Exeter Cathedral 2 Antiques Roadshow

When this cathedral was completed in the 14th century,

the Bishop of Exeter informed the Pope that the city had

a church to rival all the cathedrals of England and France.

And you can see why.

Up there is the longest medieval vaulted ceiling in the world.

Welcome, for a return visit of the Antiques Roadshow,

to Exeter, in Devon.

With its flying buttresses and imposing presence,

Exeter is one of the oldest cathedrals in Britain.

Built in the 12th century by

a nephew of William the Conqueror,

it's certainly wearing well.

It looks as if it hasn't changed since it was built.

But rather like the antiques brought along to the Roadshow, it's

only when you look more closely that history begins to reveal itself.

The cathedral was more or less rebuilt in the 1300s.

The two massive Norman-style towers are all that

remains of the original building.

The keen-eyed amongst you might spot they have round arched windows.

The newer parts have pointed arches.

Inside, the cathedral is filled with features

and memorials that speak of 1,000 years of history.

This plaque is dedicated to John Graves Simcoe,

who comes from Exeter, and amongst his impressive

list of achievements, he was Governor of Toronto

and he started the abolition of slavery throughout upper Canada in

1793, long before the end of slavery in the British Empire as a whole.

During the Second World War, on the night of May 4th, 1942

the Luftwaffe bombed Exeter.

The cathedral was hit, flattening the south chapel.

The explosion also shattered this choir screen, which was

directly opposite.

Fortunately, after the war, it was painstakingly reassembled

with thousands of fragments made to replace what was destroyed.

Those are the lighter pieces in the screen.

King George, visiting after the bombing,

described it as the "biggest jigsaw puzzle in the world".

The chapel was also fully restored with one modern touch.

Have a look - the cheeky chap in the flat cap over there -

he was the master mason.

Today, with the crowds gathered on the green, it's the turn

of the Roadshow to add itself to the long history of Exeter Cathedral.

Fancy pitting your wits against our experts?

Play along with our valuation game - just press red on your remote

control or go to our app on your tablet, or on your smartphone.

There are many great things about the Roadshow, and one of them

is when something comes in that specialists like me

have never seen before, and here is a wonderful object.

I love it, absolutely love it.

It's amusing, it's fun, it's rare. Tell me about it.

Do you know where it came from, or...?

To be absolutely honest, it's been in the family for...

Well, as long as I can remember.

I think it must have... Its provenance is from Denmark,

because most of John - my husband's - bits and pieces came from Denmark

because he is Danish... But apart from that, we've always

absolutely loved it because it's so charming...

Any idea what it is?

Absolutely no idea. I'm dying to know, so please put me

out of my misery. Well, all of us.

OK, Well, if we just turn it round a bit,

it's actually rather nicely made.

-Obviously we can see it's a squirrel.

-A dear little person.

The body is a coconut, as we can all see,

the mounts are all made in silver

and the eyes are probably red glass. It's all been textured to look like

fur and it's a really fun piece, but it's actually a table lighter.

And this used to have a wick in there, that burnt.

And it stood on a table with the wick burning,

and this was for snuffing out the flame...

..and then the ear actually serves as the lighter,

which had its own bit of wick,

and you lit that from the big flame and then lit your cigar.

Extraordinary.

Now, you mentioned Denmark. If we turn it up

and look at these marks at the front, those are marks for Germany.

Oh, right!

-And they tell us that it was made round about 1890.

-Mm.

And, really, it's the sort of thing I'd like to take home.

Well, you can't have it, sorry.

I love it to bits, we all love it.

And you're nuts about it. Oh.

Gosh, yes, nuts about it.

I think it's absolutely great, it's charmingly made, it's amusing,

if it ever came on the market, which I know it's not, but there'd

be a lot of people wanting it, so I think it's worth quite a bit.

I think probably in the region of... At least £1,500 maybe £2,000.

Thank you. It's a humdinger, really. I wasn't expecting that.

This is a really ropey leather trunk, isn't it?

Um, it's distressed, like its owner.

HE LAUGHS

You don't look too distressed to me,

but explain - why is it in such terrible condition?

It was a boyfriend's toy box many years ago,

hence the embellishments on the lid there.

I say, I can see a flower cut into the leather there.

-And are you still with that boyfriend?

-No, no, no, no.

So how do you have his toy box?

He knew that I loved it - you know,

probably I loved it more than he loved it, so he left it with me.

Well, that was very nice of him, I have to say.

Well, there's something very special about this, though, as an object.

I think you know who it's made by, don't you?

-Well, I didn't know originally.

-Right.

But when celebrity culture took hold, and I saw Victoria Beckham

with Louis Vuitton luggage and handbags, I did notice that

we've got "LV" and "Louis Vuitton" on all the little rivets, and...

Absolutely. And that is the magical thing about this trunk.

And we all know that company for its monogram,

the LV monogram, which, of course, we expect to see on a lot of luggage.

Yeah.

This hasn't got that.

What it's got is these LV marks and this mark on the clasp here

that you can see, but also if we open it up inside, we can see that

it's got this mark, "Louis Vuitton 149, New Bond Street, London".

Now, I know that their Oxford Street shop opened in around about 1885,

so that very neatly dates this trunk to around about 1890.

-Wow!

-What do you use it for now?

It's in use as a foot stool,

a coffee table, as you might be able to tell.

-Yes, right.

-And it now sits underneath my window, so when I pull

my blind or my curtains or I put up lovely Christmas decorations...

Yes.

-..I stand on it.

-You stand on it?

SHE LAUGHS

So these are probably heel marks on the top of it as well, are they?

Well, I have to say, I think really you should start treating it

a little bit differently and, frankly, if you had to go to auction

and buy this now, you would have to pay £2,000 to £3,000 for this trunk.

Wow! Fabulous!

So your boyfriend left you with something that was relatively

valuable.

Now, I'm hoping that he probably isn't going to be watching

the programme, and that he's not going to ask for it back.

He might ask for ME back.

LAUGHTER

You've brought two pictures in today which have two very different

-styles.

-Yes.

And the first one, down here, is very, very distinctive, with

the palette knife work, and it can only be by Kyffin Williams,

and we get two for the price of one, with this one.

We turn it round and on the back we've got the people going

over the rocks there.

Yeah.

On the reverse, and the cottages on the front.

I see it's not signed but I know it's by him,

so how did you get that?

He had an exhibition in the Leicester Galleries -

it's a long time ago, about 50-odd years-plus,

and I got in touch with him through a friend of my wife's who knew him,

and they arranged that I could go and meet him in his studio in

Holland Park, so I duly went along there and looked at it,

and saw that.

I didn't even see the one on the back.

And liked it very much and asked him how much it was,

and it was all of £30 and I couldn't really afford it

because my salary was only about £500 a year.

Anyway, he said, "You can pay it in bits when you can," so

I bought it on the never-never, and hence the reason I've still got it.

-That's the sort of man he was.

-Oh, he was a fantastic man.

He was a lovely, lovely man.

-So you got it, what, late

-'50s? Yeah.

It's a very nice early one, and also the style, oil on canvas, you've got

this impasto work which he did with a palette knife, absolutely typical.

The one at the top here, though, very different style, Impressionistic,

and again I know exactly who that's by, it's by Edward Seago, Ted Seago.

It is, yes.

And it's absolutely wonderful. So how did you get that one?

Well, that's another story.

I happened to meet him by chance in the island of Ponza,

off Anzio, and you sort of say "hello" for the first day, and you

say "it's a nice day" for the second day and we eventually got talking,

and I said, "Tell me what you do,"

and it turned out he was Edward Seago.

And years later I wanted to have one of his pictures,

so I wrote to him in about the late '60s and said, you know,

"Dear Mr Seago, you won't remember me, but..."

And got this lovely letter back

saying, "Yeah, but I can do one for you

"when you're next in England. I'll see what I can do. And, by the way,

"have you got any nice houses for sale?"

Because I was working as an agent for the Aga Khan in Sardinia.

And so I wrote back and, to cut a long story short,

he eventually said, well, he'd come out,

I said, "Come and stay with me," and he actually came and stayed

with me - there's a photograph of him having breakfast on my terrace.

-There he is.

-Fantastic!

With his companion and good friend, Peter Seymour.

Absolutely fantastic!

-And, of course, I have seen pictures by him of Sardinia.

-Have you?

Oh, yes, over the years, I've sold some.

Well, I can tell you this is a classic Seago - it's wonderful,

and the light on the back of the cattle here, just wonderful.

Yes, it's unfinished - that is why it's not signed, but it's

still as spontaneous as any of his other pictures that ARE signed.

But I think it's just fantastic to have the personal stories that

you knew both these artists.

Now, when you look at these in value today,

Kyffin, in the last 10 or 20 years, has gone up in value hugely.

What is a picture like that worth, painted on the reverse?

Certainly £10,000 to £15,000. So your £30...

The one above here by Seago, again, is just a classic.

I don't care that it's not signed.

His signature's there, and that's worth a minimum of £6,000 to £8,000.

Right, thanks very much.

You know, this bit of metal was a heck of a thing for our lads

to bring up today.

It weighs a huge amount.

It's the top panel of a Morrison indoor air raid shelter

and it dates from 1942.

Well, now, the Morrison shelter - or the Morrison table shelter,

as it's correctly called - was basically that.

It was designed as a table, a kitchen table, dining table,

made out of steel and grilled-wire sides, and the idea was that

if there was an air raid, a family - perhaps three people,

plus a dog, perhaps - would rush

under the table and close the sides

and if the house collapsed on top of the shelter, that they would survive.

Well, in Exeter, 219 houses with Morrison shelters were actually

totally destroyed and from those 219 only two fatalities were incurred.

Now, of course, one bomb fell on the cathedral in 1942 and here

we have the tail fin from that bomb,

and that's kept in the cathedral.

That was a very common bomb

dropped by the Germans during the Second World War.

That would have done a huge amount of damage,

but thousands and thousands of lives were saved

because of Morrison table shelters like this.

And the interesting thing is that, however heavy this weighs,

and it weighs a huge amount, the instructions that came with it

showed a couple of people putting this together - you know - a family.

-Yes, it was like Meccano set, wasn't it?

-It was a kit, came as a kit.

Now, they were called Morrison shelters

because they were named after Herbert Morrison,

the Home Secretary, and he was so frustrated that they weren't

developing something quick enough - a shelter for the public - that

he's reputed to have said, "I'm going to lock you all in a room and you're

"not going to come out until you've designed me an indoor shelter."

But apparently they did, and the Morrison shelter was the result.

Where on earth did YOU get it from?

Well, this, along with 243 other panels, formed, from 1947

-until 2005, the safety fence of Exeter Speedway.

-No!

Yes, yes, I've whitewashed it many times.

But where did Exeter Speedway get them from?

Well, there was a gentleman had a salvage business at Exwick

in Exeter, and after the war there were over 5,000 Morrison

shelters in Exeter, distributed in Exeter, and he collected them all.

He was a director of the speedway.

All the wooden fencing that had been at the old track before the war

had been burned by soldiers who'd been stationed at the stadium during

the war, British and American, and so they had to replace it.

Everything was on ration

but he had all these panels in his warehouse and he built the fence.

And when the stadium was being demolished,

we took five of these panels.

Well, you know, we come to the time when I've got to try

and put a valuation on this piece of scrap metal,

and I fear that's basically what it is, a bit of scrap metal.

I guess a collector would probably pay £100 for it.

That's all that it's worth.

I never thought it would be worth that, but I do know a lot of people

that would like a part of it.

We were going to cut them up once and sell them

to raise money for the new track, but we might still do that.

Do you know, I wonder how many people at home have said,

"Hang on, we've got one of those

"in the shed at the bottom of the garden!"

I bet there are a lot still around, but people don't know what they are.

Exactly!

THEY LAUGH

Three lovely Chinese silk jackets embroidered with all

sorts of symbols.

What I'd like to know is the story

of how they actually got here, to Exeter.

They were left to my grandmother.

They arrived in 12 rather wonderful trunks from Shanghai,

where a great uncle of hers had gone to live,

had married a German lady by the name of Lita,

and the great uncle had been really the black sheep of the family

and nobody discussed him at all.

But marrying a German in Shanghai doesn't sound as if it was

a particularly black-sheepy thing to do.

No, but I think the problem was that Lita actually

ran a house of ill repute, a bordello.

-She was a madam?

-She was a madam.

-My goodness.

And she had these clothes made for her, and they're very beautiful,

and I think the work in them is actually fantastic.

They have got some lovely pieces of work,

and in fact they do tell a story. It's very interesting.

This is a Daoist symbol here, which is the eight-sided trigram

with symbols through each of the eight areas,

and in the centre is the Yin and Yang symbol,

and in fact it's on all of them.

-If you have a look, it's on the pink one and the one in the middle.

-Yes.

And here, this is cash, coins.

Oh, is it?

So, it's got longevity,

it's got money,

-you know, success.

-Mm.

And this is another sign of longevity -

you've got a bat symbol on the top,

and then a shou below it.

-This symbol here is known as a shou.

-Right.

So, it's speaking volumes to anybody who wore it -

it's full of auspicious symbols of good luck and longevity.

The panels here are obviously the better-quality pieces,

the panels and the bottom areas and the neck.

The rest is not such close and good work.

As far as date is concerned, I'd put them round about 1900-1910.

-Does that fit in with family history?

-Yes, I would say so, yes.

-Right.

So, was it just clothing that came back in those 12 trunks?

Oh, not at all, no - there was a collection of erotic jade pieces

that arrived as well.

And my grandmother was so appalled with what the figures were doing,

she took them out onto the pavement outside her house,

and she smashed them all on the pavement cos she was so horrified,

except one piece which she kept,

which was so complicated she couldn't really see

what they were doing, and she put it on her mantelpiece and enjoyed it

for a few weeks until a friend appeared and said,

"Alma, do you know what those people are doing on your mantelpiece?"

And being a vicar's wife, she said, "No - how simply appalling!"

-And that was removed and it was smashed on the pavement as well.

-No!

-So you could have saved one of those pieces, but no.

-One.

I suppose the comfort is that they would not have been hugely valuable,

so we will put that to one side.

-You have not lost, you know, £10 million. LAUGHING:

-No!

Let's concentrate on what we actually have, and these three robes,

I would say that they're worth

£200 to £300 each,

so together about £900.

-Gosh, yes, fascinating.

-Great.

Well, I've got bored with looking at jewellery,

so I thought I'd try my hand with furniture.

Could you tell me about this?

Yes, I inherited this about nine years ago from my great aunt,

and it's an apothecary's chest that doctors would keep medicines in.

I've had it in my house for seven years and was watching

the Antiques Roadshow and an expert had a look at one and said,

"There's usually a secret compartment somewhere."

So I had a little look around and discovered that there is indeed

-a secret compartment.

-Oh, fabulous. I love secret compartments.

And on the back...

-slide the door across, and inside...

-Fantastic!

-..was...

-No!

-..a ring box.

-A ring!

-What did you think when you found this?

-Shock, total shock.

I didn't expect to find the compartment,

-let alone anything inside it.

-Oh, that's brilliant.

Now...

..what is interesting, the box...

"The leading London goldsmiths",

and it's got "Brixton, Lewisham, Camden Town, Streatham, Peckham,

"Kingsland, Putney, Balham, Sutton and Hackney".

Quite a few shops.

-I think somebody might have got to this before you.

-OK.

-Because they're not diamonds.

-Oh.

I think there could have been diamonds -

-this is in a nine-carat gold mount.

-Yes, yes.

So someone might have found the secret compartment,

looked at the ring, thought, "I'll have them."

And swapped them with paste.

I'm afraid it's a paste ring.

I said all along it probably wasn't real.

-Oh, and it's worth about £5.

-Bus fare home.

Your bus fare home.

Um, and this cabinet, I have been told, is about £300 to £400.

Excellent.

-Two rather interesting watches.

-Yes.

-Divided by nearly 200 years.

-Really?

-So, are they family things or are you a collector?

They're family things, they came from my mum's family.

I'm not quite sure how far back they go,

-I know nothing about them, really.

-OK, well let's start with this one,

because this is an English Pair Cased watch,

called a Pair Case quite simply because it has a pair of cases,

-an outer and an inner.

-Right.

And then looking at this,

we've got a fabulous white enamel dial

-with blued steel beetle and poker hands.

-Yes.

-Very typically mid-18th century.

-Right.

Now, these things - have you ever been inside this?

-I haven't, no, no.

-OK. They're always signed and numbered.

Look at that.

That is by a local boy,

Edward Upjohn of Exeter.

-The right place today.

-Exactly. So you didn't know this was...?

I didn't know, no, no. Not at all.

-He is a great maker who started off work in Shaftesbury in Dorset.

-Yes.

Not too far away. He then went to America, even further away.

He came back here, worked in Devon. He arrived in Exeter, the late 1730s,

-and worked till he died in the mid 1760s.

-OK.

It's a great thing, I love it.

Now, when we look at the outer case here...

it's just a plain tortoiseshell- covered case.

-I wondered if it was tortoiseshell.

-And that is wrong for the period.

-Right.

-This is the sort of thing I would expected to have seen, really,

-some time after 1780s.

-Right.

Quite interesting to have seen how perhaps that got damaged,

and it's been recovered.

-Now, this is very visual.

-Yes.

-Well into the 20th century.

-Really?

The give-away, really, is the quality of the enamel,

-and it's got this eccentric dial.

-Yes.

It's very, very typically Swiss,

and, of course, it's silver and enamel. But if I turn it over...

-we reveal the joy of this watch.

-Yes.

But that is as good a foxhound

-as I've seen enamelled on any watch back.

-It's very good.

-It's lovely.

-Yes.

-And look at the colours, the vibrancy.

I've always liked that one from that point of view.

It's a wonderful thing. I mean, imagine being at a sort of

1930s dinner party and whipping that out of a waistcoat pocket.

That's absolutely superb - it's a lovely, lovely dress watch.

-Yes, yes.

-And again...

there, Swiss marks, and the eccentric movement as well,

-to go with the eccentric dial.

-Yes.

So which do you think is the more valuable?

I would imagine that one.

I wish it was, but it's not. It's a real shame.

-That's a pity, isn't it?

-The purists want this.

-Yes.

But this is a different market.

So, price at auction on that, in that state,

-bearing in mind it's been recovered...

-Yes.

..I'm going to quote £600 to £900.

It's not a lot, is it?

No, but it is quite a lot.

-You'll probably be happier when I tell you what that will fetch.

-Right.

Even though it's only silver,

I'm going to quote an auction price of around £2,500 on that.

That's an awful lot of money.

I don't know if my mum's listening behind me, but...

I can just see her over there, and she is smiling.

She is smiling, yes.

Elisabeth Frink is one of the finest sculptors

that Britain has ever known. And, of course, looking at this,

that's almost emblematic of her, isn't it?

I mean, you look at that, one of her Goggle Heads, as they were called,

and really you immediately think Elisabeth Frink, don't you?

This is almost a sort of signature. Why is it yours?

Because my parents were very friendly with Elisabeth Frink

from around about the '60s to the '80s,

and she used to come down to our house and sculpt

and do modelling with my father on different types of clay.

Your father was a sculptor, too?

He was, in his later... Later part of his life.

-I see. And they were close friends?

-Very close friends, yes.

You've got this amazing correspondence here, haven't you?

-Yes.

-And lots of photographs. And is that your father there?

That's my father there, yes.

Modelling a head of Elisabeth Frink down in his studio.

-Most striking looking woman, wasn't she?

-Yes.

She looks like a sculpture there. Very remarkable.

And you've got lots and lots of letters which we can't possibly

-read now in here, but it's really a very valuable archive.

-Yes.

You know, when I first saw this little head,

I looked at it and I didn't know anything about the background.

I don't think I've ever seen this before, never. It's not recorded.

No, it's not, I don't think it is.

No, it's not, and also it lacks this very sharp-cut definition

-that the larger heads have.

-Yes.

-You see that?

-Yes.

And one wonders why a maquette like that would be cast in bronze,

but it's so tactile and handle-able.

-So it's a remarkable thing, and it's clearly signed "Frink" there.

-Yes.

And with this provenance, we can have no doubt about it.

So that, I think, could be a very early idea for the Goggle Heads.

Yes, I think it's an original one before she sort of changed

her style to the picture where she's got...

-Well, that makes it rather an exciting find, I have to say.

-Yes.

Anyway, moving on, we've got this marvellous boar, love that.

Look at him from end-on, the way he is so anchored to the ground

and yet pushed away from us. It's almost, you know...

Some of her sculpture has a sense of dread and fear to it,

-don't you think?

-Yes, it does.

And I think... Where she used to sort of see, in the wild in France,

she used to see the boars there, and see probably what's going on,

and that was her sort of, "I'll get it captured."

And that's reflected in her things about her bronzes

and pictures of animals and almost an obsession with death.

And this, of course, this dead hare, which I find incredibly beautiful.

-Difficult subject but very, very beautiful.

-Yes, yes.

And there's a letter here, isn't there, to your father,

asking him to find...

She asked him to go and find some road kills which was hares,

stoats, you name it, all the different types of animals,

and we used to put them in our deep freeze and then bring them out

when she used to come down and then either sculpt them or draw them,

paint them there, and then that's how we got hold of this one.

That's the remarkable thing about this archive.

-All the letters talk about her process.

-Yeah.

Her thought processes, what she wanted to do, she's discussing with

another sculptor how she's doing it and her approach and her methods,

which is, you know, which is what's really fascinating about it.

Now, they're family things -

-presumably you've never valued them or anything.

-No, no.

All right, well, as an unrecorded early idea for the heads,

it's quite difficult, because there's not been another one

to judge it on. We don't know how many there were,

the size of the edition, there's nothing on it to suggest.

And we've never seen another. If that's a one-off,

I think conservatively I've got to put £6,000 to £8,000 on it.

Right. Very good.

The larger ones, something about that high, you know,

-they do six figures.

-Yeah.

But who knows? Collectors who are interested in Frink might rate that

very, very highly, more so than I said.

It's not an international market so much, really -

-it's the British who like this very, very British market.

-Yes.

What about this?

It's got that extraordinary sense of dread which can put people off,

-you know, not an easy thing to live with.

-No.

-And yet it is so powerful.

-I've not seen such a good one. 10,000 to 15,000.

-Oh, thank you.

And what about the boar?

Well, I know that when my father bought it,

he paid... I think it was 2,200 for it.

-Right, OK, well, how long ago was that? Ages ago?

-'68, '69.

Well, he did it out of friendship, and respect, almost,

but he wanted it didn't he?

-But today it's probably worth about £20,000 to £30,000.

-Right.

That is very good, very good.

Well, here we are in Exeter Cathedral,

and we were here in Exeter, at Exeter University, 20 years ago

with the Antiques Roadshow,

and that is where we first saw

this remarkable ship made of bone,

and you brought it along and told us all about it.

Just remind us a little bit about this ship.

It comes from the Napoleonic wars, from the early 19th century,

doesn't it? Made by prisoners of war.

Yes, um, believed to have been made at Dartmoor Prison,

so sometime after 1809, and made out of the lamb bones

that they salvaged from the stews.

And at the time, when you brought it along,

it was such a remarkable object,

it was voted by viewers as one of the best finds on the Roadshow.

The French prisoners of war, of course,

in the Napoleonic period, made models of their own boats,

the boats that they were most familiar with.

And they actually made quite a lot of money

from making boats like this.

-It was bought by your mother, you said, in 1963.

-Yes.

Are you going to tell me how much she paid?

We can't remember exactly, but it was just under £100.

-My mother had it re-rigged by an ex-naval captain.

-Yes.

And it wasn't until he was working on it,

he discovered that there was a mechanism for running the guns back,

-which is this string at the back.

-Now, does it still work?

Yes, we don't like to pull it too hard, but...

OK, let me give it a go.

Oh, yes, yes, yes!

They're retracting, and out they come again. Wonderful.

Well, value.

I think if it went into auction, we'd be talking about perhaps

up to £15,000. It is absolutely terrific.

You've brought along some other objects today.

-What can you tell me about these?

-All this was bought by my mother.

I used to go round auctions with her.

I was about 14 at the time.

So these are also Napoleonic, but we

don't know where they've come from.

As far as you know, these are again made by prisoners of war?

Oh, absolutely, they're definitely made by Napoleonic prisoners of war.

Well, Hilary Kaye is with us today,

back in Exeter.

It's like deja vu, and she'll be thrilled to see them.

There's lots of wacky objects that have arrived to us through history,

and I'm just wondering what you know about this one.

It just belonged to my great-great grandfather,

-and apparently he stirred his drinks with it, but that's all I know.

-OK.

So Grandpa stirred his drinks with it, right.

So, this is a 19th century object. it's free-made, ie -

you stretch a piece of glass and nip it and push it in,

and what I'd like to know from you lot is what is this?

-What is it? What is that for?

-Old medical instrument.

-Old medical instrument.

-A pestle.

-A pestle.

Teething thing for rubbing on gums to help baby's teeth through.

No, no, no. It's a sugar crusher.

Years ago, the way that sugar was sold was not in bags

but it was a loaf. It was a wet loaf of sugar, which was hard.

-A single lump of sugar, and you bought a lump for your kitchen.

-Oh.

-And this is the blade by which you attacked the sugar loaf.

-Right.

The sugar falls off and then you put it in your drink, if that's

-what you're going to do. Then you flipped it round in the liquid.

-Oh.

And you crushed the sugar in the bottom of your vessel.

-Right. OK.

-To make it dissolve.

-Right.

-So its formal title is sugar crusher.

-OK.

So, there's a little mystery solved.

-I mean its value is, what, £3.

-Aw.

Because what do you use it for?

There's absolutely no function in modern society for it,

but as a mystery object, you now know,

it's a 19th century sugar crusher worth three quid.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

It's slightly spooky seeing oneself 20 years ago -

and you, too! Anyway, here we are back in Exeter 20 years later.

It's great for me to see this ship again.

I loved it the first time round and I love it even more

the second time round. It really is such a cracker, isn't it?

Now, the ship we will leave to one side, actually,

because we had such a lovely chat about that all those years ago,

and I've got nothing more to say about it.

What I would like to talk about, though, are these additional pieces.

Now, was I right in thinking that it was your mother

-who was the collector?

-Yes, that's right, yes.

So these are part of your late mother's collection.

-These are all from her collection.

-It's great. What we've got is...

I'm just going to take the lid off here.

Ooh, a dominoes set with the crib board on the top

and it's all very rough and ready inside. And, in fact, look -

that's a leg bone. If ever you saw a leg bone, that's it.

Just using the curvature of the bone to make the top of the casket,

so that's terrific.

-I love this little hand of friendship.

-It's great.

Isn't it beautiful, this ring here?

Oh, that's good, and on the back it says "Made by the prisoners of war,"

so we know - we'd hoped - we're talking about the right thing.

That's absolutely charming with those two hands.

I wonder if it was made as a love token, perhaps, to take back home.

The Napoleonic prisoners of war made all kinds of things,

from the very simple we've just seen to the very elaborate here,

to what I think is the quirky and rather amusing,

and this is a little knife grinder.

He's got a grindstone...

and he's holding something that he's either polishing

or sharpening in his hand, and when you turn the handle...

Isn't it great?

He's still got the colouration, the dye on his uniform. Terrific.

So let's go through and talk about the value of these pieces.

The casket is quite a simple one.

I've seen others where there's been painting and more decoration,

so I think that I'm going to be slightly cautious on valuing that.

I'd put it at around £200 to perhaps £300.

The ring I love. I think that's an absolutely charming object,

and I would put that at perhaps £250, £300.

But I think he's my favourite. He ticks all the boxes,

-and I would put him at perhaps £300 to £400.

-Oh, right.

-So, adding all that up, £750 to £1,000 for the three.

-Lovely.

What do we say about the ship model?

20 years ago, to put it into context,

I put then a huge value on this - £15,000.

Now, I don't know if you've kept track of what's happened to prices.

Ten years ago they went up like this.

And now, the journey has come back down again.

It's been a bit like a sort of rough voyage,

which I'm sure this ship was used to.

And now we're in, I'm afraid, rather calm waters.

I think today I would put it at probably not much more,

perhaps £20,000.

It's no reflection on how wonderful it is.

The ship hasn't changed,

it's just that the market has.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because you both treasure these in any case.

Absolutely.

-And lovely to see you again.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

This incredibly detailed little paper map says at the top

-"The Battle of Waterloo by an eyewitness."

-That's right, yes.

That sounds extraordinary. Where did you get it from?

I found it in my grandfather's house when we were clearing it out,

after he died, and I found it with the wallet

-and it was just folded up inside.

-Obviously, you know what it depicts.

-Indeed, yes.

-The Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

-That's right, yes.

This battle effectively ended a quarter of a century of fighting.

-That's right, yes.

-Napoleon's final battle.

After which he was a completely spent force.

This is an amazingly detailed map.

It says it's by an eye witness, but is there a name on there anywhere?

I've not been able to see one, but the writing is very small and...

-It's tiny, isn't it?

-I struggle to read it, yes.

-It's incredibly small.

You struggled to read it - I, even if I had a magnifying glass,

I'd have trouble reading it, but it looks like a poem.

-Well, I've never noticed that, if that's the case.

-Ah.

When you get home, get one of those great big...

-I'm going to have to get the magnifying glass out.

-Yes, exactly.

And I think gradually you'll be able to decipher the words.

-This shows various points on the battlefield.

-It does, yes.

Just here is La Haye Sainte.

Now, that was a farm, and it was absolutely crucial to hold that,

-in order to win the battle.

-OK.

And it changed hands a number of times

and was the scene of fierce fighting.

The other great thing is that the man who drew and painted this

watercolour map has depicted the forces in different colours.

-That's right, because he's put a key down here.

-So he has.

I'd like to spend hours

closely examining this wonderful piece of paper.

I love it, and lots of other people will love it, too.

I reckon if this came up for auction today, it would make £3,000.

OK. I didn't expect that.

What are you going to do with it?

Put it back in the drawer.

Hide it away.

Here we are at Exeter Cathedral,

and something which I wouldn't expect to find here.

So, tell me about this, please.

Well, this is from our parish church, not far from here,

and it was given to us by a family in memory of their little boy,

who died when he was 11 years old.

And this family had lived and worked in both Africa and India.

And because there are lots of animals and things on it,

we wondered whether it had come from the colonies somewhere.

-OK, what I find quite interesting as well, this date here.

-Yes, yes.

What do you believe on that?

Well, I find it curious because it almost looks like it says 1594

and then there's... like a seven there.

Yes. The piece, actually, in my opinion, is 18th century.

-18th century, yes.

-So, where you've got this seven...

-Yes.

..I think someone's tried to make it into 15,

-just tried to make it much older than it actually is.

-Yes, yes, yes.

-Its country of origin.

-Yes.

It's French.

-Ah, ooh. Quite like that idea.

-It's a French armoire.

-Yes.

-Or a hall cupboard.

-Yes.

-And the wood is chestnut.

Oh, oh...

-So it's really, really heavy.

-Yes, it's a very hard wood.

Very, very hard, dense wood, yes, yes.

The carving, to me, is 18th century carving.

I find this fantastic, this gentleman here with this shotgun.

-Yes.

-And being religious...

-Yes.

..we have Jesus here on the cross, and have a look,

-a Roman soldier who's...

-Piercing his side, yes.

-Piercing his side.

-What tells me it's French is when we look at the hinges.

-Oh.

-Right, that's typical type of hinge you'll see on a French armoire.

-Ah.

-When we look at - this is what we call the escutcheon.

-Yes.

-The escutcheon plates.

-Yes.

-This is typically French.

-Ah.

-And if you look carefully, you see these little brass studs.

-Yes, yes.

-This tells me it's made in Normandy.

-Oh.

So, we're getting further away from Africa...

Yes. Oh, this is wonderful, because our village is twinned with

-a village in Normandy.

-Oh, fantastic.

Normally, you see these early pieces and the panels have all split,

but that's in marvellous condition.

I love the idea - it's what we call its bleeding -

so in the highlights you have this wonderful, warm patination.

-Yes, I can see that.

-Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

-Yes.

-OK, so it's an 18th century piece, making out it's much earlier.

-Yes.

But it's an 18th century piece

-and I would put a value on this between £4,000 and £5,000.

-Really?

And we've known nothing about it for decades.

-Isn't that great, coming on the

-Roadshow? It is! Thank you so much.

-It's a great pleasure.

-Yes, thank you.

We don't really get very many wood engravings of the period

that this is dated, 1947, on the Roadshow.

But I must say, I know very little about James English.

What's your connection with him? Because you've got two here by him.

I know very little other than my father was a conscientious objector

in the last war and he and James English were in

-labour battalions in the UK together.

-Right.

I have to say, it's quite a difficult subject for some people,

and do you know anything about their life in the war?

I believe they were working mainly on the railways,

very long hours and labouring, primarily.

Yeah. He clearly had an interest in the arts.

What was his interest in the arts?

Well, before the war, he worked in the advertising department

of Liberty's in Regent Street, where he met my mother.

Well, it's interesting you say advertising,

because these are really quite like graphic art and I suspect

he and James had a sort of visual connection together with this.

I think this is very much like the work of Eric Ravilious,

who was one of the great designers who died during the war,

but this is very much in his sort of style.

Wood engraving, so it's able to get fine lines and shading

and so on in the engraving,

and, in fact, it's not mentioned in any of his biographies that he was

a conscientious objector, which in itself is quite telling, isn't it?

We have, of course, to deal with value.

This seems rather trite, really, now, but I think, you know,

there is a market for these, and he has a market.

They are worth somewhere around about £100 each.

Which isn't riches, but I think they're very, very nice

-and wonderful quality.

-Yes, yes.

I didn't think they'd be worth a lot of money, but I was just interested

to try and find out a little bit more about him.

Yes, and now, you know...

perhaps one might think that life wasn't always perfect

-for those conscientious objectors either.

-No, very true.

Do you know, I have to say it's a rather intriguing

selection of clocks and collection of clocks.

Are they yours? Did you acquire them, or not?

No, they are my dad's clocks, but he's since passed on and, um,

he's been gone ten years now,

but I've kept them in storage,

and he acquired them 20 years ago.

So when did he start collecting?

When Mum died, he took it up as a hobby, and this was his passion

and kept him going for the next ten years until he passed on.

And which was the first of these that he bought?

-The black one.

-This one here?

-Yes. And then this one came along.

That one came along, and then at what stage...

-He just started accumulating these ones, did he?

-Yes.

What sort of money was he spending? Do you know?

No idea. I think he thought if he told us, we'd be worried.

-Well, you do have a lot of cause for concern.

-Ah.

And what worries me is that he might have been spending real money

-on most of the stuff on these lower two tables.

-Yes.

-Because they're not real clocks.

-They're not?

-No.

-Oh.

His first one is fine, his second one is OK as well,

but the majority of these are Oriental fakes.

And I use the word "fakes" because they were made in the '70s and '80s

and '90s, and are still being made now.

Now, when they first started coming to the country,

they were slipped into provincial salerooms,

or some dealers used to sell them, thinking they were possibly right -

-non-specialist dealers that is.

-Yes.

And he might well have been spending £300 or £400

-on these sort of things then.

-Yes.

And actually they were costing £23, £25 maximum.

-So let's hope he didn't spend too much on this lot.

-OK.

What did he pay for the first clock that he bought?

I think somewhere in the region, maybe, of £1,500.

That was a very sensible buy.

William Marks of Warminster, again nice maker,

typically sort of 1770s,

and it's quarter-chiming, as you probably know.

-Shall we just have a listen?

-Yes, yes, that's lovely.

-TINKLY CHIME IN DESCENDING NOTES

-Oh, that's really nice.

-Do you still have this going at home?

-Not at the moment, no,

but I did have it going about ten years ago, up until when he died.

But I've put them in storage since, and held them

because they are sentimental, all of them, because they were,

you know, my dad's, but I know it's got a lovely chime.

It's got a great chime. Let's just listen to it on the hour.

-And I really loved listening to it when it was with him.

-TINKLY CHIME IN DESCENDING NOTES

-You ought to get it out and have it working again.

-I know. I will.

And then, of course, his next purchase after this

-was the cuckoo clock.

-Yes.

You must use these things. I know it's a memory.

It sounds lovely, yes, a very dear memory, I know.

CLOCK CUCKOOS

It's lovely, isn't it?

He's great fun. So, this lovely cuckoo clock,

absolutely typical sort of Black Forest area...

and very, very much nicer than the sort of one that hangs on the wall

with pine cone weights and only goes for a day.

This is a proper eight-day clock dating from about 1870 to 1880.

This one, realistically, at auction - I have to tell you the prices

-because that's what I'm here to try and help you with.

-Yes.

-Between £700 and £1,000.

-Gosh, yes.

And this one, I haven't as yet looked at the movement,

but it's a nice three-train clock.

Um, and I would be happy to quote you between -

-at auction in this state - £4,000 to £6,000.

-Gosh.

-So, that wasn't a bad buy, was it, at 1,500?

-No.

Now, what are you going to do with these now?

Having listened to them now,

get them back out, with the lovely memories, because today,

this has brought me... After ten years since Dad has gone,

yes, I've missed them.

Memories will always be there.

Yes, thank you very much.

The absolute incredible thing for me is that this dish,

that belongs to you, is half a millennia old.

-Really?

-500 years old.

-Right.

Tell me anything you know about it.

Well, not a lot.

It's come down through the family,

it's sat on my parents' mantelpiece since the late 1950s.

It came to my father through his aunt,

who was a lady's companion,

and I believe that my aunt was given it by the lady.

-But that's all I know about it.

-Have you done any research on it?

I've done no research on it at all. I've wondered about it.

I love the plate because of the colours and the lustre on it.

Well, the dish is actually Spanish.

-Right.

-But it's that combination of Spanish and Islamic.

-Right.

-Because the Moors came to Spain.

-Yes.

And in 1520 this dish was made in Spain, probably by Moorish potters.

And they were responsible for this wonderful lustre decoration on it.

-Yes.

-So, it's a combination of two cultures.

-Yes.

It is Spanish, Hispano-Moresque pottery from 1520.

I didn't think it was so old.

-It's wonderful, a really exciting thing.

-Right.

-So you haven't researched it?

-No.

-You've had no thoughts about what it might be worth?

-No, not at all.

No, OK. Well, I think if you put this into an auction sale,

you'd be reasonably expecting between

-£1,200 and £1,500 for it.

-Wow.

That's lovely. But it's such a pretty dish, isn't it?

-I really, really like it.

-You're not going to sell it, are you?

-I don't think so, no.

-Well done.

Well, what I like about it is it matches my suit.

It does! Lovely colouring.

When I was at school, my history teacher used to say to us all,

when we were sitting there, "What was the most catastrophic thing

"that happened in the time of the Civil War?"

And we all used to sort of put our hands up and say,

"The Roundheads against the Cavaliers."

He said "No, no - what was the one day that had a catastrophic event

"that then changed the course of British history?"

And then of course we all were expected to say

"The execution of King Charles I,"

and it's indelibly drilled into my brain - on the 30th January, 1649.

You've brought along a little gold ring with a very mournful-looking

little miniature of King Charles I, in a gold setting.

Now, how on earth did such a ring like this come into your possession?

Well, it's actually my husband's family's ring,

and my husband's father - Pete, here - found it in his father's

bedside table drawer after he passed away about 20 years ago.

This is a ring he spoke about?

No, he'd never said a word about it, how he got it or anything like that.

So there's a question, isn't it?

They're interesting from a royal point of view

and a political point of view.

I mentioned the date 1649 because, really,

we can date this ring to probably around about 1650 to 1655.

And they were made during a time of political great upheaval.

Now, remember, after Charles I was executed, there was

still a lot of royalist feeling,

and often these little gold rings were made as keepsakes.

And if you were a royalist sympathiser,

if you sympathised with the beliefs of the executed king and his son,

who then went on to, of course, become Charles II,

you would have one of these little gold rings.

So, political sympathiser, male or female, lady or gentleman?

It's difficult to know, but it's interesting because, well,

if you have a look at the size of the hoop, I think

it's just about going to fit on your little finger.

I think this surely - let's just try it out -

-must have been a lady sympathiser with the royalist cause.

-Yeah.

Because it just about fits on there. It's not a gentleman's ring, is it?

-No.

-No, I don't think so.

Who was this mythic lady who owned this ring?

And, if we look at the back, it is painted in enamel

with a white skull of the executed Charles, with "CR" -

Charles Rex - on the back, enamelled in black and white.

And that is a nice counterpoint to the sky blue enamel on the front.

The enamel around the hoop is slightly damaged.

But then again, if you think about it, if it was made in around about

1650, it's entitled to be a little bit damaged.

So, do you know that in the world of jewellery they're very collectable?

It is effectively a mourning ring, but people like to buy them because

of their age and the political dynamic, if you think about it.

-£4,000 to £5,000.

-Goodness me.

-Wow!

-Well, that's interesting, yeah.

If that appeared at auction, everyone would want to bid for it

and there's every possibility that my £4,000 to £5,000

-could comfortably ease into the £5,000 to £6,000 bracket, plus.

-Wow.

-So what a thing to find lying in a drawer.

-Yes.

Languidly lying there. Amazing story.

-Yes, I'm glad we brought it in.

-Yes.

We all know dolls, and sometimes they look as if they're sort of

fairly bland, but this one has got an expression which makes you think,

actually, that there is something behind those eyes.

Now, what do you think of her? Do you like her?

We do, we think she's beautiful.

-Because you've got lots of other dolls, haven't you?

-Yes.

Now, it's the museum - tell me about the museum.

Yes, it belongs to Sidmouth Museum,

and it was gifted to Sidmouth Museum

1990s, early 1990s.

Well, let's talk about what you know about her, first of all.

-Does she come with any story?

-She does, yes.

She was presented to a young girl

after the girl had presented a bouquet

to the Princess Louis Battenberg.

Ah, so that's Princess Victoria. Queen Victoria's granddaughter.

Now, as with every doll, her particular story

is on the back of her head, so I'm going to just pick her up...

turn her around,

and we'll have a look at what we might see there.

So - rolling up the hair,

which is a lovely mohair wig,

very long and lustrous - we can see exactly what we need to know,

which is "1448 Simon and Halbig."

The second biggest producer of dolls' heads in Germany,

based in Thuringia and operating from 1869 onwards.

And they produced a huge number of different sorts of dolls.

Some of them were big, some of them were small, and a lot of them,

I have to say, are not very exciting.

She has this expression,

this exquisite expression,

this wistful look -

-you feel it's almost a portrait of somebody.

-Yes.

And she is the sort of doll that everybody wants.

-Everybody wants.

-Everybody.

If she came up for sale now,

she would fetch between £10,000 and £15,000.

Oh, lovely, lovely, that's wonderful.

-I think the museum has no idea...

-No.

-FIONA BRUCE:

-'I get the impression that the doll will now become

'the centrepiece of the museum's collection.

'Whenever we come to Exeter, we seem to unearth treasures.'

It's remarkable to see that survivor from the Napoleonic Wars,

that ship, remember, made of bone, crafted by prisoners of war.

We saw it here in Exeter 20 years ago.

Incredible it turned up again today. Who knows - we might see it again,

if we come back here in another 20 years.

From the team here at Exeter Cathedral, until next time, bye-bye.