject matter is charming.

The library setting, so we've got the reading and the writing figure there.

We've got the arts to the full, and the sciences are displayed

by this globe, here, which sadly has lost a few of its stars.

-But you can see them underneath.

-Yes.

-I think it's lovely.

-My grandfather's had it since the mid '30s.

-How did he get it?

-He went on a cruise to Egypt and bought it in Egypt.

-What, so he got off a boat in somewhere like Alexandria or Cairo, and bought it?

-Yes, presumably.

Buying a French Empire clock in Egypt, how intriguing.

-How it got there, I've no idea.

-No, I can't shed any light.

The subject matter's lovely, it's absolutely textbook stuff dating from about 1815-1820.

-Oh, right.

-I love it.

It's absolutely my sort of thing.

I think grossly undervalued in the current market.

And, despite that, because of this, because of the maker,

if it went to auction it's going to make

-at least £3,000.

-Oh, right, wow. A bit more than we thought.

And retail...

at a decent antiques fair or in a clock dealer's shop,

you wouldn't get it for under £5,000.

Oh, gosh.

-That's surprising.

-So, he should be happy with that.

He should. Maybe he'll want it back.

-No, no! Don't tell him what it's worth.

-Well, I brought it here, so...

Exactly.

This is a beautiful 19th century landscape painting.

-How long have you had it for?

-I've had it for about two years.

It was left to me by my grandparents, when they passed away.

Do you know where they found it?

The story is they found it in a junk shop...

around St Albans, I think, where they were living at the time.

The painting itself was completely black, covered in soot.

But they liked it, they bought it for the frame.

It was the only thing they could see. When they got it home,

they decided to clean up a little bit of the picture.

And round this poppy, here, when they cleaned the soot away,

the red of the poppy shone through.

And they thought, "Wow, we've got something here."

And they cleaned the rest of it up themselves.

Well, these wild flowers are absolutely delightful.

And it's nice to see that the original frame is still in great condition.

And the oil painting, the 19th century oil painting,

is in wonderful state too.

I wonder what they cleaned it with, because luckily it wasn't too extreme. The paint's still there.

I really don't know what they cleaned it with, I dread to think.

Well, it's signed lower right and dated,

John Clayton Adams, and the date's 1872.

Now, over the years I've seen a few pictures by Clayton Adams.

He's certainly one of my favourite landscape painters because this sort

of particular time he was painting in an area where I was living as a boy.

-Right.

-He started his life in Edmonton, but in the 1870s

he moved to Ewhurst, in Surrey.

So he was painting all across the Downs and this is likely to be one of

-those views across the Downs.

-Right.

And I literally lived, as a boy, probably two or three miles

from Ewhurst. But you still see the beautiful British landscape

which we're all so proud of.

And if you look at this picture,

right from the very front of the painting,

where the wild flowers and the poppies are painted,

your eye draws right to the back of the landscape and then moves around

to the workers working in the fields

-and putting together the corn stooks.

-I do think it's great.

-The problem is we don't have anywhere to hang it at home.

-Oh, no!

So it doesn't get...

It's not out very much.

So this is a bit of an outing for it so we can find out a bit more about it.

For something from the 1870s to be sold through

a junk shop, to be covered in dirt, to be wiped over by your family,

to last so long and still be in great state, you would think by now

it would have had some restoration or been modernised in some sort of way..

-Right.

-It's unusual and that actually increases the value.

-Oh, right.

-Collectors love to see pictures like this,

in beautiful, original condition.

I could see this certainly making £3,000 to £5,000 at auction.

Gosh.

Wow.

Thank you.

Harry Potter, eat your heart out.

Well, yes. I guess it's come into its own of late.

But it actually belonged to my parents and stood in the hallway

of their house from, well, at least 1930 onwards.

-Up here?

-No, in Hounslow, in London.

My mother acquired it from, I think,

a hard-up relative who flogged it round the family.

But everybody thought it was so ugly that she was the only one

who actually accepted it, so it came into our house then.

I remember it as a small boy and it's been with us ever since.

What it is, I haven't the slightest idea.

I think it's called a wyvern, this particular type of dragon.

But my mother thought it was Chinese.

I'm not so sure, it looks more like a fugitive

from a black-and-white silent film of Count Dracula to me.

And, as it stands on the staircase at home,

both my children and now grandchildren creep up past it to go to bed

and say, "Shh, don't wake the dragon!"

as they go by. So it's a very good calming influence on the household.

-Soporific.

-Yes, absolutely. It's a mystery.

Well, I can tell you where it's from.

-It's Venetian.

-Really?

It's Venetian, and it's a card tray.

Oh, so my mother was right.

She always said it was for visitors to put their visiting cards on.

-Exactly.

-I have to tell you that in a semi-detached in Hounslow

in 1930 there weren't too many people who came round with a...

-But she had grand ideas.

-Yes, she did. Yes.

Always listen to your mum.

It's 19th century,

it's the late part of the 19th century.

And you get them in various styles.

Styles go in and out of fashion and, at the latter part of the 19th century, this was the style.

-We call it grotesque.

-Right.

Sometimes these are multi-coloured.

As I say, this is carved wood.

One would expect to see reds and blues, being Venetian.

-Oh, really? Yes.

-But I can't see any colours at all.

Commercially, I would say this is worth

between £1,200 and £1,500.

