Weald and Downland 2 Antiques Roadshow

Today we've come to a corner of West Sussex which is crammed

with great houses - Arundel Castle, Uppark, Petworth, Goodwood.

But you know, aristocratic grandeur isn't everything.

This simple 17th-century cottage was originally built on wasteland

and would have belonged to a poor, landless labourer.

Once they were commonplace, now it's a rarity.

But it's just one of a collection of buildings that make up

the beautiful Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

And we've returned with the Antiques Roadshow for a second visit.

All too often it's the ordinary things from the past

that get discarded or thrown away,

and not just the small things either.

Here at the Weald and Downland Museum near Chichester

is a collection of buildings

that were almost destroyed

until they were dismantled and brought here piece by piece.

And just like some of the smaller or more humble objects

that we see on the Roadshow,

each of these simple buildings has a story to tell.

As this 15th-century building was dismantled and brought here,

it began to reveal secrets about itself.

Once the more modern additions of a floor and walls had been stripped away,

soot on the beams up there revealed that there must have once been an open hearth here,

with the smoke going straight up to the ceiling.

And above that central hall, where the bedroom is,

the beams reveal more about how life was once lived here.

This groove next to the window shows that there must once have been...

a shutter.

And I couldn't resist showing you this...

Tada! A loo.

And you would place your bottom on the hole - rather draughty -

and then what fell to the ground below would be mixed with the ashes from the fire

and spread as fertiliser on the land. You see - nothing was wasted.

These more ordinary homes reveal so much about the way our forbears lived,

what they valued and what they believed.

A fitting backdrop for our specialists

as they greet the visitors to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

So are you all sisters, or not?

-We are.

-Yes.

-We're sisters.

And which of you owns the clock?

I own the clock.

I inherited the clock 20 years ago from my grandmother. She...

And do you like it?

Um, can I be honest?

Yes. Of course.

To my shame, I didn't really like it.

So what did you do with it, if you hated it so much?

I decided not to have it in my '70s bungalow

and kept it in my garage, to keep the door open.

HE LAUGHS

It's a very heavy doorstop. It must have been a massive door.

It was, yes!

And it clearly isn't there any more, so what happened since then?

Well, I appreciated that it was a bit too good to be a doorstop

and I decided to give it to my sister, Jacqui,

to take care of for the last few years.

And do you love it or hate it?

-Well, I wouldn't say hate, but not far off.

-Don't tell Mum!

So hang on, ladies, none of you love it at all, do you? It's a real shame.

Do you not think it's a thing of beauty?

I decided to look into it a little more, and as soon as I looked

into it a little more, I started to appreciate it more.

Did you come up with any date from your research?

Or shall I tell you all about it?

Well, I know it's French Empire, but I don't quite know what that meant.

You're absolutely right, it is French Empire through and through.

Dating from the early part of the 19th century.

Now, the casting is after a design

by a French sculptor called Claude Michallon.

He actually died in 1799, but this particular theme -

which is a very romantic theme - was very popular throughout the latter years

of the 18th century and particularly the early years of the 19th century.

Wonderful quality.

Bronze?

Oh, it's all bronze.

Ormolu literally means gilt bronze,

and the figures themselves are solid bronze.

The patination's not brilliant - it could do with quite a decent restoration, to be honest,

but the figures are beautifully cast.

The wonderful casting around the dial bezel is lovely, and running down here...

I mean, just look at the casting of this frieze along the base.

The feet... we've got little rams' masks

and claw feet, everything you'd want.

So none of you really love it, and I actually find that rather sad.

So I hope that when I quote you a figure,

-it might become even more appealing.

-OK.

Well, it's going to make...

£9,000 to £12,000 at auction.

Wow!

Wow!

And in cracking good condition, in retail condition,

you're not going to buy it for less than £20,000.

No way!

-Wow.

-So from garage doorstop to 20,000 -

it's sort of a useful climb, isn't it?

Yes, my friend, Neil, used to lean his skateboard up against it,

-so we shall stop doing things like that.

-Stop him doing that.

When I see pen and ink drawings like this,

with cats with mad staring eyes out at me,

it always means one thing - the wonderful Louis Wain.

And I see at the bottom of this drawing,

we've got... Is it "The Harrogate Cure"?

That's right, yes, exactly.

And what has the Harrogate Cure got to do with this?

Because my wife's aunt

was a physiotherapist in Harrogate,

at the baths,

and she - in the end - was allowed to take this away

when they closed the medical side of the baths down.

And so did Louis Wain go up there to take the cure, do we think?

Oh, yes, almost certainly he did, and these are caricatures

of the people that he would have seen at the time.

And poor Louis Wain needed to take the cure quite often.

Oh, he did, yes.

The poor man went slightly mad at the end,

-although he was cared for.

-Absolutely, yes.

-And he is the most wonderful artist.

-Yes.

There are many, many fakes of these. And I always say to people who say,

"How do you know a right one from a wrong one?"

I say, "Just look at the eyes - if they're mad

"and they're staring out at you, they're right."

I see that the violin's been repainted.

Yes. Obviously, somebody told him that he'd got it the wrong way round.

Well, it's a wonderful palm court orchestra, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely, from Harrogate.

-You've brought this, but you've also brought this one.

-Yes.

Does this belong to the same aunt, or not?

No, it's an entirely separate person.

This was a person we affectionately called "Auntie Doddles"...

Yes.

-..whose real name was Winifred Dodd.

-Aha.

And she was a fairly important person in the Savage Club.

-Which, as we know, the Savage Club - wonderful sketching club.

-Absolutely.

EH Shepard was a member of the Savage Club.

Well, I think this is...fabuloso, absolutely amazing.

We've got Ernest Howard Shepard,

who is the famous artist that illustrated Winnie The Pooh.

In here, we've got Pooh, we've got Piglet, we've got Moley,

we've got Badger and we've got Ratty playing Cowboys and Indians -

-or mostly Indians here.

-Yes!

-And absolutely charming,

-and he would have probably done this for her, at the Savage Club.

-Almost certainly.

-On one of the evenings.

-Yes.

Well, I think it's fantastic.

We have these two wonderful drawings from two different artists.

And the first one here - this Louis Wain -

it's a very large drawing by him.

It's not coloured, which will affect the value, but it is wonderful,

and I think that, at auction, would make certainly £4,000 to £6,000.

Good heavens! That's astonishing!

But we come to Auntie Doddles' picture.

Very kind of her to let that come into your family and come down to you.

It is 1966, so it's painted after the original books were illustrated by Shepard,

which is the '20s and '30s, but that would make the minimum -

and I mean the minimum -

of £6,000 to £9,000.

Quite unbelievable. Quite astonishing.

So what we've got here is a Spirit of Ecstasy which is a car mascot

that turns up reasonably regularly on the Antiques Roadshow.

Obviously, it comes off a Rolls-Royce, it's by a man called

Charles Sykes, but is it this Rolls-Royce that it comes off?

That one, yes, that vehicle there, yes.

It's a rather smart-looking car, but it's not just a regular car, is it?

No, it's an ambulance.

It was built specifically as an ambulance for carrying patients.

Really? And whose was it?

Well, my mother and father, it was their company,

and they started it on the advice of the Chief Constable of Blackpool.

Because the ambulance service, in those days -

1927 - was run by the police and fire brigade,

and there were lots of requests for ambulance transport

for people taken sick in Blackpool on their holidays,

to go to all parts of the United Kingdom.

So this was a sort of very up-market service, by the looks of it.

I mean, what luxury. I mean, look at this!

-Here she is opened up, and you've got a silk eiderdown.

-That's right, yes, yes.

And so this was in the '20s, and what happened in the Second War - did they carry on running this...?

They carried on running right through the war, yes.

And then after the war, it has a rather strange transformation.

What happened here?

Well, the thing was, the NHS started,

and these vehicles had to carry more patients,

so they had another body put on it

so it could conform to the... not exactly regulations but the standards of the day.

And that was how it was until the business finished in 1958.

-And did you ever drive it?

-I did drive it, yes, but...

Really? I bet there weren't many other young men who learned to drive on a Rolls-Royce then.

No, I don't think there were!

Well, but we have to value it. I'd love to value the car,

-but of course that's now gone.

-No, that's gone, yes.

Yes. These mascots turn up, you know, fairly regularly on the market.

It's worth about £1,500, maybe a little bit more.

Yeah.

You know, it's not an unusual piece, but it's a lovely thing,

but a great story.

-Thank you so much.

-Yeah, thank you.

So, a photograph of King Edward VII, his favourite and most famous racehorse, Persimmon,

-a pair of cufflinks and a letter.

-Yes.

-Tell me about it all.

My husband's grandfather rode Persimmon

and he won the Derby for Edward VII

and he also rode for Lillie Langtry, and she was so delighted,

she gave him the cufflinks and wrote the letter.

Fantastic. And that's very succinctly put,

but of course the story's much, much wider,

-because it illustrates Edwardian society, doesn't it?

-Yes.

And the King's victory at the Derby in 1909 with Persimmon

was something that he felt enormously keenly,

because there was no question of flattery or advancement,

it was simply his horsemanship that took a young foal

and chose it and had it trained and had it ridden, raced at the Derby,

and it won a neck over Leopold de Rothschild's horse who was called St Frusquin,

-and this is the centre of Edwardian society, isn't it?

-Yes.

Terribly, terribly exciting. It's a very rich society and also, owing to Edward VII,

a very democratic one,

-because Edward VII liked fascinating, rich, colourful people.

-Yes.

-And he was also rather keen on young ladies, wasn't he?

-Yes.

And so, in a sense, what you've brought before us today exemplifies all of that.

We see the King here, not capable of riding a horse at all, because he's rather corpulent -

he also liked food as well and cigars.

And it was a massive victory for the most important person, arguably, in the world.

So here we see something intimately associated with him, and intimately associated,

-because there's a letter from Lillie Langtry, isn't there?

-There is.

Her initials, LL - Lillie Langtry.

And..."Dear Mr Watts, I hope you will accept these links as a souvenir

"of the first time you steered Milford to victory.

"I hope that you will ride him many times and that it will always be thus.

"With kindest regards, yours sincerely, Lillie Langtry."

The Jersey Lillie, the great friend of King Edward VII,

and this comes not only from the King's heart vicariously

but also from her heart and her monogram here.

But here we see she wants to give links to him, to commemorate that,

and they're made of enamelled gold and set with diamonds.

-They're the racing colours too.

-Oh, how... That's marvellous.

But on the outside in facsimile of her handwriting,

it says "J Watts..." - Jack Watts - "..from Lillie Langtry".

-Magical stuff, isn't it?

-It's a lovely souvenir.

Lovely souvenir and one of the most extraordinary of pieces to turn up on the show here

and very, very touching for a million different reasons, which I've just tried to articulate.

And what is fascinating is that the memory of this is very far from faded away -

people really know about racing, they know about Persimmon

and they know about cufflinks,

and so we need to try to understand what these might be worth.

And with the wind in the right direction and the right horses on the turf and the right bets being placed,

maybe...

maybe £12,000 to £15,000.

Really? Oh... Oh!

Thank you very much!

Now, this is what I call a decent-sized goblet.

I wouldn't mind having a glass or two of wine

out of this from time to time. Do you use it?

No. No, it's been in a box for the last 80 years, I believe.

That's a crime! Where's it been before that?

Who knows - I wasn't around then.

Go on, tell me...tell me the story.

Grandfather went to the Colonies in about 1927,

to go and grow tobacco,

and that was put into a box, and that's about all I know of it.

It came out once... once every couple of years

and was put back in the box, and I know nothing about it.

Well, I can help you on that score. So this is a well-travelled goblet?

To the Colonies and back.

Which colony?

-Southern Rhodesia it was then, and now it's Zimbabwe.

-OK.

Well, you say it went out there in the '20s,

but it was made at a date that's actually quite easy to work out

and quite easy to be very specific about,

because in there, there's a silver coin,

and it says on it 1787,

and I bet you, a penny to a pound,

that that is exactly the year it was made.

That's news.

It's quite interesting, because this is known as a lemon-squeezer-footed goblet,

and the reason it's called a lemon-squeezer-footed goblet

is so obvious that it's barely worth, you know, explaining why.

But there it is, this is a moulded feature,

always, almost invariably, always on a square foot...

It's designed just like a modern lemon squeezer in reverse,

and the idea is that it would take light in and shimmer,

candlelit - 1787, candlelight.

And so it's a really stonking thing, this.

I mean, I really like it a lot,

and there's been some discussion about when -

inevitably amongst glass nutters - when was the earliest lemon squeezer.

Probably 15 years before this, but even so, isn't that a beauty?

It is.

Well, I reckon, all things considered, little chippy,

so it's a bit off, but then they're always chipped.

But it's a lovely historic thing with that great coin.

Three, four... £300 or £400, I should think.

Is it? Right.

So I've given you the good news. Now I'm going to give you an order.

Please, please, use it once in a while.

All right.

It was given to me by the daughter of an old friend of mine

who died three years ago, and I've had it ever since.

And what have you discovered about it in the meantime?

Well, I haven't actually done anything at all, apart from...

I thought it was Japanese,

because these waves were very similar

to the waves in a Japanese woodcut picture.

-Yes, the famous...

-18th-century one.

The famous Hokusai breaking waves and Mount Fuji.

Yes, yes, yeah.

You're absolutely right. This is a very, very typical way of rendering waves.

It's almost like a hand comes off the top of the spume, and these little flecks.

In this case, you've got a ground of silver

and then the whole design has been worked in repousse - in other words, from the inside,

pushing it out to the design that's been scratched on the surface.

And then to give you that extra dramatic effect,

you've got the spume - these little flecks of water -

and the effect is absolutely amazing.

But what is even more amazing,

or what you would least expect to find in the ocean,

-is a tiger.

-Yeah.

And rather a spectacular tiger, if you look really closely at it.

Yes, it's got jewelled eyes.

He's got jewelled eyes. That looks like some sort of mother-of-pearl or shell.

And his stripes, against this coppery fur,

beautifully fur incised...

Look at that, the little flecks of gold

and then a little bit of wave, and there, his hindquarters, and then his tail coming up here.

Yeah.

And as we rotate it, we see the mark of the maker -

sadly, I don't recognise that maker's mark.

We can - I'm afraid - not tell you who that is at the moment.

Looking round, we have a whole family of tigers!

Here we have Daddy tiger with the thick-set eyebrows,

and is that a baby?

A gold tiger with bronze stripes.

And gold teeth.

Fantastic detail, and then above it all... Where there's a tiger,

there's going to be a dragon.

There is the dragon, and sadly we've only got one of his whiskers.

Yes, I know and I know where the other one went.

Where did it go?

Well, I found it and I didn't know what it was,

and it was while my friend was still alive, and I put it into a box.

I thought it was a piece off of a brooch or something.

-Yeah.

-It looked like that, but since then I've realised

that that's what it was, but of course I haven't got it.

-And you don't know where the box is?

-No.

-What a shame. It must turn up.

And the whole thing is presented on this lacquered stand.

-It wasn't of course originally fitted for electricity.

-No.

I suspect it was originally a lamp base for an oil lamp.

It dates to the very end of the 19th century,

or maybe the early 20th century, and it is absolutely spectacular.

It shows you what Japanese metalworkers could do, and, well...

I think that's one of the best pieces of Japanese metalwork

I have ever seen on the Antiques Roadshow.

It is absolutely spectacular.

-Would you buy one of these, if you saw it in a shop?

-I would.

-Are you sure?

-Yes, cos I mean I've always loved it.

Are you in the habit of spending £5,000 on lamps?

No, I'm not.

LAUGHTER

Well, no, I'm afraid I couldn't afford that.

-Well, that's...

-It's a great thing.

It is, I just love it.

You've brought me in a collection of letters

from a distant ancestor of yours.

Can you just tell me a bit about who he was

and why these letters are of interest?

-His name was William Hodges.

-Right, OK.

And in 1798-99,

he was convicted of stealing a box of haberdashery

from a shop in Covent Garden.

Right.

He was chased out of the shop by the shopkeeper's wife,

so they are quite convinced that he had the box.

He was then convicted of stealing

-and he was sentenced to death. He was 16, 17 at the time.

-Yes.

His life sentence was commuted to transportation,

and so it was in about 1800 that he was transported to Australia.

Australia, OK.

And these are letters that he's written...

-There's a couple written to his brother.

-Yes.

Just after he's been convicted and on board one of the prison ships,

or on board one of the ships, as it's about to go out to Australia.

-Yes, and this was in Portsmouth, in Langstone Harbour.

-Right, OK.

On a ship called La Forteyn. And he was then...

wrote to his brother from the ship,

the hulk ship where people were kept for quite some considerable time

before they were transported.

In this particular letter... he's quite a practical man, isn't he?

-He seems to be.

-He's asking for a list of things to sort of see him

through the sea voyage.

"If you will be so good as to send me

"a few necessaries to take with me, such as a pound of tobacco,

"a piece of bacon, some tea and sugar

"and a few herbs, such as garlic and mint,

"and some onions and a pocket knife

"and the silk handkerchief."

-He then went out to Australia.

-Yes.

And what happened to him then?

Well, um, presumably, he began to earn a living

and, as he became more important within the town,

he then applied for an absolute pardon

-from the Governor at the time.

-And that was given to him?

It was eventually.

In 1821, he was... Having sent a petition to Governor Macquarie...

-Right.

-..he was then granted his pardon.

-And this is the petition here...

-This is the petition.

..where he writes to Macquarie, as you say, asking for complete pardon.

William Hodges.

-And it's granted.

-It is.

-And he then makes good his life, doesn't he?

-He does.

He sort of makes recompense for his past crime,

which he has sort of admitted to and confessed to and...

-in some of the letters or one of the letters.

-And calls it his "folly".

And calls it his folly, absolutely. And we've got a little newspaper cutting here

-from the Sidney Gazette, 1838.

-Eight.

Where it records his death -

"William Hodges of King Street, Sydney,

"aged 55, and 35 years a resident in the colony.

"Many years a respectable licensed victualler of this town."

-It's a lovely little archive you've got here.

-Yes.

It's a first-hand account of his... of the transportation.

Particularly in Australia, there's a big market

for these details of families that went out to Australia,

settled, and the information that he gives.

If an archive like this came up onto the market,

I think you're easily looking at something between £5,000 and £7,000.

-Really?

-Yes, it's a very important little collection of stuff.

Gosh, that really is amazing.

Considering we've had it in the family for 300 years,

-I guess it's not going anywhere.

-Brilliant, thank you so much.

Thank you.

A painting has been brought along to the Roadshow today that I feel

I have a bit of a connection with.

It's... Well, the signature on it is Hans van Meegeren.

I made a programme about Hans van Meegeren with one of our specialists, Philip Mould -

it was called Fake Or Fortune.

I don't know if you saw it, but it was all about van Meegeren,

who was a Dutch master faker in the run up to, and during, the Second World War

and he managed to convince the most august and learned art institutions in Holland

that the Vermeers he sold them - the great master Vermeer -

that those paintings were genuine.

In fact, they weren't Vermeer's, he had done them,

and it was an absolute scandal when it was found out,

so to see one of his paintings brought along today...

I can hardly believe it!

Ian, hello, thank you so much for letting us see this.

Dendy, Hans van Meegeren.

I mean, I know him as someone who faked Vermeers -

-this doesn't look like one.

-No, it looks like a Kees van Dongen,

like an Impressionist picture.

I mean, you know, when he was discovered

to be the great faker just after the war,

cos Hermann Goering had one in his collection - the famous Nazi -

and they found this,

they went back to the dealer that Goering bought it from

and found out that the dealer had bought it from van Meegeren,

and then van Meegeren owned up to faking all these pictures.

He became very, very famous,

and his works were making quite a lot of money.

He made a lot of money from his fakes before the war, and after the war,

people were collecting him because he was an infamous person.

So, Ian, where did you get this from?

It was left to me by two friends, a husband and wife,

who died a couple of years ago, and it was left me in the will.

Do you know where they got it from?

She was actually an antique and art dealer during the 1950s.

Yeah.

And I think they acquired it sometime in the '80s from an auction.

So you've brought in this picture

that is not like a Hans van Meegeren that I have seen before.

It's Impressionist, it's not like his own pictures,

which were quite classical, the things he was painting before the war, before he started faking.

And I look at this and I think this is somebody faking Hans van Meegeren.

So the faker has been faked.

So what have we got, in terms of value?

The van Meegeren that is not a van Meegeren, the fake of a fake.

I'd probably put on it, for decorative purposes,

about £200 to £300.

I don't think we've made your day, have we, Ian?

I like the painting, so...

Well, very interesting to have something like that in your house with that name on.

So these two objects have just met. Seems like a happy meeting.

Yes.

And what I will say to you both, before we get started,

is that they come from the same stable.

So...

you're the owner of the bear.

The bear has been in my family probably since new.

Right.

I remember it only on special occasions,

but most of its life, I think it's been locked up in a drawer.

So he's having a good outing today. And what about yours?

Well, mine's a mystery, because love at first sight.

I met him at an auction, and he was a must-have.

Well, the firm of manufacture is in fact a Parisian firm

called Roullet et Descamps

in the Marais district of Paris.

And they were established in 1866 and interestingly,

they ceased production in 1995, so really quite modern.

Oh.

And they were in their time - and continued to be - the best,

the most well-known and produced wonderful automata.

Both of them are made of rabbit skin,

so your rabbit skin has been dyed brown, beautifully brown bear,

and here we have a lovely white rabbit encased in a lettuce.

And yours dates from about 1900,

and yours is a second best.

Yes. Ah.

At 1930.

They were very popular, and I have to say

it wasn't uncommon that they were kept for high days and holidays.

They were the sort of thing that were brought out

after a special event to entertain the children

when they were getting a bit out of hand.

But I think, personally, they were adults' toys.

MAN LAUGHS

They're both wind-up, but this one has a little secret in store,

because, if we turn it round, in the back here...

is a flap.

I never knew that!

And into that, you put a battery, so it was clockwork

and battery-driven,

and this had light-bulb eyes that lit up...

-The hussy!

-LAUGHTER

So, very collectable, highly desirable,

and I suppose we should talk about values.

So yours is the oldest, but actually, interestingly,

-it is the less valuable of the two...

-Aw...

-..and is worth between £400 and £600.

-Oh.

Yours, being the younger of the two,

is slightly more sophisticated with its light-up eyes,

its movement, but also it's musical,

and for that reason, it's worth a little bit more

at £800 to £1,200.

Wow.

And now I think we should see them doing their thing.

Over to you.

-Gentleman first, or both together?

-I think together -

-if you can get them going together, that would be great.

-I'll have a word,

cos she starts... Come on, then, off you go.

There's something about animals that move

and have their own personality,

-and how well they've got on together this afternoon!

-They have!

This table, and the chairs and sideboard, were bought by my grandmother in the early 1930s

and have been in use by our family every day ever since.

-Fantastic. I mean that's the sort of thing I love to hear.

-Yes.

Many a sort of lovely Sunday roast. Since 1936?

-Well, or sooner, cos I have a photograph of her using it in 1936.

-Oh, really?

So she'd obviously bought it prior to then.

Absolutely marvellous, and there it is in its home as well,

and you have another photograph there too.

-This is the house it was bought for.

-Fantastic.

For me, looking at this photograph and seeing this table,

they match absolutely perfectly.

This table, in its own way,

is a middle-class dream of the 1930s family.

What you're looking at is a bit of everything put together.

It's middle class, it's middle way,

so you've got a little bit of the prevalent style of the day, Art Deco,

in these very straight lines,

nice geometric lines and strong, stepped feel.

-And then also, you've got a little bit of Arts and Crafts style in it too.

-Yes.

-Even with these little fantastically accentuated dovetail joints here.

-Yes.

Implying it's handmade, but it's not.

This was a typical piece you would buy in a department store.

-Right, yes.

-So it's a mass-produced piece of furniture.

-Yes.

In its own way, it sort of foresees the mass-produced utility furniture

-of just after the war.

-Yes.

-Of course this was made just before the war,

-and that is absolutely typical of a good, solid, middle-class home.

-Yes.

And this, with its fantastic rose garden, I notice here,

a gentleman posing in it, it's sort of Metro-land.

-Have you come across that term before?

-Yes, yes I have yes.

So you would have your job in the city

and you would catch the tube - part of the new tube networks -

out to your house, and it was your own sort of slice of the English rural idyll.

You had your garden,

-a very nice sort of mock Tudor house here with these beams along the top.

-Yes, yes.

And they're still around. I mean, wonderful build quality,

they're still around today. So when they bought the table, presumably this came with it?

I assume it was a set and bought at the same time.

Well, if you look at the lines here, these stepped lines,

you've got exactly that sort of geometric step line on here too.

Individually, the values are not great.

They're sturdy, solid pieces, they were made to last,

and a lot of them exist today.

And as a result, for the cabinet here,

it would struggle to make £100 at auction.

-Sure.

-And the table, again £100 to £150 perhaps with a set of chairs,

but again, they'd both struggle to sell at auction on occasion.

But for me, that's part of their appeal - they're good, solid pieces.

Where else - or what else -

can you get for £100 to £150 in solid wood like this?

-And the chairs are extremely comfortable.

-Well, that's good.

-Long Sunday roasts, that's precisely what you need to relax and sit back on.

-Yes.

I hope this lives by your front door.

It does live by my front door.

-Have you ever had to use it?

-No, thank God!

Well, we won't go into the rights and wrongs of defending the home.

-But this is what it was for.

-Yes.

It was for protecting an individual, and this is the individual.

It's like a truncheon, but it's not a truncheon, that's more official.

It's a night stick. It would have been used by a night watchman

as a personal reassurance, if not defence.

Do you know how old it is?

I would have said it was 1700s.

-I think it's right at the end of the 1700s.

-Right at the end.

I think...if we said 1800, we wouldn't be far out.

It certainly pre-dates the founding

of the police force by Robert Peel, Sir Robert Peel,

in the 1830s, 1840s.

And it was certainly carved by the individual that used it,

and he was probably the village beadle,

he was probably a night watchman at a big house, something like that.

-Somebody who was out at night... We've got his lantern there.

-Yes.

Beautifully represented. The details are gorgeous, aren't they?

-They're lovely.

-We've pointed out the lantern already...

the buttons on his coat, and what's he holding here?

It looks like a sword.

It does, doesn't it?

Now, whether a night watchman in a house would have had a sword,

I don't know. It's the most charming thing.

It comes into a category of item called Folk Art,

highly collectable, really desirable.

What's it worth?

It's worth the contents of your house in defence, but in real terms,

it's worth - in round figures - I'm going to say as much as £1,000.

How much?!

It's certainly worth £600 or £800,

and I know a lot of people would give more.

It's a wonderful, wonderful, desirable thing.

Thank you for telling me that. I don't think I'll leave it right by the front door any longer.

No, don't. No, no!

It's not often I get kind of emotionally screwed up

about an object, but I think this is fantastic.

Really fantastic. Where did you get it from?

My wife got it at a jumble sale in the early '70s,

that's as far as I know.

It was made by a factory in Europe called Meissen, in Germany.

Augustus the Strong, the Elector of Saxony

and King of Poland,

was a china maniac

and he wanted to build a palace, which he would stuff

with porcelain from all round the world.

And then he decided he wanted his own factory

and he got a young alchemist called Johann Bottger

to research it, and Bottger discovered the secret of porcelain in 1708,

and that was the foundation of the Meissen factory.

And this is a relatively early piece of Meissen.

The decoration on it...

Here we've got... I think these are lilies, aren't they?

With a ladybird.

This is called Holzschnitt Blumen.

-Yeah.

-And these designs have been taken

from wood-engraved illustrated books of the period

and indeed of the 17th century.

Absolutely fabulous painting!

And quirks!

We've got a winged fly on here,

which has been painted over a flaw in the porcelain,

a big winged insect here,

and to cover up a whole lot of flaws,

a caterpillar,

which is brilliant. And here we've got, I think, bluebells, haven't we?

Yeah.

They are just so beautifully painted.

On the bottom, we've got the crossed swords of Meissen.

I've never seen that shape before

and I've never seen that shape illustrated anywhere before.

I think it is very, very rare.

I think if you put that into an auction sale today,

it would make close on £1,000.

God.

-It's all right for 6p.

-Even with the broken handle?

-Yes.

-God.

Where are you going to find another one?

If you're a Meissen collector, that's the one you've got to buy.

You can't go out and buy one without a cracked handle.

So it's no good in the dishwasher, then?

Not a good idea.

Not a good idea. Right.

We've always had this. I've had this on our piano at home.

My family, my father's side, where I got this from...

his father had worked as an engineer in Russia,

looking at oil at the beginning of the 20th century,

and then I inherited this, but I know very little about it.

So it's been in the family for well over 100 years.

I would imagine so, yes.

-Well, I know it's Russian.

-Yes.

I can't really read Cyrillic, but I do know that it's by Lanceray,

-because I know that instinctively having seen this signature before.

-Right.

I mean, it's got a date here - 1878 - and Lanceray exhibited in the...

Is that a 3 or 8?

Er, I won't argue about it - 3 or 8.

-He was exhibiting at all the great exhibitions.

-Ah, right.

-Lanceray.

-Although he's clearly Russian, he was very well-known in France.

-Right.

But his bronzes were edited in - or cast in - France,

-probably the best quality ones. Poland as well.

-Aha.

But possibly the most sought-after ones are the Russian foundries,

cos they instinctively tend to be the first foundries.

-And that's...Chopin, and that is the foundry...

-Oh, right.

-..in Russia, I don't know exactly where.

-No.

But it's such a wonderful subject, isn't it?

It's so typical of the Russian Steppes.

You've got this...three horses, which is quite an expensive set-up, really,

a three-horse rig, with this... Well, we call these troikas,

but there's a ravani or something, is the name, I don't know.

I don't know. I've only heard of troika, yeah.

But it's certainly being pulled in the troika sense, you know,

but it's most extraordinary with this... I can't...

Well, there are two men with a little baby.

-That's right. The father, I think.

-The father, and that's the driver, so are they fleeing from someone?

-I don't know.

-What is going on?

I've always looked at it and I've loved to look at it,

but I know nothing about it. I wish I did.

Well, it's a very good sculpture in very nice condition.

Mm-hm.

And there are lots of fakes of Lanceray's work,

but usually the smaller simpler figures.

When you get to these three horses, it's more complicated,

so this is not a fake.

Thank heaven for that, thank you, right.

It's a lovely colour, a mixture of black and browny colours,

there's a lovely - just here - this super dog here crouching down.

You wonder whether he's an attack dog or part of the actual team, I don't know,

but you can see the rubbing on there where it's all just...

I would assume he's attacking them, because they're looking upset.

These are wolves, aren't they? Yes, that's quite... So it's very dramatic and wonderful.

-You can imagine the cold.

-Yeah, absolutely.

And the vast openness of the Russian Steppes.

The market has been a little fickle recently.

The Russian market, two or three years ago,

-was really quite strong.

-Right.

It's backed off a bit and is very, very erratic.

If you had to go and replace it at a reasonable shop where you could expect to buy this sort of thing...

-and they're quite difficult to find...

-Yeah.

..what sort of figure would you put on it?

And I think I'd put a figure of £10,000 on it.

Right, OK, thank you very much, it's just what...

exactly what I wanted to know.

-Thank you, a nice, round figure.

-Absolutely, yes.

They've come down through the family,

but not through the direct line of the family,

through a step-grandmother, who was an heiress,

and way back in 1705,

her ancestor married...

a Dutch heiress,

and this was part of her dowry, I believe.

That's a fantastic record to have them back from what, the time of Queen Anne.

Well, that's what I guess they should be.

I thought they were either garniture of little value,

-or they were really old.

-Well, so you think they're Queen Anne period?

They could be, yes.

Well, you're wrong.

Oh, right.

They're 100 years older than that.

-What?

-These date from the time

-of Shakespeare.

-Goodness.

These date from round about 1600

when the Emperor Wanli was on the throne in China.

That was the time when the Portuguese and the Dutch were in China

-bringing things back.

-Yes.

-And when these came back to Europe,

these would have been massively luxurious items.

Chinese blue and white porcelain - we didn't make porcelain in Europe - well, Meissen started in what, 1710.

Over 100 years before Meissen started, these were made.

-When these arrived, they were the best.

-Right.

In Europe. But it's funny about that,

cos if you look at them, there's a bit of a...

-Yes, there's a very bad...

-Yeah, down here.

-..mark.

There's a bit of crack in them.

That crack has appeared because they've been made in several parts.

-Goodness.

-It's been made... The bottom bit's been made as one section,

and then the top bit has been luted on, and it's been joined round there,

and it didn't quite work when they were being fired.

Because they were export things, there was nowhere near the quality or care put into them

as were goods made in China for the Imperial household.

They're terrifically old. I mean, they're really...

-I mean, it's quite exciting to have something which was made when Shakespeare was around.

-Yes.

If these were made in the Chinese taste,

-they would be very, very much more valuable.

-Right.

This shape is not a Chinese shape, it's a European shape -

it's not going to get the modern Chinese excited.

Even so, they're 400 years old,

this one is in excellent condition.

In auction today, they're going to be...

They're easily going to be £2,000.

That's amazing.

So, does he come in peace or does he come in war?

It's quite a subject, isn't it?

Because this Red Indian, he looks very much in the wrong place,

he's sitting in a chapel, I think,

a Quaker chapel.

Tell me about it.

Well, my father bought this in about 1937 as a gift

to his father-in-law to be, and as a young child,

I always remembered it hanging on the wall,

and then after he died,

it was then left through my mother, to me,

and I've had it ever since.

-Oh, well done.

-Now, I know it's an English artist,

it's obviously an American scene,

but I'm absolutely intrigued to know what the subject matter is,

because it seems to me to be a historical event,

and whilst I've done some research,

I haven't actually managed to find out anything about it.

Well, it was exhibited - we can tell from the label on the back -

in the Royal Academy in 1885,

so we know that the costume is earlier than that -

this fellow's wearing a tricorn hat, isn't he?

So it must be a scene from the wars in the 19th century

between the Indians and the settlers,

in the expansion through to the west of America.

But a historical incident? I'm not so sure.

It comes with a quotation from the Bible, from Isaiah.

It says, "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

Now, I think the clue to the meaning of this picture is in that quotation.

Yes.

Because, obviously, you know,

these people are very worried about the Indian

being in their presence, but they are being quiet and strong, aren't they?

It's interesting that Victorians always seek - or sometimes seek -

to teach us things, they're didactic, and I think that's what's going on here.

-We're being given a message.

-Right.

So that's one thing. I think that's what the artist's intention was.

But who is giving the advice? Is it the European

or is it the Indian?

Because the Indian seems to be at peace.

He's got blood on his tomahawk..

Yes, he has, yes.

Which is a sort of rather funny way of showing being at peace,

but he is, after all, being invited into a chapel by the Quakers,

and I think the idea is that, if you are quiet and strong,

and you do not either try to make alliances or try to make wars -

more to the point - with your neighbours, then you will get along.

That's the advice.

I think that's the whole purpose of the picture, of this picture.

I like the Indian - the Native American -

because I'm not sure that he belongs to any particular tribe.

He looks more like one of those cigar advertisement figures,

don't you think?

-I'm pretty sure that the artist, whose name was Bayes...

-Alfred Walter Bayes.

..Alfred Walter Bayes ever went to America.

I don't think he did, I'm sure he didn't,

so he only had a sort of generic understanding

-of what a Native American Indian would look like at all.

-Yes.

And I think that's what he's painted here. Anyway, let's cut to the chase.

It's got to be worth something.

And I wondered what it might be worth.

I think we've got the meaning now, I think I've explained it.

The question is - how much?

I think it's a slightly difficult subject for modern audiences,

-is what I was trying to get to.

-Yes.

And as a result,

-I think that I'm only going to put £4,000 to £6,000 on it.

-Right.

Which... I'd like to do more, but... And it's a very interesting picture,

-in terms of the way we all think now, and it's very nicely painted.

-Yes.

-And well observed. Thank you.

-Thank you very much, thank you.

Waxed jackets are very much all the rage at the moment,

but the style is not normally like this.

It's very fashionable, but it's very 19th-century fashionable.

Indeed, yes, yes.

It's called a Sussex round frock, not a smock,

and it belonged to my great-grandfather -

and my nephew's great-great-grandfather -

who was a Sussex shepherd on the South Downs,

so this is appropriate for the Weald and Downland Museum,

and it's weather-proof.

I mean, it's the ultimate in weather-proofing,

because he would have gone out on the Sussex Downs in all weathers.

-Absolutely.

-To...to help with lambing.

You know, the smock would have kept him warm,

-but also it's got this pocket at the side, so...

-Yes.

For the newborn lambs.

Two pockets, yes.

It's a lovely snug fit, a comfortable thing

and practical, that's the thing with it,

it really is a practical working garment.

And, yeah, the pockets in the side stretch all the way round,

so you can keep a lamb in your back and keep it warm.

So who...who was your great-great- grandfather, and great-grandfather?

His name was Robert Strudwick, and he was born, we think,

about 1837, there or thereabouts,

and always lived and worked in Sussex

and on the Downs, basically. Married a Sussex girl, and here we are.

I can see you're holding a photograph of him here,

and that's incredibly evocative seeing it first on the mannikin

and then looking at the photograph,

it brings it alive.

And the thing that strikes me most, I think,

-is the fact that it's very much hand-made.

-Yes.

And you see variations, these amazing variations,

so you get gathering on this sleeve here and then...

-And pleating on this one.

-And pleating on that one there.

-Yes, yes.

So it's sort of almost like the style evolved as it was being made.

I suspect he would have had just this one garment that would have run him through,

and it's testament to the quality of, you know,

waxed material that, you know, it did last.

I mean, there's not a single bit of damage on this whatsoever.

I'd say, if that was to come up for sale at an auction,

a specialist vintage costume sale, which is probably where it would go,

it would fetch at least £600.

And it's not going anywhere.

You never know what's going to turn up at the Roadshow.

Look at this - someone brought it in, said it belonged to their mother.

Hold it in your hand...

LAUGHTER

I don't know what it is - a little seal, perhaps.

There it goes. You know what they say -

warm hands...

No, that's not true at all.

Do you know, I think this enamel panel

-is certainly the most beautiful thing I've seen all day.

-Oh.

What can you tell me about it?

Well, it belonged to my father-in-law,

and he was in London during the war and... lunch-time, going for a stroll,

and a dust cart went past, and on the top was this picture,

so he ran the length of...it may have been Regent Street, I don't know...

and stopped the dust cart and collected this, and it's been in the family ever since.

-And do you like it?

-I love it, we all love it.

-It is a fantastic thing, isn't it?

-What do you know about it?

-We know nothing other than it came off a dust cart.

-Well, it's a good start.

-So, there you go.

I think I can tell you a bit more.

It's enamel on copper, which is a very complex process

involving powdered glass, put in a kiln, fired many times with different colours

to build up the image on the copper.

There's no boundaries, it's a very, very tricky process.

It's a very old process, it goes back to the medieval period.

It was greatly revived in Britain at the very end of the 19th century.

Arthur Gaskin and others at Birmingham School of Art.

But the prime artist was somebody called Alexander Fisher,

who wrote a book about how to do it,

and many of the subjects have this lovely sort of almost Pre-Raphaelite look.

-What do you think's going on here?

-Well, I don't know.

-Don't know?!

-She's obviously giving him something, a flower.

-I think she has flowers, she's giving him.

-Well, she's picked a flower from the bush.

I think this could be wisteria, I don't know.

Well, I don't know the subject, but it could be Dante and Beatrice.

-Yes, could be.

-Meeting on the bridge you see.

They've picked some legendary historical subject, which was very commonplace,

but of course she's a completely sort of Pre-Raphaelite lady.

Oh, absolutely.

And so it has... full of that wonderful sort of...

late-Victorian arts and crafts atmosphere, beautiful colours.

Now, the secret of it is that down here in this little tiny corner, there is a name.

Now, I can't read that, and the only way to do it is to actually take the back off,

which we're not going to do now, cos it's very complex and must be done professionally.

It's also got this very nice frame - OK, there are bits missing,

but it's had a chequered past.

So we're looking at a date of about 1890-1900.

I'd like it to be by Alexander Fisher,

but he did train lots of people - particularly ladies - to do this.

Now, if it's by one of his lady assistants,

it's still going to be £2,000.

Good heavens.

If it's by Alexander Fisher - and I'm not saying it is,

but if we can put a big name to it -

it could be £8,000, £10,000.

Would be lovely, wouldn't it?

So it was a good day when he saw the dust cart.

-It was a good day when he chased the dust cart!

-Yes.

Of all the things that I see on the Antiques Roadshow, I have to say

that tin-plate toys are my number one favourite,

so this is a real treat for me,

because it is a good-sized, chunky,

tin-plate toy car,

and much too old for you to have played with,

though I guess you did play with it, because how could you not?

Is it a purchase, it is a family thing or...?

-It's a family thing, yes.

-Right.

-So it goes quite far back, yes.

All right, well, let's try and work out how far back it goes,

because we're very lucky to have... On the top here,

I don't know if you've noticed, there's a little lozenge

which is a trademark, which tells us about who made it.

And looking closely, it says... it has the initials GBN

in there, which are for Ignaz and Adolf Bing,

known as Gebruder Bing - GB -

and the N is for Nuremberg, which is where they were based.

These are really an indication of the kind of quality toys

that this particular manufacturer was making.

Now, I don't know how many generations it goes back,

but let me tell you when I think it was made,

which was sometime between 1905 and 1910.

I suppose the extraordinary fact about this company is that,

in that time - let's say 1912, pick a date -

their catalogue of wares, and these were just toys,

ran to 500 pages.

They had over 2,500 people in their workforce.

They sold to every country, including Saudi Arabia, Argentina,

every country throughout Europe,

and they did that without really sacrificing quality,

so these were master toymakers.

What do you like about it?

I've told you what I like about it - you must like something.

I like the little man inside. I think he's quite sweet, really,

the way he's sort of perched in his seat,

and the fact that it goes as well, the fact it works,

I think that's quite special,

to have something so old that still works as a toy, fundamentally.

God, dare I take the handbrake off?

-Give it a try.

-I'll catch you!

OK, let's just give it whizz.

OK, now I'm not going to risk it.

-OK, we can see it works, it has the key.

-The wheels go round.

Exactly.

I agree with you. I love the little man in there.

Very often, they came with little figures.

This is one in not brilliant condition, but it's lovely that it's there.

They're very easy to restore.

I suppose we ought to... to think about value, really.

To go out now and sell a car like this,

I know that the market in America is red, red hot,

there have been a series of sales out there

which have set new benchmarks for toy vehicles and toys of this period

across the board, and I would put this at between £10,000 and £12,000.

Wow!

That's quite impressive.

Oh, wow! >

Wow!

It's a great survivor, in any case, and a real treasure,

-so thank you very much for bringing it.

-Thank you.

We've so much enjoyed our day here at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum.

I can hardly believe it, but it's the end of the series.

We've spent the last six months criss-crossing the country,

seeing amazing things in the most beautiful locations,

and now it's come to an end.

But if you'd like to come to some of our next locations

for the next series, why don't you have a look at our website...?

And who knows, next time, we could be seeing you.

Bye-bye!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd