Scarborough Grand Spa Hall 2 Antiques Roadshow

Take a look at this! It's the most extraordinary water jug

in the shape of a ram.

We're very lucky to have it here today, because it's 600 years old.

It dates from the Middle Ages

and it tells us so much about the history of our location today.

Welcome back to the Antiques Roadshow

from Scarborough in North Yorkshire.

You might think of Scarborough as a quiet, unassuming seaside town.

But in the late Middle Ages, this was a bustling, prosperous port.

Its bays were a safe haven for shipping

and trade was brisk at home and abroad.

This led King Henry III to grant a royal charter in 1253,

allowing a six-week-long festival

to be held here every year.

And the world famous Scarborough Fair, a song, of course, was born.

Trading restrictions were lifted.

For 45 days, there was a free market for all goods.

Every day at low tide, these sands would have been packed

with traders and merchants not just from Britain, but from abroad.

Places like Scandinavia and the Baltic States

selling everything from pickled herring,

to ironwork, cloth, pottery.

That green Scarborough jug is a rare survivor of tableware

made here and sold at the fair.

Today at the Spa Grand Hall,

we've created a modern-day version of Scarborough Fair,

with visitors bringing their treasures from far and wide.

Our ceramics team will be fighting over the chance

to look at the medieval water jug later.

So we're looking at an object

which has got a connection with a character in your family?

Indeed. My grandfather.

The family joke is that he was responsible for the First World War.

Because everywhere he went, there was a major scrap.

He was on the Somme, he was at Passchendaele, he was at Ypres.

Yeah? And at one stage he was buried under a building for four days

and when they took him out, they made him mayor of the town!

Mayor of the town? Indeed.

We know which town it is, but we haven't been back yet,

any of us, but we'd like to.

You've probably got the keys to every pub in...

Anyway! Well, he came back with shrapnel in his knee,

a liking for strong drink, and this scent bottle.

That scent bottle. And that is what history we know.

We know it came back with him when he was repatriated in 1918.

Right. We don't know if it was new, whether it's French.

He came back from France,

but then so did most servicemen come back through France.

Exactly. So where's it been lurking since he brought it back?

In a drawer. My grandma wouldn't have it in the house

and obviously he didn't part with it.

He just tucked it away quietly in a drawer

and it's pretty much been there ever since.

It begs the question why?

Well, I think just good old-fashioned reserve, if you like.

Yorkshire reserve. OK.

When you look at an object like this,

the emphasis is in the stopper, isn't it?

It is. And when you look at that stopper,

it's beautifully moulded

with what appear to be sort of almost little ondines or mermaids

or ladies dancing away in...

They are. With a certain amount of abandon. Yes!

And the shape of it is so geometric,

it's almost like a cog, isn't it?

But I can understand, if I dare use the word,

Yorkshire prudery.

Indeed. Can I use that word? I would suggest so.

Because it's all in the dropper.

I'm going to just slowly take that out

and I'm going to lay that flat.

And I'm going to look at that incredible stopper.

Look at that dropper.

And the idea being

that you would take that

and dab it behind your ears.

You would. There is something rather sensual

about dabbing perfume behind your ears

with a lady in a certain state of undress. Absolutely.

I wish I could tell you who made it.

It's very much in the style of Rene Lalique. Yes.

But there's no Lalique mark on there.

The thing is, you say this came back in 1918.

It's quite early. Most of these bottles

didn't materialise until the 1920s,

so I'm learning something now.

I'm learning that you know it came back then. Indeed. No question.

Let's put it like that. I'll feel a bit safer.

Would it have been new when he bought it? It would have been new

and it would have been made probably in France as well. Right.

So I'm glad to know it's got that wonderful tradition.

I'm glad to know exactly how the First World War actually started,

and that your grandad was responsible!

And I'm glad to tell you that if you wanted to replace that today,

you'd probably have to part with around about

the best part of 100 to ?150. Very nice.

So it's got everything going for it,

including a naked woman.

Fantastic. You can't ask for more than that. In a bottle.

No. What more could you want?

So tell me, who was Sam Pringle?

Sam Pringle was my great-great-uncle.

He was born in 1881.

According to the label on the back,

he was out in the Far East in the 1880s,

actually about the time this building was being erected.

Correct.

What was he doing out there? He was a guarantee engineer on ships.

The guarantee engineer is the man

who accompanies a ship when it's being delivered.

Yes. These come from him? Yes.

He was in Nagasaki, saw the work being done out there,

and sent home for English black silk

and the drawings were drawn up by a draughtsman at Wall's End.

They were sent out to Nagasaki and embroidered out there.

How interesting. I'm interested because here we have silk images,

a spectacular embroidery of a male lion

and a tiger confronting each other.

If I'd seen these without the story you've given me,

I would have said these were certainly Japanese

or possibly Chinese images.

But the fact that you have a family history

which obviously seems to suggest something different,

is very interesting, and I might have to change my view

on some of these things.

What I can tell you is if you go to Shanghai today,

you will see work like this being carried out.

So I suspect that the workman -

workman or workwoman -

probably a woman, I would think,

who actually embroidered these,

was probably Chinese.

Yes. Because the rest of it, this beautiful frame,

this paulownia wood frame,

to me looks very, very Japanese.

When you stand here and move ever so slightly,

you see the fur as a three-dimensional entity.

And if you look really closely, I mean the whiskers,

the eyes, the eyelashes,

you feel as if you could actually stroke the whole animal.

The way the frame has been taken

so that the glass doesn't touch the embroidery

is the secret of why they're in such fantastic condition.

So a real mixture. A European design sent out to Japan,

worked by a Chinese,

using thread brought back from England,

Macclesfield, of course,

was the great silk manufacturing part of England.

I have to say I'm surprised because the Chinese

are not bad at embroidery themselves.

And then brought back by this Englishman.

They are fabulous things.

Um, difficult to put a value on.

I would say that if you put these up for auction today,

you would probably get somewhere in the region of two to ?3,000.

Yes.

Boxes are always fascinating.

"What's in there?" But what have you been doing to this one?

It's so bashed. It came off a demolition site.

We were demolishing a building in Ramsgate.

It started off as a Victorian house, then it became a hotel,

and then it had been a school at one point

and in its last incarnation, it had been a chapel.

And we were knocking it all down and it came out the rubble.

It was going in the skip. Gosh!

Into a skip? That's where it was going to go, yeah.

It's interesting you should say a chapel.

Because when we get inside,

we've got this absolutely fascinating

little silver, what looks like a book. It is silver, then?

Oh, it is silver. It will be silver.

Indicating there

that we've got some sort of continental aristocrat. Right.

But of course when we then get in here, wow!

What it is, of course, is a reliquary.

And in here we've got all these tiny, tiny fragments.

They'll be bits of bone, bits of cloth.

Each from a particular saint.

Some of whom you'll never have heard of!

Others are actually quite important,

particularly just there

we've actually got the Virgin Mary.

Now that is Premier League,

from the point of view of saints and relics!

They got a bit of the Virgin Mary. Exactly.

And others, of course, all named.

So absolutely wonderful.

But on the back, clearly as a relic,

we've got IHS, which, of course, is for Christ.

Date-wise, I would think we're looking into

the earlier part of the 19th century.

OK. In fact, we've actually got here

the name of an Italian retailer. Yeah. Rome or something, yeah.

So a fascinating little box.

A reliquary, as it is. Right.

Value wise.

Now, the bad news is,

that church pieces don't do very well.

It had to be, didn't it?

So that is the bad news.

But I would have thought we might be looking at 300 to ?400.

OK. On this one. It's interesting. I didn't know what it was.

You bring these things here to find out what they are.

Thank you very much.

My parents came to Scarborough on their honeymoon,

probably encouraged by posters like this.

It really was selling the image of the beach babe.

You could see this as a young Diana Dors or Liz Taylor.

What made you interested in these posters?

I've been collecting posters for the last ten years

and they've all got their own individuality.

The bathing belles, as we call them,

are the most highly desirable of all the posters, really.

Because it gives a picture of a sunny holiday by the sea.

I don't think there were as many people on the beach today

as there were in these posters!

Maybe no, no. That's right!

But it really was selling this.

After the war, people were going on holidays,

going to the seaside. Very exciting.

I suppose lots of men hoping to meet beautiful bathing belles like this!

Possibly so. These posters date back from the '50s and into the '60s.

Butlin's, for example, just down the road at Filey,

was Butlin's premier camp.

And, of course, at the time, that was the place to go for a holiday.

Oh, absolutely.

It really does sell the idea of coming here

for your two weeks' holiday

when the mills closed in Scotland, or whatever,

and you came to a really attractive place.

And I notice even here

the bandstand.

Yes, the Sun Court Theatre,

The Spa where we are even today,

it's a fabulous poster is this one.

Sweep of the South Bay, the Castle Headland,

the girl in the candy-striped dress.

And a look-alike Clark Gable!

This is all about coming to Scarborough for your holidays.

But also the link with The Scarborough Flyer.

Yes, we're the premier holiday trains.

This was a letterpress poster,

giving the times of the train as it left King's Cross to Scarborough.

And you'd have seen these,

of course, all over the stations up and down the country.

I think they're a very glamorous way of advertising Scarborough

as a destination for your holidays.

And, of course, in valuation terms,

posters have gone up quite a lot. Indeed.

I would say that some of these posters you're talking 400 to ?600.

Yes, I think you're right in that bracket.

This one slightly lower. About 200 for that one.

So just looking at what we have here,

this is going to be over ?2,500.

Yes, possibly so. I don't think we're a million miles adrift.

Any more at home? Yes, one or two at home.

All the delights of Scarborough. It is indeed. Thank you.

# Kiss me, honey, honey, kiss me

# Thrill me, honey, honey, thrill me

# Don't care even if I blow my top

# But honey, honey Uh-huh?

# Don't stop Never stop. #

So why did you bring me this locket today?

What made you... Well, we live south of Birmingham.

We've come up for a week's holiday

so I had to bring things that were small and that I could carry.

It's something that I've always...

I inherited from my grandma's jewellery box.

And I've always thought it was lovely and I've worn it quite a lot.

It's very stylish. Did you think it was jet? Well, I wondered.

And I hadn't, you know... It's similar. But it's too light.

It is too light. It's a mourning jewel. And we know this

because the head is garlanded with black grapes, an emblem of death.

So this is an object made to commemorate somebody else.

The deceased's photograph would be inside, or a lock of hair.

But we want to sweep all of that aside.

Right. And get really down to this. Whitby is very famous for jet.

It's simply up the coast.

The demand was so enormous for these things in the 19th century

that it couldn't be met by the material.

So they went about making simulants of it,

made of glass and I don't know what else - seal sometimes.

But guess what your pendant is made of? I have no idea!

Rubber! Rubber?!

It's the first rubber jewel that I've done for the Antiques Roadshow.

It's a simulated jet made of hardened rubber,

rubber hardened with sulphur.

And if you scratch it and smell it,

you can actually smell the rubber coming from it.

And you can scratch away when you get home!

But... Wow.

I think it's stunning. It's a great piece of design.

It's slightly dark and haunted to me

because the black grapes mean death.

Here's the head of a mourner, a Greek mourner.

Neo-classical taste, all terribly exciting.

And do you know what, it's hardly worth a thing. No.

It might not be worth 30 or ?40.

But it's loaded with interest to me.

And you've brought me a rubber jewel from the 1860s, 1870s.

I think I might know who that came from, then. My great-grandmother's.

It's stunning. I'm absolutely thrilled with it.

It's beautiful. I think you should carry on wearing it.

In the 1920s and '30s,

the firm of Shelley rose to the top.

And they had a marketing strategy

that actually said, "Fine as fine bone china can be."

And that was their marketing. And look at this.

It's so exquisitely fine.

And also glamorous.

We actually call this period for them "the glamorous years".

Tell me, how do you come to own such a wonderful example of their work?

I was given it by an elderly relative who'd gone into a home

for my 21st birthday.

Just a few years ago, obviously.

You are kind!

So was your relative a stylish lady?

Yes. Her clothes, her interiors?

Yes. Can I ask, if it's not a rude question,

was there a bit of money "in them thar hills"?

Yes. Well, that adds up

because these services were not only very beautiful,

very elegant, very much of their era,

but they were actually very expensive.

Shelley worked on this quality product. These were classy things.

Classy sets, elegant sets,

for elegant and classy people.

And what you're looking at is also in terms of the shape and style

it's the mode shape.

Can you imagine you're going to invite your friends round

to drink out of conical cups with triangular handles

with a set decorated with abstract butterfly wings.

I think she must have been making a bold statement.

I think so. The set was designed around 1930

and the designer is a young man called Eric Slater.

Eric Slater joined Shelley to work alongside his father,

the great Walter Slater.

Walter was a great designer as well.

But Eric brought a little bit of pizzazz,

a little bit of the jazz age, into the Shelley works.

This period is really classed as their pinnacle.

Have you used it? No. Never? Never.

I have visions of you lounging on your couch with your flapper outfit

with a cup of tea on the go!

I'm frightened to look at it, hardly!

Oh, you mustn't be frightened to look at it.

It's a glorious set,

and in terms of Shelley of this period and of this pattern,

the market's out there and it's still very, very strong.

In all honesty, because you've got such a complete set,

in such glorious condition,

you're going to have to part with

something in the region of ?2,000 to replace it.

Right.

But go on, use it!

I dare you!

It belonged to Winston Churchill. Oh, really?

He had it in his war room on his desk throughout the whole war.

Really? Yes. How does it come to be in your possession?

It was in my family. It was given to my great aunt

who read to Clementine, the wife of Churchill.

Oh, I see. It was given to her by the daughter of Churchill

as a thank you. For reading to Clementine.

So your great aunt... Yes.

..read to Clementine when she lost her sight.

Yes. Why was she chosen to read to Clementine?

She had a really nice voice.

And this was given as a gift by... Lady Mary Soames...

Read the letter to us. The daughter of Churchill.

"I hope you will accept this small

"memento from among my mother's possessions.

"I know how much she enjoyed your company

"and being read to by you.

That's so sweet. "You made her weekends less lonely.

"With my grateful thanks, Mary Soames."

And Mary Soames was Clementine's daughter. Yes.

That is fantastic. So the fact it's so masculine

is obviously why it was his and not hers. Yes.

Paperweights like this are from the late 1850s,

just after the Crimean, depicting scenes from the war.

Normally, a paperweight like this, pressed glass,

transfer print,

is worth about ?50, maybe, if you're lucky.

But the Churchill connection, and with this letter of provenance,

would probably make that worth ten times that. Wow.

?500 a collector would happily give for that.

I love it. I love the story behind it all.

Thank you. Thanks for bringing it in. Thank you very much.

Ian, why are you so excited about a pair of old spoons,

especially when one's got a hole in it!

I'm so excited because these are about the earliest silver

we've ever had on the Roadshow.

Really? How old are they?

This one about 1350.

That one about 1300.

Goodness me!

That is the beginning of what's known as the early English type of spoon.

And it's known from the top - see the little acorn there?

It's an acorn knot spoon.

That's the very first top you get on English spoons.

And this one you get for the next couple of hundred years.

That dies out about 1350.

And that's a diamond point.

That we think was modelled on a medieval pricked spur.

A medieval pricked spur?

Imagine a knight with his armour and everything on,

and a spur when he's on horseback.

And if you look at it like that,

that's exactly what a medieval spur is like at the end.

Amazing!

And to think that somebody was eating from these

all those hundreds of years ago.

When you look at the shape of them,

they don't hold an awful lot, do they? No.

And particularly so on this one.

Because, of course, dental care wasn't good.

And so they actually had a lot of gooey food!

So they deliberately ate gooey food

to spare their teeth because they couldn't chew very easily.

It was the fact they'd lost their teeth, very often.

Especially top end of society,

because they were eating a much richer diet, sugar coming in,

they were the only ones that could afford it.

If these are the two oldest spoons,

then, that you've seen on the Roadshow,

I'm assuming they're very valuable.

The interesting thing is that actually,

that one with no marks, and with a hole in it,

its value is not going to be enormous.

A thousand pounds.

Which in comparison to other spoons...

This one, although it's a little more modern,

is going to be more valuable

because it has something even more exciting -

which is one of the very earliest maker's marks ever recorded.

Most of these, when you find them, have no marks at all.

But there is the chap who actually made this spoon

in about 1350.

I'm going to play devil's advocate,

because I think there are people out there

who would say this bedroom suite is ugly!

Why is it not ugly?

I just love it because of the time period,

because it's Art Deco, because it's from its era.

It's class. It's classy.

The lines, I just adore it.

OK. Now you said Art Deco. Mm.

Actually what you've got here is something

that has those kind of lines,

but it's actually a little bit later than that.

It's quite a strange thing in many ways.

It's made of aluminium.

Or it's got an aluminium skin on it.

It comes from a period just post-war. Mm-hm.

What is interesting about it is

I think it's a slightly unrecognised design classic.

It was made by a company called Hunting Aviation.

You know as well as I do, that during the war,

there were a lot of companies

building aircraft for the war effort.

Hunting Aviation were one of those companies.

So maybe it starts to come together.

Maybe we can look at this and see elements of aircraft design in it.

Certainly the material we have.

Was there anything in that initially that attracted you to this?

Well, only my war interest.

Yeah. Which is massive. Yeah.

You're a collector of wartime memorabilia and things, are you? Yes.

Where did you buy it from? Where did it come from?

My ex-brother-in-law's in-laws.

I don't know how it came about,

but they offered me the chance to buy it.

And I couldn't refuse. It's something you use now?

My daughter does, not me.

Well, the company, Hunting Aviation,

was started by a chap called Edgar Percival in 1933.

He designed a lot of interesting transport aircraft,

experimental jet aircraft,

but post-war, when they didn't need any more aircraft,

these companies were struggling.

So they diversified.

And this was the kind of stuff they diversified into.

I don't think a lot of these ventures

were commercially successful for these companies.

That was the problem. I've never seen or heard of it before.

You won't see much of it around.

It was, I think, too far ahead of its time in many respects.

And it wasn't the most glamorous looking furniture.

Have you ever tried to find out more about the suite as such?

Years ago, I can't remember when,

I wrote to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

And sent photographs. Yes.

They asked if they could have the dressing table.

Did they offer you a price for it?

Zilch! Zilch! OK.

So they wanted you to donate it. OK.

That's an interesting point.

Because the dressing table is the most desirable part of the suite,

and for obvious reasons.

It looks quite special. Yes. So...

Value. What should the V have paid you for it?

Granted it might have been quite a long time ago.

Current auction prices on the dressing table tend to be

about 400 to ?600 at auction.

I think it's undervalued.

I think it's got a way to go.

I was not willing to split what I thought

was perhaps the only complete set.

Yes. Because I've not seen anything or I've not heard anything. Yep.

So I was really, for no monetary gain,

I saw no reason to split what's a full bedroom set.

A sensible move. Because actually, you don't see very much of it around.

Thank you. Pleasure.

This is a lovely summer view of King's College, Cambridge.

Did you go to King's College? No, I didn't.

So how come you have it? I'm very lucky. It belonged to my grandmother

who went to a May Ball there, before her 21st birthday,

and when it came to the time of her 21st birthday,

her uncle invited her to go and visit him

and said that she could pick anything from his antiques shop

and she saw this and fell in love with it.

And that's how it came to belong to me.

And I've loved it for ever!

She had very good taste. I suppose it reminded her of her May Ball.

Exactly.

Let's look at the picture. It's quite architectural, isn't it?

Mm. In style.

The reason being it's painted by an artist called Henry Rushbury,

down here.

Henry Rushbury, I've always liked him.

I've known him more as an etcher

than being a watercolourist,

although he did do watercolours,

And you see lots of his etchings

and they sell for ?100, 150.

And they're really good.

But he was a draughtsman, etcher,

watercolourist. A very clever man.

And he was also the official, or one of the official, war artists

in World War I and World War II.

OK. He was born in the 1880s.

Died in the 1960s.

And he was even knighted in 1964.

He was Sir Henry Rushbury.

So he has a very good track record.

But he's very overlooked today.

But when you look at this beautiful study,

here we've got a summer's day,

there are people out in the punts.

The detail is incredible.

If you look closely, you'll see a lot of pencil work.

You can see this is the work of an etcher.

The detail. But he's able to put it into watercolour.

A very, very nice present

for your grandmother to have.

And what's it worth today?

Well, I think this is one of the nicest ones I've ever seen.

As I said, he doesn't often come up in watercolour.

I think that is worth at least 1,000 to ?1,500.

Fantastic!

It's so special to me

that that's lovely,

but it's so... Such a lovely memory of Granny,

because she just loved it there

and had such a great time. Rather sweet.

We've got a marvellous family of hippopotami,

bathing in blue mud.

Where did you find it?

It belonged to a friend.

His great-uncle had it.

His name was Henry Tonks.

He bought it in London, probably about 1908, 1910.

Was this Henry Tonks connected to the Slade?

Yes, he was Professor of Slade.

He did a lot of drawings for the War Ministry in the First World War

over in the trenches. I think it came from the South Bank Thames.

An Arts Crafts pottery.

It's marked on the bottom A H Gerrard.

Millbank. Millbank on the banks of the Thames.

A H Gerrard was a known sculptor.

He worked with people like Eric Gill.

It is pottery, but it is a piece of sculpture.

I love it.

They're almost emerging out of the mud

and it has an abstract quality to it.

You've still got the lovely quality.

Hippopotami are not blue.

No. But somehow, it all works.

There's something which encapsulates that sort of spirit

of the Art Deco movement.

It has an abstract quality about it,

but it's very naturalistic as well.

If this was to come to the saleroom,

it's difficult to put a price on it

because there isn't a record for it.

But as a decorative object alone,

we'd be looking 600 to ?800.

Yeah. If we can establish some more about Gerrard,

it could be double that.

It's priceless as far as the family's concerned.

Absolutely. So it doesn't matter.

We all know who this is by, don't we, with the little mouse here?

Robert Thomson. Of Kilburn. Kilburn.

That's about an hour away from Scarborough, where we are today?

Yes, something like that.

Is this a piece you've had a long time?

Yes, since about 1950.

Something like that.

And did you buy it from them?

Yes, my husband and I wanted Thompson furniture,

so we built up things as we could afford them.

What set you up on the Mouseman trail?

I think the first thing I had was two bookends,

which friends gave me for my 21st birthday. And I still have them!

That's lovely. Those were the first.

So that was out of the blue. Yes.

And this gave you... This gave me...

You're a Yorkshire lass, presumably? Yes, I am, yes.

So this was bought new from him? Yes.

Did you ever go to the factory?

The workshop, sorry. The workshop, yes.

In those days, you could go round his workshop and see them working.

This is post Second World War, late '40s, early '50s? Yes.

How exciting! Did you ever meet him?

Oh, yes! Mousie Thompson, he was called! Yes, indeed. Yes.

Everything was ordered from him.

And we would sometimes call to see him.

And sit over the fire with him.

And he'd be smoking his pipe.

And the mantelpiece and everything was his own carving and things.

So it's still there. You can see it now. It's a sort of showroom.

And did you ever see the... Working them? Yes, yes.

Yes, the workmen would be adzing the top.

And the adze, a man would stand...

The adze is like an axe on sideways.

And they would sort of chip it like this.

Standing on the wood, literally chipping it away.

What's so extraordinary about this

is that everybody looks at this and thinks,

especially on the dining table,

how unstable it is. But it's not.

I want to show you something here.

It's so beautifully made.

So this is a very wobbly, uneven surface, but it's not.

No, it's not. It's a good surface, really.

This is the whole point of it, is that you can, despite the look,

put a glass on and not spill your wine or water on the table.

You've done some spilling on this, haven't you?

Yes, I always have a vase of flowers, a bowl of flowers,

and it gets a knock, or I water something and, um...

I'm afraid it's, yes...

The most dangerous thing. But it is wonderful oak.

He always used English oak. Yes. All English oak.

Quercus robur. Yes.

Matured for seven years before he used it.

Did you ever see it in the street? They used to put it out.

Big blocks of... Air dried.

Outside in the high street, wasn't it? Yes.

You saw that? Oh, yes. Wonderful!

They're probably still there! I wish I could have been in your pocket

to see it happening! Lovely! What's the ashtray doing?

He actually gave it to me. I don't know whether it was an occasion

when we ordered something or paid for something.

Or just went to see him.

But he took it off the sideboard and gave it to me.

A present. Isn't that sweet? Lovely.

What lovely memories. Fantastic.

So you have a whole suite of furniture. Yes.

I have to give you some sort of value on this one.

The auction prices of these are roughly what you can buy a new piece

from the Thompson workshops today.

You can order a similar piece like this.

You don't get the lovely patination,

and this wonderful personal history that you've got.

Having met him.

That makes it quite difficult to value.

Because if you went to the workshop today and ordered this,

there are similar things in the catalogues for 6,500, ?6,600.

So that's roughly the sort of price range.

But the memories and the history you've got are absolutely wonderful.

Yes. To have met him, I'm really jealous!

Yes.

We tend to always think

that the First World War was fought in the terrible muddy trenches

of Flanders and France.

But these artefacts here tell us that on one occasion at least,

that it came across the Channel to England's green and pleasant land.

Can you tell me about these? Yes.

I brought in a fragment from a naval bombardment of Scarborough,

which took place on 16th December 1914.

The post office was hit, the lighthouse was hit,

The Grand Hotel was hit.

And many other domestic properties.

So it was a very important part of Scarborough's history.

And they went round the next bay to Hartlepool.

They did. Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough.

And these have been picked up by somebody walking in the street

thinking, "Thank goodness they've gone." And it's a sort of memento.

That's been engraved with "Hartlepool"

and that's even posher with a nice silver plaque on it. Yes.

Where did you get these from?

This one came from the flea market in Pickering.

And this one came from a car-boot sale, just recently.

Just for a pound or two. That's really what they're worth.

Scrap metal, however interesting it may be,

generally has fairly limited value.

But I think their value lies in the social documentation

of when the civilian population

of this country realised that total war meant total war.

Yes. Thank you.

This is a bit of a find.

It is, yes. And it was found in 1857?

That's right. It was found on New Queen Street

and it was the site of Nesfields brewery

when they were digging out the foundations.

So they were fond of drinking in that part of Scarborough?

Very much so, yes. What did they find, apart from this?

They found the back end of an aquamanile as well

which is what this is. The hind quarters.

Aquamanile is a posh term for a water jug.

That's right, yes.

It's from the days before running hot and cold water.

Yes. In the medieval period, in the 14th century,

water would be brought to the table

in an aquamanile for you to wash your hands.

If you were someone of importance,

you would have a fancy jug for that purpose.

This is pretty fancy. It is, yes.

It was fine tableware of its day.

What are we talking, 12th, 13th century? Yes, roughly then.

Now, why have you got this?

Well, much as I'd like to have it for myself,

it actually belongs to Scarborough.

It's part of Scarborough's heritage.

It's from the museum just up the road. The Rotunda Museum.

And, indeed, it's now called Scarborough ware.

If you actually look at where the clay's exposed,

it has this bright pinkish fabric. That's right.

And that's how it's recognised, even in fragments.

In my 26 years on the Roadshow,

I have never seen anything of this calibre.

This wonderful fleece.

It's so gorgeous.

He's done this by taking a knife or something very sharp

and just pushing the pottery up.

Piece by piece by piece.

You end up with this shaggy, woolly coat.

It's a wonderful thing.

I've wished for one of these to come in for years and years and years.

Thank you very much to you and your museum.

I'm not going to put a value on it

because museums, quite rightly,

don't put valuations on their objects.

But I need to put it in some sort of perspective.

This reminds me of an 18th-century Barnstaple jug I recorded

at Bishop's Auckland some years back. A slipware jug.

Same sort of, that wonderful informal pottery. Yes.

This pre-industrial revolution stuff.

An object that is 600 years younger than this.

And on that, I put a valuation of 20 to ?30,000.

OK!

And this is much, much rarer.

So two beautiful jewels from an era long gone.

Did they come to you in your family?

Yes, the brooch I inherited recently from my mother.

And this is just generally a family piece.

A family tiara! Yes.

And also a necklace. We can turn it upside down,

put a chain on it and turn it into a necklace.

And a family tiara. You probably wore it at your wedding?

I did, and my mother did, and I think my grandmother did.

Stunning, isn't it? What did it feel like? Was it amazing?

I was just nervous that it would fall off! Yes!

I can well understand that.

Everybody will be wondering how on earth that can become a tiara,

but it's actually attached to what is called the frame

with these funny nuts and bolts at the top.

These jewels were made to be versatile

because it's not only a tiara, but upside-down it's also a necklace.

These are real pearls, and there's a very big distinction

between natural pearls and cultured pearls,

which one sees more often today.

They were extraordinarily valuable at the time this was made.

We can be assured this is an object of enormous importance

in design terms

and also in technique.

It's enormously difficult to build up these settings in gold

and pierce them and open them up.

This is, of course, made by hand.

But the extreme irony of it is there's hardly a sign

of human activity on the surface.

Because the pitch of craftsmanship is so shrill,

that we think this thing has fallen out of heaven, really,

because we don't see any sign of human activity.

Even the box, there's this wonderful sky blue velvet,

very fine velvet,

lined with satin in a leather box,

gold tooled.

And so it's a very high pitch of luxury.

It was worn by your grandmother,

but I suspect there's one generation before that.

How old do you think it is?

I think it's probably about 1890.

That would make sense. It would be her mother. Yes.

And there are all kinds of amorous, subliminal messages

with the pearl for Venus and the diamond for ever.

And so, too, with this one. Was that also hers?

That was definitely my mother's.

I don't know whether it came from her mother or somewhere else.

And you've worn that?

Only once. And what was that? Come on, tell us!

No just on a jacket because I felt I ought to wear it. Yes.

It's completely stunning and it's a sort of mayfly.

A mutant mayfly.

He's so marvellous. Made of sapphires, diamonds and pearls.

With ruby eyes. But actually, in a funny way,

there's a chance that this is also a bee brooch.

There's a sort of rebus for this as well.

Because it's "bee" sure, when you close it, of my love.

These things are very amorous.

Here are the stones and the pearls again.

This was a language understood by the first recipient of that.

And lost over time. Very strange.

But goodness, they're wonderful, joyful things.

I'd just be afraid of wearing that.

Afraid of losing it, I suppose.

I do see that. But another stratagem they used at the time,

was to ask the lady's maid or the dresser

to stitch these onto the clothing.

I don't have a lady's maid! You've let them go?!

That's awful, really!

Anyway, you may have to stitch it on yourself, then!

But they did exactly that.

So it would be pinned on and you won't lose it.

You don't want to lose it because these are quite valuable objects.

They're very desirable. In mint condition.

And a curiously contemporary piece of jewellery.

It's very easy to wear, it's ice white and beautiful. And diamonds.

And so somewhere, I suppose,

close to ?10,000 for that.

And then this one not too far away, either.

So I'll say about the same thing for that.

Eight to ?10,000. Gosh.

My niece is the next one to wear this.

She gets married in a couple of months.

Maybe she'll have to have a police escort or something!

Roaring sirens, yes, exactly! I'm sure she'll be thrilled.

With you watching, I think everything will be just fine.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Lovely.

We've had such a wonderful day here in Scarborough by the seaside.

So many people have come to see us with fascinating objects

and now as the day draws to a close,

we need to think about finding one of these

to get off to our next venue.

No rest for the wicked! Until next week, bye-bye!