Really? Gosh! Oh, I think my mum did a good deal

with the impoverished member of the family in 1920-something.

-Right, fantastic.

-Good, thank you very much indeed.

That's most interesting, thank you.

Where did it come from?

It's been in my maternal grandmother's family for,

I presume, quite a few generations.

I believe my great grandmother used it as a cake stand.

-But more recently it's been locked away in cupboards.

-Right.

-The JJM, this would be a marriage.

-Yes.

James and Jennifer Marlow.

And the surname would be at the top.

Does an M appear anywhere back in your family?

No. No, it doesn't.

-Well, not as far as I know.

-Do you know what it is?

I think they're called ham stands, aren't they?

They are. You put the ham on there

and this would be a largish family, which could afford a ham.

And it would be cut off daily, as people wanted it.

And, in fact, the cut marks,

the scratch marks, work perfectly well

for this serving as a ham stand.

This one of course is dated 1787.

Clapham, we don't know, that would be the place.

And you've got to settle down with a British Isles atlas and check out all the Claphams.

-There aren't very many of them.

-There are not many?

There's Clapham in London, of course.

But that wouldn't tie up with the fish.

It suggests that this person either enjoyed fishing or was connected

to the fishing industry.

This is slipware.

It's been sort of squeezed on from a bag, through a goose quill,

to draw all the letters onto what we call a treacle glaze.

And it is, as you rightly said, unsophisticated.

But...this one is very different from the run of the mill.

Because the guy that did this has gone to a lot of trouble to scratch

in through the slip he's just put on,

to the treacle background, to give some depth to the letters.

And indeed that is true of the leaves on here,

which he's actually gouged out, probably with a chisel.

OK, you keep it in a cupboard.

Erm...perhaps you'll bring it out if I tell you that I think

it could make somewhere in the region of

£2,500 to £3,500.

-Hm.

-OK?

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

One of the joys of collecting antiques is that we often come across

things which tell us how people lived in bygone days.

Now, you've brought along a fantastic collection

of silver purses,

which mainly range in date from the 1880s through to 1940-ish.

And they were part of the absolute essential kit that ladies

had to carry with them when they went out for fantastic dinners

or balls, that sort of thing.

What got you interested in collecting them in the first place?

Well, my husband had go on business to Milan

and he wanted me to go with him.

And we were invited to lunch at this person's house.

He'd got a lovely big house of antiques and his wife thought that

she'd like to collect something. So she started these.

And I was so fascinated, when I came home I thought, "I'll do this."

Thinking that there were loads and loads about.

And I found that they were quite scarce, actually.

They are very pretty objects.

as you can see. And one of my favourites is this one here.

-And the reason I love it is that the shape is so unusual.

-Yes.

One of the most important things

about these purses is, if the insides have their original silk or leather.

-Yes.

-And so let's have a look in here.

And there we've got the original leather

in absolutely fabulous condition.

Looks like it's never been used.

And these have got little finger rings on them.

I'm not going to put it on my horrible little finger.

But why don't we put it on your finger?

That looks really elegant, doesn't it?

-Yes, yes. And did they take them to balls and things?

-Yes, exactly.

But what did they put in? They're so small.

They would have put a couple of sovereigns

to pay the coachman for going home,

might have had a dance card on there

for whoever their next dance was with.

Have you helped your mother collect these?

Yes. Yes, I have.

-We've enjoyed looking at them together, haven't we?

-Yes, yes.

And polishing them. We've got them out regularly.

-Do you have a favourite?

-Yes, I do.

I love this one.

-It's so small and dainty.

-Yes.

It's really pretty.

That's a very elegant one, isn't it?

-Yes.

-The other thing to remember about these purses is that

they have to be in really good condition to be worth something.

Yes, I know that from the price I paid.

Now, I was going to ask, what sort of prices have you been paying for these?

Most of them were £100 and over.

-You're paying the right sort of figure for them.

-Yes.

-Because most of them are worth between £100 and £150.

-Yes, yes.

Altogether, these add up to quite a sum.

So you're probably getting to in excess of £2,000 worth here.

Oh, right. Yes. And you've only to got to look at them

to imagine people going to these balls.

-Some pretty lady...

-Imagine ladies in long, flowing, elegant dresses,

turning up with the absolute essential kit that they had to have.

So it was an age which was, as I say, governed by etiquette.

Well, if they come back into fashion,

I've got my equipment, haven't I?

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

I understand you've come more than a little way to be here today.

Can you tell me where you've come from?

-AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:

-From Australia.

-Queensland.

That's a long, long way. Well, I think you're probably one of our most travelled visitors today.

And you've brought this absolutely wonderful and amazing decoration,

the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Everybody who's interested in aviation history, military aviation,

knows that it's just absolutely iconic.

-Is it a family piece?

-It's our father's, John Dixon.

Right.

And he joined up from Queensland, Australia, when he was very young.

Did he join the Royal Air Force or Royal Australian Air Force?

-Royal Air Force.

-Right.

And what did he get this fantastically important medal for?

It's a gallantry award, it's not something

that just says that you've been there.

They're important, but that's for doing something remarkably special.

Yes. He photographed the Tirpitz, both before and after.

Right. Very soon after this, that was actually destroyed and gone.

Yes. And, of course... it was awfully hard,

with the flack and everything.

So, yeah, we're very proud of him.

Well, you should be. All of these big German capital ships

that they had, they were designed as commerce raiders.

And if you had a ship like the Tirpitz out on the sea lanes,

all the convoys that were the lifeline of this country,

that were being attacked by U-boats, attacked by the German equivalent of Coastal Command,

with its long-range aircraft, and these whopping great big ships.

You know, if they had been successful,

then this country would have just been starved into submission.

-And we have here, I think, a picture of Tirpitz that he took flying his Spitfire.

-Yes, yes.

And that, presumably, would be one of these stripped-down, tuned-up,

unarmed - "neeeoowww!" - take-a-picture jobs?

Yes, well, all they had was their camera.

It's phenomenal when you think about the courage of somebody doing that.

Because an asset like that is not going to be left unprotected.

There would be flack guns around it, whatever could be put together from

the local Luftwaffe to fly air cover over it.

And here you are, in an unarmed plane, with nothing but

the equivalent of a big box Brownie sticking out the bottom.

I was fascinated by the entries in the log book

that tell us just what he was doing with his Spitfire, which was Mark 4.

And it says,

"Direct action on Tirpitz, 16,000 feet."

Argh!

"Bags of flack."

I mean, that's a bit of an understatement, isn't it?

When you look at this photograph, it looks kind of pretty insignificant.

It's black-and-white, it's a bit dog-eared on the corners.

But when you think about its importance,

that that tells the strategic planners where that big German asset was,

Having the ability to launch a raid on it that finally,

once and for all, dealt with that big capital asset.

It made everything so much safer and made sure that the supplies

that were coming over, that kept this island alive...

So, so important.

And it's fantastic that your father risked his life for that.

Yes. You don't realise, sometimes.

I always find it very difficult, putting a price on one man's bravery.

And this is bravery of the most naked sort, isn't it?

Commerce always pokes her nose in, I'm afraid.

And if you sold this, because of the fact

that there's all this wonderful provenance with it,

I think this collection's worth about £5,000.

Absolutely fantastic. It's great of you to come all this way to bring it.

THEY LAUGH

Yes, well, that's amazing.

You've got six plates by...

I think you know, it's Lucienne Day

because her name is on the back.

But where did you find them?

I just got them in a charity shop about a year ago.

And what attracted you to them? Just because you liked them?

Actually, I just needed some plates because I didn't have any plates

and I was going to use them.

I only saw one - only one of them was on display.

But they said it was a set of six, so I didn't really see

any of the others until I got them home.

But then when I saw that it had, like, a proper mark on the back,

I thought I'd better not use them until I find out more about them.

So you're sort of sitting at home, no plates,

and you thought, "Oh, I'll pop down the charity shop."

-And you just happened to buy six plates by Lucienne Day?

-Yeah.

One of the leading post-war British designers.

And how much did you pay for them?

-£5.

-For the set?

Well, I don't know if you ever noticed, but on the back

they've got the original price.

And they were £2, nine shillings and thruppence each.

And these plates will date from the late '50s, early '60s.

And Lucienne Day is principally known as a textile designer.

She came to prominence in the Festival of Britain in 1951

with a fabric called Calyx, which was very much of its era,

very sort of stark geometric, in sort of earthy colours.

And these, again, speak of her design as it continued.

They're very much like her fabric designs, I think that's what collectors like about them.

And a lot of people don't realise that Lucienne Day

actually worked as a ceramic designer as well.

She made pieces for Rosenthal, and the shapes of these are probably designed

by somebody called Raymond Loewy who was a very famous American designer.

So to get Raymond Loewy, Lucienne Day,

with a name like Rosenthal together, you've got ceramic magic.

It is ceramic magic.

That said, because she's not so known as a ceramic designer,

they're not going to be worth as much as you might imagine.

And I think right now,

-the value of these is going to be around about £500 to £600.

-Really?

-Yes.

-So it's not bad then, is it?

But I think in a few years' time these will go up,

because this is just what people are looking for.

You were looking for plates and you came home with, well,

treasure.

-Glad I didn't use them, then.

-I'm glad you didn't use them either.

Well, Tatton Park is one of the Wyatt architectural dynasty's greatest creations, actually.

And they had their favourite firm of cabinet makers,

Gillows and Co.

And the Egerton family were one of the greatest patrons of Gillows.

So I was really hoping that a beautiful piece of Gillows furniture would turn up today.

I mean, they were based in Lancaster about 40 or 50 miles from here

and they specialised in creating fantastic quality furniture.

So I'm incredibly grateful to you for bringing this in.

Is it something you've always had?

Well, I've had it for ten years.

We bought it from a local antique dealer

and he said it had come from a mill.

And the mill was closing down and it had been in the boss's office.

So he bought it and it was in the saleroom.

But it wasn't in very nice condition.

-The polish was pretty patchy and it was quite badly scratched.

-Right.

So we sort of hummed and hawed, went back about three times.

And then we decided to go for it, because it was a lovely piece of furniture.

Well, the thing about Gillows, from the 18th century onwards,

really until they were Waring and Gillows in the early 20th century,

everything that they made is just beautifully finished.

All the drawers are immaculately lined,

very tight in their construction, no expense spared on the timbers.

And although they often used mahogany,

here we've got an incredible example of Gillows working at the very top of their game in oak.

But it's this fantastic choice of the timber that they use.

So, you know, within the doors you've got this very, very carefully chosen

medullary rays within the oak, to give this incredible liveliness,

this light fleck to the timber.

Every single piece is made beautifully.

And what is very nice is not only do you have the stamp on the top

-of the door, but you also have this registration number on the top.

-Yes.

I mean, stylistically, with this very beautifully finished bevelled glass

and the various ornamental treatment

of the doors and the panels, this dates from around sort of 1880.

That sort of date. And it's Gillows making very good quality furniture for domestic use.

So it looks in wonderful condition now. You've obviously done a little bit of work to it

since you bought it, have you? To put it back...?

Well, the dealer did it, actually.

-Right.

-He stripped it right back and repolished it,

because I couldn't have lived with it as it was.

It was very grey and quite badly scratched.

-But I'm really pleased with the result because it looks almost new, doesn't it?

-Well, it does.

I mean, I must admit I do love when furniture keeps its old surface.

So generally I'm a little bit sceptical of when things have been taken back.

Actually, I think he did a good job here by not going too far.

It's a little bit flat on the surface, but it brings out

this incredible strength of the figuring of the oak, which is very important.

Now, for all the work he did, what did he charge you for it?

Well, this was 10 years ago and I thought it was a lot of money.

It was £1,200. That included the stripping, which was about £200.

I don't think it was too bad, though.

I think it's the sort of thing, because of the quality,

because it's got the Gillows stamp, even if it's late Gillows,

it's a very, very good example and I think you would probably get

£1,500 or £2,000 if you were to try and sell it today.

Right. Well, I've not lost anything, have I?

-You've not lost anything. Exactly, exactly.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

You've probably got the history of golf balls there in two boxes.

They were left to us in a will, last year, by our uncle.

And they belonged to... Well, this guy on the photograph.

But that was his great granddad.

But they just look like a load of old golf balls to us.

But we thought they might have a value

because he kept them under the floorboards.

Well, like I say, you've got the history of golf there.

It's so unusual to see. I'd see two, three, or four

of these type a year. I mean, they're not common now.

This one, especially, that's a feather-filled leather ball.

They were incredibly expensive things to buy when they were new,

because the amount of work that went into them, a whole top hat full of feathers would be used.

I mean, goose feathers, crammed down, would be used to make a ball like that.

So you can imagine losing that on the golf course, you'd be pretty upset.

But then you run through the whole range.

You've got the leather and feather, you've got gutta-percha.

This one, here, 1840s.

Gutta-percha is a tree sap which, at boiling temperature, it hardens.

Then you can mould it and do this mesh pattern.

It was first designed by a chap called the Reverend Patterson,

which dramatically improved the flight of the ball from these plain ones.

So, this was a relative of yours here,

at the Grand Golf Tournament in 1867?

Yes. This man in the middle is James Anderson

and he was my great-great grandfather.

He lived in Edinburgh, he owned a distillery in Edinburgh.

And these, as far as we know, have come from him and been passed down

and ended up with my granddad, who was a very keen golfer.

And that's how our uncle got them.

He looks like he's had a good round. He looks pretty pleased with himself.

And he's playing with some big names there, Morris and various others.

I mean, he was obviously very well respected and this collection would

have been formed over quite a few generations, with grandfathers and

sons collecting, because they range from 1840s right up to the 1940s.

There are big-name golf balls.

They need to be named before they're really worth anything.

I've had a good look and I can't see any names on them.

But that's where the big money arises.

You've got tatty ones here which are worth £30, £40.

This one then goes up to £1,000.

-This one, £2,000.

-Oh, gosh!

Oh, my God!

I think comfortably you've got £10,000 there.

Gosh.

Doesn't look like it, does it?

Well, to me, it does.

Now, this is a rather lovely sedan chair.

Did you come in the chair this morning, ladies?

We didn't think it would bear both our weights, didn't we?

-So, no, I drove.

-No, we didn't.

-What's the story with this?

This belonged to Lady Jane Stanley,

-who lived in Knutsford in Brook House.

-So, just down the road.

Just down the road. She used to use it in Knutsford, but when she

actually died, she bequeathed this to the Knutsford May Day Committee.

So, every year since then, this sedan chair has been used

in our May Day Festival. And the festival has been going 146 years.

And each year a Queen is selected

and she's crowned on our heath.

And each year there's a different crown.

And the crown is the May Day Queen's ownership after she's crowned.

-Oh, she gets to keep it?

-She gets to keep it, yes.

Well, that's how we get them. Very often we're left them

or we're given them or whatever, so

we have a large selection, but we've just brought you two or three today.

-So tell me about this one, then.

-This one belonged to Nellie Gidman

in 1893 and this was bequeathed by the family to the Heritage Centre.

This one is Nellie Hird 1908

and this is a rather splendid one, because it's got the blue velvet.

So this, this is her wearing the crown, is it?

This is her, wearing the crown

-outside her front door.

-Oh, fabulous.

Because they would decorate the May Queen's house and this was

really moulded or designed on our recent Queen's Coronation crown.

-Oh, Queen Elizabeth's...

-I think that fits you better!

It does actually. I could get used to this!

Kneel! And where did you get these made?

These were made in a London jeweller,

but they're now made locally.

Well, we think probably

maybe about £1,000 each and, as I say, of course, the queen gets to

keep them after the ceremony, so every year there is a new one

-and she waltzes off with it.

-And the sedan chair, as well.

-And...yes.

-How wonderful.

-And it's been used ever since in the procession.

-And I love the crowns.

I quite fancy one of those myself, thank you very much.

So who is this?

I'd say he's an intelligent looking man in his smart green jacket?

-Who is he?

-He's reputed to be Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe.

If anyone's read an 18th century novel, it's Robinson Crusoe.

I mean, you know, this is the one.

Yes, I had a

copy of it given to me by my grandmother on my

-10th birthday.

-Is that your grandmother?

This is my grandmother, which is photographed by Dorothy Wilding.

-The society photographer.

-Indeed.

She's very glamorous. What did she do, then?

She was a very colourful lady.

She ran way from... Well, she ran away and married my grandfather

without parental permission.

-Oh, yes.

-And under age.

-A bolter. What they used to call a "bolter".

Indeed. And she was on the stage. He was as well

and then they split up quite shortly after my mother was born.

And she carried on, on the stage and she was in

The Chocolate Cream Soldier,

Bernard Shaw's musical, and she was also in silent films, as well.

You could understand her, you know, being in plays

and a successful actress wanting a figure of literature on her wall.

Now the question is, always, when you've got a portrait of

a famous personage, is it him?

And the sort of thing that you can look at to give an answer to that

question would be... Well, first of all this obvious inscription.

And the other thing is that there it says "Daniel Defoe, 1720"

and then some initials which I take to read something "M"

and indeed there's a clue here "by Mercier".

Now of course the famous Mercier was Philippe Mercier, but he's quite well

known and I would have to say that it's like handwriting, this just

isn't him, it's not Philippe Mercier.

The thing is that I just can't make his wig and his coat and his general

demeanour fit with 1720.

It's just a bit later than that.

It's closer to Gainsborough than it is to Mercier.

-More round 1750s, '60s, isn't he?

-Yes, '60s I think certainly

because he's quite close wigged and Daniel Defoe

would have had this enormous beehive confection thing.

-Well certainly bigger than that anyway.

-Yes.

He's got this kind of,

I don't know, late 18th century face and, actually,

if I was pushed, I would have to say slightly 19th century face and

I begin to sort of slightly worry about it.

And, of course, this thing owned by an actress,

I do get the impression, I get an idea of how she might have lived and,

like many things on her wall or all her possessions and things,

some of it might just have been a little bit smoke and mirrors,

a bit theatrical, not everything exactly what it purported to be.

Anyway, what this adds up to

is my feeling that despite a facial resemblance,

it quite possibly would be a look at Daniel Defoe from 100 years later,

or 50 years later.

The question is now, what value?

If we just put that question mark very

confidently and honestly on it, in terms of its,

both the sitter and the authorship, then we'll probably still be looking

at a very decorative picture because he's a handsome man. About £1,500.

-Great!

-So if we could prove that it is in fact Daniel Defoe,

well, really, I mean the sky's the limit, such an important man.

-Well, we'd be talking about a six figure sum.

-Really?

So there's a lot riding on it,

but I don't think we'll ever do it, I'm afraid.

So what have you brought me?

-My pot of gold.

-Your pot of gold.

-Yes.

-Wow, tell me, what is this pot of gold? Where did you get this from?

It was my grandfather's and he died in 1924 and he had a carousel

all his life, you know...

-The fun fair.

-Fun fair one, yes.

-OK.

And he... This is what he used to paint the horses

with and things like that, and...

-Oh, fantastic.

-Yeah, it's pure

-gold, 24 carat gold.

-Is it?

-Yes.

-Can I open the top and have a little look inside?

-Yes, certainly.

I've never had a pot of gold before.

-No rainbow today.

-No rainbow.

We need a rainbow, yes, we do, there you go. Wow, look at that!

That's unbelievable and it's powder.

It's like gold dust, yes. It's like gold dust.

It is exactly like gold dust.

That is incredible. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

Oh, you can smell... It has a smell about it, doesn't it?

Yes, oh, money does, doesn't it? Always.

THEY LAUGH

Well, we would have to obviously test it to make sure that it's absolutely,

but yes, I mean, you are talking about 22 carat, 23,

-up to 24 carat gold.

-Yes.

Unbelievable. Where do you keep this?

Oh, well, in a drawer.

-In a drawer.

-In a drawer, yeah.

Well, you don't want to spill any

-of this and you don't want to get it anywhere, do you?

-No, not really, no.

Well, you know, gold at the moment

today is just absolutely going through the roof so,

value wise... Do you know what kind of value a pot of gold

-like this would bring?

-No idea, that's why we've brought it.

Well, I would say this is going to be roughly around

about £7,000 to £9,000.

ONLOOKERS GASP

Well, it won't go back in the drawer, then!

-Well, don't start painting yourself with it either!

-Definitely not.

But it would have be tested, you know, to make sure that it has got

the purity of 23, 24 carat, but yes, at today's prices that is a fantastic

find at the end of your rainbow.

-My goodness. I shall go on holiday if I can get somebody to buy it.

-THEY LAUGH

And thank you so much, that's brilliant, absolutely marvellous.

That's amazing, gosh.

This is one of my favourite toys.

I'm a great fan of robots, I've got robots at home.

-How many of these do you have at home?

-Just one.

That's it, I'm afraid.

-A little lonely one.

-Exactly, yes.

And is it yours from childhood?

No, it belongs to my son.

It was given to him by his gran, but it was one of the...

We think it belonged to his dad.

OK, and let's take that back to date.

-When do you think?

-We think it's 1960's but we're not 100% sure.

Good stuff, OK. Let's look at him.

First of all, you've got a bit of the box here. Where's the rest of it?

I've no idea, that's how it come I'm afraid.

Well, boxes are important, but the good thing is that he has been

in the bottom part of the box and, as a result, is in good condition.

He is a Japanese robot and do you know who he's made by?

No idea at all. We don't know hardly anything at all about him.

OK. OK, I'm going to prize open the front door here

and if you look down here in that corner you can see a little white

label, and on it is a sort of diamond shape and in the middle it says "SH".

And that is the trademark for a company called Horikawa.

Japanese company, started in business in 1959

and it produced some of the great and collectable space toys of the period.

Japan really was very clever in that it zeroed in on space toys as being

a unique product and it was one that was sold throughout the world,

particularly in The States, but obviously throughout Europe, as well.

Dating from about 1963, '64, it's called

the "Space Explorer".

That's what it would have said on the box lid, had you had the box lid.

-Yes.

-It would have said "Space Explorer"

and what it does is it walks forward and kills people.

-That's right.

-So, shall we?

-Yeah.

Stand back.

ROBOT CLICKS RAPIDLY

-Very noisy.

-OK, well, that's dealt with the cameraman, the sound

crew and the director. Great object.

Value? What's it worth? It's going to be worth between about £200 and £300.

It's an absolute cracker

so I think what you need to do now is just go home and buy him a friend.

That would be good. If we can get him a friend, that would be nice.

This is an absolutely stunning binding.

I can't help think that whoever owned it must have felt it was one

of their most treasured possessions. What do you make of it?

I know absolutely nothing about it. It was just found.

When my father died, it was found in a drawer with lots

of other little bits and pieces, snuff boxes and things like that.

-So, it's a wonderful binding.

-Yeah.

-Let's see what's inside.

Right, well it's French. "Etrennes mignones, curieuses et utiles".

What it is, is

a very sweet little New Year's gift of curious and useful information and

it's "pour l'annee", for the year, "mille sept cents quatre vingt six".

So it's for the year 1786.

-Goodness me.

-Three years before the French Revolution.

-Gracious me!

So this very lavish binding, you can sort of understand now why it's so

beautiful and over the top.

So made in France.

In fact, it's what we call an almanac, useful information.

Let's see what else is inside. We've got February here, the month

of February. This is all the...

Every day of February is a saints day and so that you knew, if you were a

French lady in the late 18th century, probably be Catholic and you would

therefore want to know what saints day it was each day of the week.

-Yeah.

-It also has all the sovereigns of Europe for this year, 1786, and so

here we are, England, "Angleterre", George of Brunswick, George III.

He was king in 1760,

-so just sort of useful information.

-Yeah.

-Trivia if you like.

-Yeah.

And then here there are all sorts of information about

carriages, the cost of carriages.

So if you were taking a carriage to Aix in Provence

-which carriages you would take.

-So it's a bit like a train timetable.

It's exactly like a train timetable. This one as well, very unusually,

has a mirror in the front of it.

So we really get the feel that this

-was made for a lady.

-Which is still intact after all that time!

You do just wonder, you know, who first looked in that mirror,

don't you, when they received this New Year's gift?

And then a small silk pocket in the back for

perhaps the odd billet doux would have been sort of tucked in there.

-Yes.

-The condition is not terrific, and so I suppose when it comes to

a valuation for something like this you have to take that into account.

If this was to appear at auction now

I think it would probably fetch something in the region of £700.

No! My goodness me.

A lot of people queuing here today at Tatton Park, not surprisingly

because I think we've had something like 2,000 people turn up today.

So, I've taken the advantage of a lull in the ceramics queue to drag

along Steven Moore, our ceramics specialist. Steven, I wanted to ask

you, as I'm asking all our experts in this series, what is the item

that you would most like to see and what's the item you see the most of?

Most of, no contest, Japanese eggshell porcelain.

-We see tons of it.

-And why is this so common, or so popular, then?

There's various reasons. The main reason is that...

I think because it was so fine, and if you look at how thin it is,

it's called "eggshell" for a reason, it was kind of used once, the tea

went cold because it's so thin and it was put away in the sideboard.

-Actually, yes, it is.

-But the more interesting reason for me is that

in the '40s and '50s when, you know, drab post war period when

-coloured ware was banned from sale in England...

-It was banned, why?

It was banned. For export.

They weren't selling in the domestic market because they were wanting to

-sell it abroad for foreign currency.

-Oh, I see.

-And it was also seen

as an extravagance in the post war era, so if you were

a son or a husband or a brother out on National Service in the Far East

and you saw this exotic with Mount Fuji, geisha girls,

you know, very fine and delicate, you'd buy it for your mother

or your wife, great auntie.

It would be brought back as this amazing thing of wonder, very fine,

very delicate. You hold the cup up, it's got a Geisha girl in the bottom.

Yes, I can see that, there. Look there she is.

To drab 1940's Britain, this would have been a thing of wonder, so it

was cherished and reminded them every time they used it of their loved ones

fighting the war or doing National Service, so they have

a real emotive power in a family.

The sad thing is, they're worth next to nothing.

-They're worth next to nothing, really?

-Next to nothing, yes.

-Ouch.

So if this is what you see the most of,

on the flip side what would you most like to see?

Well, it's slightly controversial because it's not ceramic,

it's furniture which is a love of mine as well.

And it combines two loves because

my other love is art, Francis Bacon is one of my favourite artists,

the man known for his screaming Popes, all those agonised

tortured paintings. But what a lot of people don't realise is that before

he became famous as an artist he was

an interior designer and designed furniture and rugs.

I had no idea.

They are very rare, nobody's ever seen them.

Two or three of his rugs exist.

Two in the V&A, two were discovered a couple of

years back and came up for auction but then were withdrawn for sale

before they were sold, but nobody has seen any of his furniture ever.

And were pictures taken at the time of it?

Fortunately yes, we have this book, this is the Studio from 1930.

Here is an article of photographs taken in his studio,

which was a converted garage, of furniture he designed.

Here we've got the bottom of a rug there signed Francis Bacon.

There's another one here, but this is his furniture.

It's very typical of its era, chrome, glass, metal, coloured, enamelling.

It's in the manner of Eileen Grey who was an Irish artist influenced by

Paris, who lived in Paris. Bacon worked in Paris as well

and I think he'd probably seen Eileen Grey's work.

If you like it is an ersatz

version of Eileen Grey, but because it's Francis Bacon, because nobody's

ever seen a single piece of this, if something like this dressing table,

if that came to the market, one hundred, two hundred

thousand pounds, the right piece could be worth a million pounds.

-A million pounds?

-A million pounds.

Well, if you happen to be nursing a piece of Francis Bacon furniture

in your home, or a rug, or anything else

that will quicken Steven's heart, get in touch.

This is a beautiful Victorian oil painting.

Tell me, where did you get it from?

At the local art shop in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in 1988.

They did a Christmas show of paintings and we always

went along and my husband fell in love with it, because of the dog.

He thought it reminded him of one he had when he was

10 or 12 years old.

Well, how lovely, because normally

with these types of Victorian paintings people are attracted to

them because they're so sentimental, but you know certainly if they have a

dog that looks like this dog, they're going to be attracted to the picture.

Even in these modern days this is how pictures are sold.

Clients are attracted to them by the subject.

Now tell me, do you know about the artist? The picture is signed.

No, I don't know anything.

GA Holmes is George Augustus Holmes.

He was quite a prolific painter, based in London

and I notice also it's dated, looks like '76, so that would be 1876.

He didn't really become a Royal Academician, but he did exhibit

at the Royal Academy about 20 times.

Tell me, do you still love the picture?

Yes, because John liked it and unfortunately he's passed away so

I do, I like it, it's very nice, it feels restful and feels like home.

-Where does it belong at the moment?

-Well...

It's in my house at the moment,

got a little bit more wall space so at the moment it's in

one of the spare bedrooms.

So it's been discarded into the spare bedroom. Why's that?

Well, it's a lovely picture, it's very sort of chocolate box for me,

but I guess I don't have quite the connection that my mum had with it.

So it's on the wall but it's not in a prominent place at the moment.

I love the subject and it's so sort of angelic and sweet how

the child looks, and the new puppy.

What slightly concerns me is the condition. You can see,

certainly from the lower edge, two inches up, that there's been quite a

lot of restoration, re-touching, and the old, original paint may have

flaked and then it's been retouched and it's slightly discoloured now.

But that, you know, it's still a lovely picture from

the Victorian period. If it was in perfect original condition, we'd be

looking at probably £4,000 to £6,000.

I think in the present state with that restoration on the lower edge,

maybe £3,000 to £5,000. But I think the important

thing is that perhaps Mum loves the picture more than you, and that might

be unfair and perhaps the picture should come back to your house.

-Thank you.

-OK. We'll do the deal.

THEY LAUGH

It's been in the family for quite some time. It belonged

to my husband's mother and she was Scottish but we don't

really know whether it's got any Scottish

connections at all, so we really don't know anything about it at all.

-Waiting to see what you tell me.

-It's not Scottish, you know that.

But do you have any idea where it may be from?

Not at all, no, I really don't know anything about it.

That's why I brought it today.

-OK and when you study the top.

-Yes.

-What do you see there?

-Well, at first

I thought it was sort of sailing images or something like that.

-Yes, yeah.

-Not really certain at all, can't make a lot out of that.

You can see, if you look very carefully, you can see an anchor.

-Yes.

-And then you can see these little hammocks.

Yes, and I thought actually that was part of a

sail, but is that a hammock as well?

It could be, but I thought it was a hammock and then we've got

canons and canon balls.

The beauty of this particular piece is actually when it's opened.

-Yes.

-Because in its heyday this is what it looked like.

-Much more colour.

-The colour was just there.

It's absolutely fantastic.

Yes, it's very pretty, I love this part as well. That's gorgeous.

-Somebody's going to tell us where this church is.

-Yes.

If you look really hard, can you see these little figures?

-Yes, I can, yes.

-Do they say anything to you?

Little sort of Georgian figures or something like that, possibly, yes?

-Don't know.

-What do they look like?

-Just sort of...

-Military?

-Yes, possibly.

-Soldiers.

This box was made by soldiers.

Gracious.

-Prisoner of war.

-Oh, gracious, oh, I didn't know that.

This was made by Napoleonic French prisoners of war

around the 1800s, 1805.

Tiny little pieces of straw and they had almost like a little guillotine

and they used to cut the piece of straw in half and just lay them down.

Incredible, it's incredible, it really is.

Piece by piece and then later, hand coloured.

It's the colours which are so vibrant.

Subject here is Aesop's Fables, but again when I open this other

compartment

it's just wow. It's just unbelievable.

The prisoners of war, what they used to do, they would

sit down and make these things and then they would come out of

the prison, something like an open prison, and sell them on the streets.

Good gracious.

As an ordinary box like that, as soon as I saw it, I thought...

that's worth between £500 and £600.

It may fetch £1,000, pushing it.

But when you see that...

you say £3,000.

You are joking, you're not serious?

No, I'm not a comedian. THEY LAUGH

Goodness me.

You've brought along a box with historical diamonds,

so the first thought that I've got when I see this box is could it

possibly contain historical diamonds?

Because if you do, what could they be?

We open up the box lid,

revealing this kaleidoscope of enormous, great big stones.

Now the initial reaction is if these are genuine, historical diamonds,

we're going to have to have a ring of security around us here

five foot wide.

Clearly these are not genuine diamonds, they're facsimiles.

They're copies that were made, usually in around about the 1910s,

1920s, right the way through to the 1940s and '50s that typically would

have been used by a jeweller in his shop window,

so how on earth did you manage to come by them?

We purchased them about 20 years ago at a sale.

And what drew you to them?

We just heard about the sale and

we went up and had a look at them and we seen those.

Well, they're meant to impress and do you find them quite impressive?

-Oh, yes, yes.

-Because I do.

Over the years I've seen quite a few of these sets and no matter how many

times you see them, you see the kind of symmetry of them and also

the fact that they're direct replicas of the genuine stones.

So it gives a sense, perhaps, of the size of diamonds, when you get

these important stones. These were used for teaching as well if you've

got all the stones here which, incidentally, are made out of glass.

There you've got in the lid, all the descriptions of each of the different

-stones, so you can teach yourself about historical diamonds.

-Yeah.

My favourite has to be The Hope.

This is described here.

The Hope Diamond, 44 carats, a blue diamond of incredible depth,

in fact the real stone is deeper blue than this.

Right.

I mean we're not going to go on to the values of these things

if they were genuine, but many, many millions of pounds.

What was paid for this set?

-Do you remember?

-20 years ago I think we paid £100.

Interesting. Your £100 investment today I

think at auction would make something in the region of £2,000 to £3,000.

Wow! I didn't expect that at all.

Very good, thanks very much.

Believe me, they'd be queuing up for it, they really would.

This would have been a lovely, little

cream boat, or sauce boat and made by the Worcester factory

in about 1752-53, quite early on in Worcester's history.

They started in 1751, but it's a bit of a wreck.

It's got an artificial handle, a wicker handle made for it.

It's got chips galore, but it's a lovely little pot.

The peculiar thing about the painter who painted all these little birds is

that he put different numbers of toes on his feet of the birds.

That one's got four toes, this one's got three toes.

That's crazy, isn't it?

Now the condition of it renders it not so very valuable. It would

have been a beautiful pot worth about three or four thousand pounds.

But the wreckage brings it down to a

few hundred, which is a shame, isn't it?

And this chap is perfect condition, except for a little tiny chip there

which is very negligible, but it's an extremely rare Worcester cream boat.

When I first saw this today, my heart quivered, because it's

one of the loveliest things I've ever been allowed to handle at a Roadshow.

It's so beautiful it just rings wonderful bells.

And terribly interesting, they've had a little bit of

damage before in the factory.

That tiny green patch has been put on

there by the painters in the factory to camouflage a little bit of damage.

-Gosh.

-So it was a risk getting some of these things through the factory.

It's very early days, 1751,

the Worcester factory had only just started.

Imagine just starting a business

-and you have to produce something as beautiful and delicate as that.

-Yes.

The landscapes, people climbing up ladders and little dogs down in there

in the arcade, and trees galore, a fantastic amount of exotic bird

flying up in the sky and a castle, incredible landscape indeed.

-And it's absolutely marvellous.

-Gosh.

Do you know about its history?

They're my friend's, and all I know is that they are inherited pieces.

Yes, well there's one pot of

this particular series and types made in 1751 which has the word "Wigornia"

under the base. Wigornia is the Latinised name for the City of

Worcester and that is probably the rarest Worcester pot

you'll ever come across, only one of them.

I looked at the bottom of this and it hasn't got the word "Wigornia".

If it had, it would be worth about £100,000, something like that.

But this isn't.

But one extremely like this one has been recently sold at auction

for £38,000.

Now this has got this little, tiny chip, so I'm going to have to reduce

the value of this down, but still call it a Worcester cream boat

of exceptional quality and rarity, so it's jolly nice.

-I wish it was mine.

-I know. I wish it was mine, so I'll let you know how

-much then I think it's worth.

-Go on.

-With this little bit of damage.

-Go on.

£20,000.

-That's still a lot.

-Still a lot, isn't it?

But it's a lovely pot, thank you for bringing it in.

I wish it was mine!

We've had a wonderful day here at Tatton Park and look at the crowds.

I think we're going to be here until pretty late.

-PLANE FLIES OVERHEAD

-And one other thing. Can you hear that?

The dulcet sound of a plane. There are planes going overhead

every three minutes, which isn't the easiest thing when you're filming.

But we battled on regardless and had a marvellous time.

From the Antiques Roadshow team

in Tatton Park in Cheshire, until next time, bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd