Wentworth Woodhouse 2 Antiques Roadshow

# Gloria... #

It's fair to say we like to hold our Roadshow days

at grand stately homes,

and today's venue near Rotherham is no exception.

Look at it. Gorgeous.

But this is nothing - wait till you see the other side.

This is Wentworth Woodhouse

with the longest facade of any grand house

between here and Istanbul.

It's twice as long as Buckingham Palace

and we're here for a return visit.

Welcome to the Antiques Roadshow from South Yorkshire.

Completed in 1760,

Wentworth Woodhouse has long been

one of the great country houses of Europe.

It was once home to the Fitzwilliams,

a powerful aristocratic family that included a Prime Minister.

But since the end of the Second World War,

Wentworth has been in decline.

Worst of all, parts of the house have started sinking.

Take a look at these doors here,

particularly the door handles.

See how this one is lower than this one?

The cause is said to be

the very substance that made the Fitzwilliam family

one of the richest in Victorian England -

coal.

It drove the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution

and Wentworth sat on the richest coal seam in Yorkshire.

Thousands of miners worked deep underground

for the Fitzwilliams.

But after the Second World War, Britain needed rebuilding

and there was a shortage of coal.

So the Minister for Fuel and Power, Manny Shinwell,

ordered the Wentworth grounds to be dug up for open-cast mining,

a move seen by many as class warfare.

The land was ripped up all the way to the edge of the drive here,

leaving the house effectively marooned in a coal field.

The house survived the digging and blasting,

but a year later, in 1947, the coal industry was nationalised.

Overnight, the Fitzwilliam family was stripped

of all its income from mining.

This was the beginning of the end for Wentworth Woodhouse.

In 1948, unable to afford the upkeep of this palatial home

and crippled by death duties,

the family sold off the contents.

The building was then leased to the council as a PE college.

The Fitzwilliams finally sold Wentworth Woodhouse in 1989.

The current owners have done

a lot of restoration on the house,

but there's still an awful lot to go

and they're just beginning to welcome people here on tours,

so we're delighted today to invite the people of South Yorkshire here

for the Antiques Roadshow.

And remember, you can try your hand at being an expert

by playing along with our valuation game.

Press the red button on your remote control

or use our app

to see if you've got an eye for antiques.

Well, from a crowded Roadshow queue into a crowd of Samurai.

-Yes.

-Bringing us from dark Yorkshire

to the brilliance of a bygone Japan.

Tell me, what is the story of these two pieces?

Well, from being a little girl,

they were in my cousin's house - first cousin -

and I always loved them, and she knew I loved them

and she gave them to me before she passed away...

-Uh-huh.

-..and asked me to safeguard them.

-Well, we see a great deal of Japanese ceramics.

-Yes.

And the irony of Satsuma ware -

which is what both of these pieces belong to -

is that on these pieces, we see ancient Japan,

the traditional Japan of the Samurai,

being depicted at a time when, in fact, Japan was going through

a massive modernisation and transformation.

So all of these fabulous gatherings of Samurai -

my goodness, look at the...

-Well, look at the hairdos on some of them.

-Yeah.

-They've really stepped out into the Yorkshire Moors, haven't they, here?

-Yeah.

And the painting is fantastic.

The ability to get all of these figures into a great crowd,

overlapping and still having a sense of space

is legendary for the Japanese artists.

If we turn it upside down, we see a lovely Satsuma mark.

The Satsuma mon, this circular mon,

incorporates the cross of the Satsuma family.

The Satsuma families were actually Christian,

which is why you get this circle with a cross in it.

Now, I'm going to have a closer look at this figure.

Um...do you have a favourite out of these two?

I love this, because every time you look at it,

-you see something different.

-Yes.

But I love the serenity of that, I think...I think she's beautiful.

Well, Japanese figures from this period

are generally made of ivory.

And Satsuma ware figures are much, much rarer.

So vases we see a-plenty, but figures are much, much fewer.

-Right.

-Again, she comes from a bygone era in Japan.

These were both made right at the end of the 19th century.

When looking at this, I immediately think of Madame Butterfly, you know?

That was the sort of huge appeal, this sense of another period,

which flooded into Europe.

I think she is exquisite.

Her dress is covered

with these beautiful scattered autumnal leaves

and fragments of brocade,

and then she's wearing that beautiful bustle - or obi -

at the back.

And as you feel on both of these vases,

the gold that they use in decorating this

actually sits proud on the surface.

So these are good things.

Two pieces of Satsuma, late 19th century,

a vase and a figure, both at the upper end of quality.

Right.

In terms of value, have you any idea?

When I first inherited them, we had someone look at them,

and he said somewhere about 400 for this one

and probably about 250 for the lady.

-That was how long ago?

-Three years?

-OK.

I think the vase is extremely detailed,

it's very high quality and I think, even today,

-in today's market, which is middling...

-Right.

..I would say that that's probably still capable of making

-well over £1,000.

-Really?

-Better than the figure you were given.

-That surprises me.

-The figure...she is rather badly rubbed, you know.

-Yes.

The gilding on the base has basically perished, more or less.

-And I have to take that into account on valuation.

-Yes, of course.

So I'm going to put a mere

-£1,500 to £2,000.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Gosh, that's a surprise!

So, together,

it's going to be somewhere between £2,500 and £3,000.

That's a real surprise!

Now, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me,

but here you've got a pretty table

-and a man of the cloth, shall I say?

-Indeed.

What brings you two together?

I just love oak furniture, that is my passion.

I like formal dining and it fits in with that

because of the surprise element to it.

As if by magic...

-That is...

-CROWD: Ooh!

SHE LAUGHS

That is wonderful.

It's to put the church collection plates on.

LAUGHTER

But it works like magic - suddenly, it's transformed

into a completely different piece of furniture.

These are familiar in the 18th century,

made in mahogany and called dumb waiters.

You're a bit of a man out of your time, though,

because dining furniture is not exactly

-the thing of the time, is it?

-That's right.

Much to my family's chagrin,

I trawl internet websites and auction sites,

oak antique shop websites

and I saw this some months ago.

I managed to buy it.

I snuck it into the house and I said to my wife,

"Oh, that old thing? I've had it for years, dear."

So, yes, I love the pollard oak.

Because people think it's walnut - the grain is beautiful.

-And it's beautiful and it's useful.

-Absolutely right.

And do you use it as a dumb waiter?

Yes, I love formal dining,

so I've got oak furniture, oak dining furniture

and I collect Victorian -

anything to do with Victorian dining, I collect.

And of course, all the three bits turn.

-How magnificent.

-So you can just turn round to whatever you want.

-And then at the end of the meal, you can just...

-You just...

Just close it up for me.

-That is magical, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-It's very interesting.

I think that period in the early part of the 19th century,

-they were passionate about metamorphic furniture.

-Yes.

-So anything that could be changed into something else.

-Yes.

And of course, also, gradually,

that would help cope without servants

or for a less wealthy class of people who didn't -

or had perhaps one servant, and could lay this up.

I think it's a lovely little thing

and you could play with it for hours, really, couldn't you?

Um...valuation.

As I say, the brown furniture is not doing so well at the moment

but I think something like this, because of all that it's got going -

this lovely decorative top, the interest,

the difference encapsulated in it...

1,000 to 1,500?

Well, that's very pleasing. I paid 700 for it.

-Ah! Well.

-I thought I got a good bargain.

The family, though, curse my brown furniture.

I've a beautiful pollard oak sideboard,

For years, I told the children, "Don't scratch it!"

They said to me, "When you die, we'll bury you in that."

I said, "That's fine, but when you lower me down,

"don't scratch the sideboard".

-LAUGHING:

-Wonderful!

-Thank you.

"The Fitzwilliam Medal for Kindness."

Now, what's that got to do with this chap?

-Well, this gentleman's my grandfather.

-Right.

He was born in 1886.

And he went to work in the mines in Elsecar,

although he lived in Wentworth,

he went down and he was in charge of the pit ponies,

helped care for the pit ponies.

So how far away is that from where we are?

-About a mile.

-Right, lovely.

-A mile, mile and a half.

-So it's very local.

Did you actually meet him?

Yes - my grandfather died when I was the age of seven,

so I had seven happy years, you know -

helping him in the allotment...

I just remember this really kind gentleman.

So wonderful that here,

for kindness to pit ponies,

he's receiving this medal from the Fitzwilliams

in this amazing house that we've got here.

-Very proud.

-I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised.

And of course, here, what we've got is a tiny coal cart for the mines.

You know, pit ponies...

I mean, it's a thing we tend to think must be Victorian,

but I can remember them when I was a child.

-Right.

-They were still down the mines, particularly in Wales.

-Yes.

-And there were societies to look after them.

I've never seen one before. There can't be many of them around.

I don't know of any more and my family don't know of any more.

If we just flip him over,

we've got the hallmarks there for 1904.

-Oh, right.

-So does that tie in with when he...?

-He would have been 18, wouldn't he?

-Yeah.

Putting a value on, very difficult -

there's no precedent for it that I can think of.

But anybody interested in mining history,

I mean, this has got to be one of the most extraordinary objects,

-an extraordinarily rare object.

-Yes.

Whether it's worth £100, £500,

I have actually no idea.

If I was going to have a stab at it,

say 200, 250?

It will never be for sale, never.

It's my grandpa's medal and we're just so proud of it.

Of course. That's exactly how it should be.

These are lovely letters and notes, all the rest of it,

written from Enid Blyton.

Of course, this is her typical red-headed notepaper

and it starts off, "Dear Girls,

"thank you so much for your lovely letter."

She then goes on and on and she says,

-"Please thank Miss Hughes."

-Yes.

-So who was Miss Hughes?

-Miss Hughes was a great aunt of ours.

-Yes.

-And she was a teacher.

-At this school?

-At the Open Air School in Barnsley

which was for children who had TB.

So how did Enid Blyton get on to Miss Hughes?

Or how did Miss Hughes get on to Enid Blyton?

Miss Hughes must have written -

we don't know if it was an exercise for the children

-to write to Enid Blyton.

-Yes.

And she replied to them.

Well, you know, the funny thing about these

is that they're all George VI postage stamps on them,

-so they're all before Enid Blyton really became terribly famous.

-Oh.

-This is pre-Noddy.

-Really? Oh!

-So she wasn't terribly famous then.

-No.

Do you know, this is very typical Enid Blyton.

-She is so meticulous with her fans.

-Right.

-She was good enough to write back to the children.

-Yes.

She starts off, "My dear girls", as though she was writing generally.

-In this one, "Dear Children".

-Yes.

But I notice in this postcard here, she writes to "Dear John",

and she's also sent here - which is, I think, incredibly good,

because I've never seen these before -

these two photographs here.

One of herself, this is Enid Blyton

sitting on her wishing well in her garden,

and this is the house here - what is this house?

-It's called The Old Thatch.

-The Old Thatch.

We've got from the letter head there.

"The Old Thatch, Bourne End, Bucks."

And so these are of her

and she's annotated those on the back...

-Yes, she has.

-..which is absolutely lovely.

And of course, she became so famous afterwards,

-writing all those Noddy books.

-Yes.

-And she's very collectable.

-Is she?

-Yes.

-So, how much do you think that is?

-No...

I reckon about £1,500.

Oh, really?! Gosh!

It's a lovely collection and it just shows you

-what a lovely person she was.

-Yes.

-Yes.

Fiona's mentioned that your organisation

helped save this building -

tell me about it.

Um, in 1947, the Earl that was in residence died,

and it was the third successive death that occurred in the family,

which meant death duties were very heavy,

and the sister of the 6th Earl, Lady Mabel Smith,

came up with the idea

that maybe a physical education college could be set up here.

And the college was called?

Lady Mabel College of Physical Education.

Having been round the house and seen all the rooms,

it's quite an amazing thing to think about,

it being used for physical education.

What was it like?

Absolutely inspirational, wasn't it?

-Yeah, lovely.

-Absolutely inspirational.

You go in a room and you know that Pavlova danced for King George V,

Yehudi Menuhin played, visitors to the house, kings, queens.

-And you were a tutor here.

-I was a tutor, yes.

-For how long?

-Almost 23 years.

How many students did you have at any one time?

It rose to 550. This was...

We were constantly being urged to train more teachers

because they were needed,

but eventually of course, because of the lease,

we couldn't expand, we couldn't build

and so this is why we eventually had to amalgamate

with Sheffield City Polytechnic

and the building closed.

So what was your feelings when it closed?

Sadness, great sadness. It was such a great pity.

To think of all these taking place in this magnificent building.

Absolutely. We had assemblies in this room.

This was the main dance area.

And this was your memories of what you were wearing in those days.

-Yes, indeed.

-All your equipment here.

So you obviously do have very, very strong feelings for this.

Absolutely. We meet once a year in the village

with 100 plus students

and we reminisce till the cows come home, literally.

Well, it's wonderful to think that all this happened in this building.

And as you say, a fantastic place to have a school.

In terms of the valuation for something like this,

it obviously means a tremendous amount to all of you

and it's wonderful that it's being kept as an archive.

For other people,

it's not going to be worth a tremendous amount of money.

It's...you know, obviously,

-there's some sports memorabilia.

-Yeah.

-Yes.

It's going to be £100, something like that.

But I mean, for you...

Yes, it's priceless. It's priceless.

When I see a tray like this, I immediately look to the back.

I'm a bit disappointed

-because someone has put this hessian on there.

-Yes.

But it should have the name of one of the great tray makers -

Jennens and Bettridge or Henry Clay.

But when you turn it round...

..you know it's one of the greats.

The quality is just unbelievable. Tell me about it.

I came by it about ten years ago.

I bought a house.

The people who lived in the house were downsizing, they were retiring,

and they left quite a few bits of furniture

and odd paintings and things,

-and this was hung above the fireplace in the sitting room.

-Right.

And we just loved it.

It's a picture of Newton Chambers, Thorncliffe Works,

their old original iron works, when the company was founded,

which I think was in the late 1700s or early 1800s.

The house actually belonged to Newton Chambers,

it was one of their houses by the works,

-where the works is now.

-Oh, OK.

-It was owned by, I presume, someone from the company.

-Right.

I think it's oil, but I'm not sure

and really, that's as much as I know, other than that we love it.

It's the most beautiful thing, we think.

Oh, just stunning, and I can see why you love it,

and what you've found out is all bang-on -

I would date this to about 1815-1820,

-first quarter of the 19th century.

-Right.

And what's so great about it

is it just portrays a little snapshot of life at an iron works

in the early 19th century,

-which you just don't see on objects like this.

-Right.

Whoever had this tray made would have had this painting commissioned.

-Right.

-You'd have been pretty wealthy to afford it.

-It's in papier mache.

-Yes.

All hand painted, like you say, in oils.

-Its charm really is about how naive the painting is.

-I see.

-And that, to me, is...

-It's everyday working life.

Just...it's so lovely, it's so lovely.

And trays like this were made in centres

such as Birmingham and Wolverhampton,

that's where the majority of this type of tray was made.

-But I think this could have been painted locally.

-Right, right.

-Is it dirty? Does it need cleaning?

-It's...

To me, this is exactly how it should be.

It's got a little layer of dirt on it,

-probably where it's been hung over the fireplace.

-Yes.

I wouldn't touch it. As soon as you touch it,

they become too bright and they look over the top,

so I would leave it exactly as it is.

There's no signature on it just to know who...?

-You won't find a signature.

-No.

I think, at auction...

£3,000 to £5,000?

Thousand?

Thousand?!

Gosh! Well, I knew it was nice,

but I never thought of it being worth that sort of value.

Now, my gran had a mahogany sideboard just like this

and I'm sure viewers at home will just say, "Oh, I remember that",

because these were made, if not in thousands,

in tens of thousands.

-So as a piece of furniture, you know...they're not rare.

-No.

And who did it belong to?

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

who were married in 1928

and they bought it in the first year of their marriage

to furnish the house.

-So we know exactly when it was made.

-Exactly so.

So a very standard piece of furniture,

but this is something different -

it metamorphises into something that's not just a sideboard.

-Exactly.

-And I think it all happens at your end.

-So it's a music centre.

-It is indeed - Lo-Fi!

Of course, my wife's known it all her life,

I've known it for over 50 years.

Our children love to hear it being played,

our grandchildren love to hear it being played

and we inherited it about 20-odd years ago and we love it.

What I also like about it is that it's in working condition.

But there's no volume control, is there?

No, there's no knob, but that's the volume control.

So that's loud, then you close it, and that's soft.

-Exactly, exactly.

-I love it.

And this is the hiss suppression system,

the Dolby - you close the lid!

Well, we know who made it,

there's the trade label on the front.

Did the records come with the gramophone?

Yes, the records are nearly all belonging

to my mother and father-in-law.

He was a Labour Party activist

and so some of the records we found are -

I didn't even know they existed - official Labour Party records,

and they're all very politically correct if you read the labels.

But we have one here, The Red Flag.

We'll certainly listen to that, but first of all...

It's not of any great value.

-No.

-But two reasons to actually retain things is sentimental -

and obviously, this belonged to your family - and fun.

You've got both - you've got something that's sentimental to you and your family

and it's certainly a fun object.

In value terms, we're talking maybe...

I don't know - £150, £200, maybe a bit more?

-But who cares?

-No.

-It works, it's fun.

-Let's listen to the music.

-Right, off with the brakes.

# The people's flag is deepest red

# It shrouded oft our martyr'd dead

# And 'ere their limbs grow stiff and cold

# Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold... #

So tell me,

what does the wheel,

the Archimedes screw,

and this bottle have in common?

I don't know.

They are perfect designs - they have never been bettered.

Nobody has come up - yet - with a better wheel.

-The round disc of a wheel works, it's unlikely to be threatened.

-Yes.

I live on the Romney Marsh in Kent

and Archimedes screws pull water uphill.

Archimedes, 4,000 years ago, never been beaten.

The cylindrical bottle, 1760 - it's never been bettered.

The glass making has improved, it's now a more refined object,

it's not so bumpy-wumpy as this one.

This is where it started.

This is one of the earliest bottles

that leads today to the standard wine bottle.

The first English bottle, a century earlier than this,

was almost round, a globe with a little spout on it,

-the English bottle.

-Yes.

But the round bottle had problems - how did you store your wine in it?

You had to keep a round bottle vertical,

because otherwise it would roll over.

You can stack 10,000 of these on top of one another

and they keep the cork wet.

If you get a dry cork, air gets in the wine,

-you have vinegar.

-Yes.

So what you have, really, is the birth of the future.

A major landmark in packaging history.

So, I've finished burbling, where does this one...

How do you know this one?

Actually, it came from Captain Vernon-Wentworth

at Stainborough Castle,

and Vernon-Wentworth was actually the cousin of the Earl Fitzwilliam

-who owned this property.

-OK.

And they were cousins.

-And a lady gave it to me who was in service to Captain Wentworth.

-Yes.

Well, we have his initial sealed onto the bottle

and it's as wild a kind of creation...

Look at the marks in it and all over the place!

But what we have is an important thing socially.

-Value, £200 to £300.

-Right.

No fortune, but boy, have I loved telling that story!

Yes, that's fabulous. Thank you very much.

Well, bearing in mind we're in the Marble Saloon,

I think it's rather appropriate

that you've brought along a white marble bust.

But not just any old bust -

first glances tell me this is not a Yorkshire lass.

How did this woman arrive in your life?

She arrived in my life, the late '70s,

maybe 35 years ago.

Going past a junk shop every morning

and I saw this one morning in the junk shop,

went in, offered £100

and I took it straightaway, took it out with me

and I've had it ever since.

I think she's absolutely lovely.

-I'm getting a love at first sight scenario.

-I think it was.

As soon as I saw it in the window.

It's the last thing I see at night

and the first thing I see in the morning.

Let's have a look at the girl herself.

She is a Baccante, she is a follower of Dionysus -

a religion that, you know, that actually endorsed

and encouraged revelry on a grand scale

and drinking to Olympic standards.

But the way it's been carved, it's a tour de force,

because you've only got to look at the complex carving

that's gone on here.

I mean, look - each one of those grapes, individually carved.

And this over her shoulder is like a lion's skin.

It's all in a name with sculpture

and the name's on the back and it says -

and I've got me specs on now because I've arrived at that age -

if I can turn it round,

it says here "A Carrier."

Have you done your homework?

-I've done a little bit, I've done a little bit of homework.

-Go on.

-French.

-Yeah.

-Mid 1800s.

-Yeah.

-Erm...came over here in 1850 to work for Minton.

-Correct.

And later changed his name after about 1867,

changed his name to Carrier-Belleuse.

-That's the man.

-So I think this is an earlier work.

He did come over to Minton, he was encouraged to come over

by a man called Leon Arnoux,

and Arnoux had been at Sevres.

And Minton's were very clever - they got Arnoux on board

and, you know, basically, he brought some great sculptors on board

and they made all that wonderful, you know, majolica.

And Belleuse - you know, Carrier-Belleuse -

did make for Minton.

And I know that he did a sculpture called Baccante in 1863.

There are a couple of things that are on the minus scale, OK?

One is, of course, you haven't got the original base.

-It was never there.

-It was never there.

You've been very clever insofar as you've had a piece turned,

it looks like burr wood

and it gives...it almost gives a marble effect.

The other thing is, unfortunately, over the years,

I think she's been kept outside and she's weathered.

From a collecting point of view, that's an important issue.

So she's quite matt - she almost looks like icing sugar

when she should have a nice, sort of, bloom to her.

But, having said all that, £100?

-£100, I paid.

-£100.

Bearing in mind the condition, I don't think you could buy this

for less than £2,500, maybe £3,000,

depending whether you're buying in Sheffield

or whether you're buying in Harrogate.

LAUGHING: I see! Yes, yes.

Well, that's fine - as I say, I wouldn't part with it,

no matter what it was worth.

If you said it was £100 or £100,000,

I still wouldn't part with it.

So I'm afraid it's going to stop with me.

I always think of these clocks

as being rather unusual,

and I tend to think of them as lighthouse clocks,

but actually, this is more of the town centre clock, isn't it?

-Yes, clock tower.

-And we have four dials, which is rather fun.

Is it something you bought?

No - it's been passed down to me from my grandfather,

through my mother.

He won it, he was a cross-country runner and he won the race

and so he was presented with a clock.

-That's a fairly generous present, actually.

-I think so, too!

When do you reckon he won the race?

We think it's about 1900.

That would pretty much fit in with the clock.

I think it's great -

you've got the typical, sort of, architectural brickwork,

we've got balustrading

and we have the four dials,

so it could be seen from all angles within a room.

-Where do you have it at home?

-In our downstairs bedroom.

-So people can't actually see each dial.

-No.

What it needs to be is on a centre table

-or a pedestal rather like this.

-Yes, that's right, yes.

You obviously have it running at home

-because it's in lovely condition.

-Yes.

And underneath, you've got a brass cover...

..to a lovely platform

and then the whole thing, the hands set here,

which turns - as you probably know - all the hands

and each dial turns as one

which is a good bit of gearing if nothing else.

-It's signed by Henry Marc...

-Right.

..who was a pretty prominent Frenchman

who made all sorts of good clocks,

carriage clocks and all sorts of things,

particularly at that time.

It's quite commercial these days

and I would have no hesitation in telling you that, at an auction,

it would fetch...ooh...

..£900 to £1,200.

-Oh, gosh! Thank you.

-Is that a lot more than you thought?

Absolutely, yes, yes.

It's the multi-dial that does it.

If it was single dial, it would be 250,

but it just makes it so much more interesting.

A very generous present.

-Thank you.

-Thanks.

The scale and elegance of Wentworth Woodhouse

makes it easy to admire,

but living in and looking after a vast house like this

is a mammoth undertaking.

It's a job that doesn't seem to faze current owner Clifford Newbold.

What possessed you, 13 years ago, to buy Wentworth Woodhouse?

The house with the longest facade in Europe.

Were you looking for a little country pile?

Well, I was looking for a small country house,

an historic house which did require a certain amount of restoration work

to be done on it, and quite small.

So what happened?

We were reading a Sunday newspaper and it was talking about this house

which was on the market, for sale,

and jokingly, the family said to me,

"Well, let's go and have a look at it".

We went over and the whole family fell in love with it.

The caretaker gave me a key

and I looked at it, and what was the key?

A little Yale key for a great big house like this.

And I thought that something was wrong.

Now how many of you, as a family, are living here in the house now?

It's my wife and two sons.

We've got the house split up into different sections,

and we've all got our own section.

Some of the rooms are in a state of considerable disrepair, aren't they?

-Yes, yes.

-So...

But we've concentrated on the principal rooms

to get them more into working order.

I hope you won't mind me saying -

you're 87 and you've taken on a pretty daunting task

at a time when many people might think about taking it a little bit easy.

Do you never wake up and think, "What have I done?"

No, no, no.

I'm perfectly happy, the family were behind me, I was behind it,

and I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

But as a little end to the story I was telling

about receiving the key for the house -

I was searching round some rooms and found a box of keys

and I found this key.

And it's the key of the front door

and that key is basically 300 years old.

So now I've finally got the proper key of the front door.

-Thank you very much, and good luck.

-Thank you.

# Time on my hands

# You in my arms

# Nothing but love in view... #

Well, it's like being on board ship, here -

we're under a creaky tent in terrible conditions.

But you've brought me a family archive.

Tell me about it. Is it your family?

Yes, my grandmother's cousin was Alfred Lyndhurst Pocock.

He was a young artist with the Royal Academy

and he was working on the Victoria Memorial

outside Buckingham Palace

when the Queen wanted somebody to make some wax models

of some of the Sandringham animals that she wanted to have carved.

And he was recommended from the Royal Academy,

so he made the wax models for her.

Then he turned up the next day

with a couple of the pebbles he'd carved into animals

and she was so impressed

that she persuaded Faberge to take him on as a carver.

Well, this is one of the most spectacular commissions

the British royal family gave to Faberge

in the very early 20th century - 1905, 1906, 1907.

It was actually at the suggestion of Mrs Keppel, the King's friend,

and she suggested to the King

that he should have the farmyard animals

in the menagerie at Sandringham

sculpted by Faberge.

And this is very, very exciting stuff indeed.

Faberge came to Sandringham with his wax modellers

and they sculpted Queen Alexandra's pets and farmyard animals

and they were modelled in wax first, to make the composition free,

to make it real sculpture

and then given to the lapidary

for him to translate the wax model into stone

and that was the work of your predecessor.

Very exciting stuff.

And here we see Carl Faberge himself and this is a well-known portrait,

one of the very, very few that we have of him

and it derives from a famous photograph

where he's sorting precious stones with tweezers.

We can see it's captioned here, "Faberge",

which is the work of Pocock

because this is a plaster of Paris cast

that he's worked up from the famous photograph of Faberge,

but it's an endorsement of the fact

that Pocock was very excited by this commission,

because it was a Royal commission.

But I think probably the nub of it

was that Faberge was in a bit of a panic every now and again

to meet these commissions

and to find a lapidary in London was a hard thing to do,

that would meet the specifications of what he had grown used to.

And so there aren't many things that we can attribute

both to Faberge and Pocock

but one of them, possibly more, remain in the Royal collection.

I like to attribute this one to Pocock

and it's a fluorite Pekingese.

And it's a freer technique than we associate with Faberge,

it's altogether...

I wouldn't say it's cruder in any way,

but it's a more free hand

and it's not quite as meticulous as the St Petersburg lapidaries.

The word "lapidary" is very important in this regard

because it means stone-cutters.

What does your family feel about it?

Well, we're very proud of him

and we're proud to have things, like this, that he's produced.

We've got quite a number of things - none of his animal carvings,

but we've got a number of plaques.

-There's one of my grandmother.

-Yes, marvellous.

And it's very rare to see an image of him at all

-and I think you've got one here, isn't it?

-Yes.

He's standing next to my grandmother, there, at a family wedding.

Oh, I see -

that's the very first time I've ever seen an image of him myself

and I've been living this subject for ages

and it's a thrilling, thrilling thing to see

and it's full of context.

I don't know how to value it. It's priceless with you, isn't it?

-It is.

-Absolutely priceless.

There's a tiny precedent for these, because they're not unique.

There are casts and they do turn up from time to time

and surprisingly, they're not terribly valuable.

They're £200 to £300

and beyond that, there's nothing more I can say

except that you've made a very specific link

with one of the most famous goldsmiths that ever lived

with an English craftsman who deserved this great accolade

and it's a thrilling discovery for me.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Well, it will come as no surprise to those viewers out there

that we're looking at Miss Clarice Cliff once more.

But they do say the best things come in small packages,

and, quite frankly, these are perfection.

Tell me, where did they come from?

They belonged to my grandmother.

I got them from my mother and she got them from her mother.

So they've always been around, you've always known them.

Yes, they've always been in the family,

they're just family things, yes.

Well, it's really interesting, because these little vases

form part of a range of vases called the 177 Series.

And it was a collection of miniature little vases

painted in some of her most famous designs,

and there's a lot of debate and conjecture about why they were made.

Some believe that they were tradesmen's samples

to show how an artist would decorate a vase.

Other people think that they were enticers,

given to companies who ran china shops

as a little thank-you.

Other people think that they were just made

as little, beautiful, miniature pieces of Clarice's work.

Whatever they are, these are really nice.

-Do you like them?

-Yeah, yeah - I think they're really pretty,

I like the colours.

Well, to look at them just a little closely,

they are actually in a pattern called Inspiration Caprice.

-Oh, right.

-And Inspiration Caprice

was Clarice's first-ever landscape design

and it's combined in this wonderful turquoise glaze,

and underneath, it has got the most fantastic back stamp,

all hand painted.

And these two vases will date from around 1929 to 1930.

-So they're rare little survivors.

-Right.

So considering that they are small,

they're beautifully formed,

they're wonderfully painted,

they're going to appeal to the collectors.

-Yeah.

-So we've got to think about price.

A tiny little Clarice Cliff vase, a pair of them, what are they worth?

Well, if I tell you they're worth

in the region of £800...

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Wow!

But I'm being slightly mean,

cos they're worth £800 each.

GASPING: Oh!

Wow!

I didn't expect that.

-They're a great example of her miniature work.

-OK.

And you're looking well in excess of £1,500 for those.

That's a surprise.

-Well, I'm very pleased to see them, thank you.

-Thank you.

Arthur Wharton - a great Victorian sporting hero.

But now faded into total obscurity.

What can you tell me about him and his association with the local area?

Well, Arthur was the first black professional footballer,

he was also the first man to run 100 yards in even time,

ten seconds dead.

He held the world record for over three years.

He was a Victorian sporting hero who actually lived in this area,

played cricket for Greasbrough, just down the road from here.

Gosh - you know, you've told us so much

in just, literally, two or three sentences.

Well, there he is - I mean, where was he originally from?

He was from Accra which is now in Ghana -

then, it was the Gold Coast.

He was sent to England by his uncle for an education,

a public school education,

and then he went on to a Methodist College,

Shoal Hill College at Cannock in the West Midlands,

to study to be, probably, a Methodist preacher

or to go back to his own country as a missionary.

Did he become a preacher? Did he follow that path?

No, when he was at Shoal Hill,

that's when he discovered his sporting prowess,

and soon after Shoal Hill closed,

he went to Darlington, to Cleveland College

where, in 1885, he ran in a race at the cricket club there,

some sort of sports day.

He won it, although he ducked under the tape.

-Oh, no!

-HE LAUGHS

The officials wanted to disqualify him,

but the man in second place went, "No, he obviously was the best man."

And within a year, he was breaking the world record.

-So what a fantastic athlete he was.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Now, how would a black man cope with such success...

-Yeah.

..in a country that was very prejudiced?

And of course, this was the great time of expansion into Africa,

the European powers were grabbing land

and, of course, suppressing the people

that they came across.

But here's a man who completely reversed the attitude -

he was successful, highly educated

and, of course, he was winning races.

I mean, that must have caused a bit of resentment, to say the least.

It did, and he did have a few altercations

with opponents and so on.

However, the research that we've done

has shown that in the communities that he lived,

he was actually very well liked -

-a big crowd turned out for his funeral, for instance.

-Yes.

The other thing was he was the first black professional footballer

and when he played for Sheffield United at Sunderland

in February 1894,

he became the first black player in the Football League ever.

So what a tough man, in the face of all this prejudice.

He married a local lass,

so, yeah, he melted in to the local working class culture.

Where do you fit in to all this?

Well, I'm actually Arthur's great-granddaughter.

-Wow!

-Well, you must be immensely proud.

I am, I'm exceedingly proud.

When did you find out?

Just through my mum - we found some old photos

and had to trace him back, looking...

We have actually been to Ghana and met family members.

-They didn't know, in Ghana, of Arthur.

-Wow.

And of course - you know - what a sad end to his story.

He became a coal miner, I understand,

and probably earning very little.

Yeah - and died a pauper

and was buried in an unmarked grave in Edlington near Doncaster in 1930.

But now he's got a proper headstone,

he's starting to be obviously much more fully understood,

and this is his Bible, I understand.

Yeah, it's got "Shoal Hill College, Cannock, 1882" inside

and his name and...

-Yeah, had a quick look earlier, the Bible was published in 1882.

-OK.

-So he was handed this, presumably, brand-new.

-Yes.

Well, the Bible is an extremely difficult item to value -

I mean, it's of inestimable value, really.

But what I will say

is that the value I give will probably grow,

as the recognition of the man's achievements

and the knowledge of his life goes out to the world.

I would say, at the moment,

it's worth a trivial 300, maybe £500 at auction.

But you can't put a price on a Bible, or photographs,

these reproductions -

it's such a rich history, its value is immense

and, of course, today, with so many football teams

being rich with fabulous African players,

you know, it's just a sheer delight

to see this tradition of great football being carried on,

and Arthur was the first in there.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Cheers.

# 'S wonderful

# 'S marvellous... #

What's the interest they have for you?

Just the history behind them,

what they're made of and where they're from.

You are tomorrow's historian. That's fantastic.

It's not for the nursery. It's for the bathroom.

Some people did say, at the time, it was a bidet...

It's for washing your bottom, not your baby.

LAUGHTER

Part of my mum's collection,

but she's actually given me these three.

We're talking between 5,000 and 7,000.

SHE EXHALES

# 'S marvellous

# That you should care for me

Do you mind me asking what you had for breakfast this morning?

Er, toast and marmalade.

Not bad, but what this should be laid out with

is devilled kidneys, kippers, scrambled eggs, bacon,

all of the things that you'd expect,

because this would have come from quite a house.

Where did it come from?

Well, it comes from Stainborough Castle originally,

the story says,

and me dad bought it at auction in the 1950s.

-They had a house sale there.

-Yeah, and that's when he bought it.

And did he buy it because he fell in love with it, or he wanted it...?

No, he bought the contents of the room.

Which they would do, they would sell literally one room at a time

of this type of quality.

-And me dad bought it for ten and sixpence.

-Wow.

This is as near the top of quality furniture that you get.

I mean, it would date from the 1880s and it has a very Italianate form

and when you look at this front here with the inlay,

you would think Italy and tours and all of the things

of that, sort of, high period decoration

you'd expect of that age.

But it's actually English.

Simple ways of telling is if you open the drawer, inside...

This quarter beading here inside the drawer is very English -

I think it's only in England that this was produced.

And it's such nice quality -

I mean, walnut, you've got all the satin wood inlays here,

and ebony inlays

and when this was new...

We're so used to seeing furniture in this muted form,

but this would have been much redder,

you'd have had bright yellows and golds

and this metal work here is so lovely,

-it would have shone.

-Right.

We don't understand now - if we'd seen this when it was new,

it would have been so bling, it would have been like, "Whoa!"

But we're just used to it in this, sort of, lovely, muted-down form.

-What actually is it?

-A buffet. Yes, a serving buffet.

-I see.

It's part of a large suite -

you'd have had a dining table, chairs...

You'd have had someone come from Manchester

or one of those big centres and they would say,

"Right, you've got an Italianate room,

"we'll design you a buffet, a sideboard,

"large dining table, a set of chairs".

You'd have had the whole suite and that's what it would've been from.

-You haven't got the rest?

-No, we haven't, no.

What's such a shame is - I've had a good look over it,

can't see any maker's mark.

And it was considered, if your furniture...

If you were making furniture for a house like this or for a castle,

you should be able to go in

and say, "Yes, that's from Lamb of Manchester", or Holland,

or one of those great makers, or Gillows.

But, unfortunately, it isn't and I think it's a real shame.

If it were marked, that would be great.

I still think it's a lovely piece of furniture, and in the '50s,

these were just...not two a penny,

but no-one really took them for the quality that they were,

and everyone wanted to go more into the new styles and more modern.

It's coming back, it's still struggling a bit.

A single buffet on its own

is not the most desirable piece of furniture,

but I think, at auction...

£1,000?

Ah, right! Oh...

I always think, for the quality of these, the price is still down,

but your mission now is to obviously find the rest of the suite,

because if it was a suite, it would make a huge difference to its value.

-Good luck hunting.

-Yes.

THEY LAUGH

Well, we see collections of a lot of things

on the Antiques Roadshow

but I'm not sure I've ever seen

a collection of legs or boots before.

Are you a leg man, shall we say?

Well I have to admit, yes, I must be,

by what you see in front of you.

It really started from the very first one,

which was the nail file, which I gave my wife

too many years ago to remember, but more than 50 years ago.

And the number of times when she'd take it out of her handbag,

people would say, "That's unusual."

I sold a collection I had of silver sugar tongs

and with the money I got, I bought two more

and that really started my appetite in them.

And now when I walk round an antique fair,

it's a nice vehicle to take me round as to what I look at.

She looks at jewellery. I look at legs.

And you look at legs, right. You've got, obviously...

I know this is only part of the collection you have.

It's a fairly varied collection.

You've got some here -

this is a little boxwood one

dating from the early 19th century

and then you've got right through

to a promotional item

for Glamour Girl stockings

which would date from the 1950s, 1960s.

You've got some which are bone,

then we have some...

This is a little polished oak one,

then we have ivory,

and, you know, it's a really good cross-section of examples here.

Do you have a particular favourite at all?

Well, I suppose one of the favourite ones is this one,

-which I bought being told that it, in fact, was a stirrup cup.

-Right.

OK, well, we'll dispel that myth -

it's actually a vesta, a little match striker.

So you would put your matches in there,

then you'd be able to strike them from the underneath.

It is silver and it has import marks on the side of it there for 1903

so we know it was imported into Britain in 1903

so it was made probably just marginally before that,

somewhere on the Continent.

Actually, that's a very nice piece.

-It's quite heavy as well.

-It is, quite a weighty piece of silver.

You have quite a lot of pipe tampers here.

You would have your pipe tampers

to tamp the tobacco down in the pipe.

You have the pipe there, which dates probably from the 1950s

with the Bakelite leg and the bowl, actually, is wooden on it.

This is one I think that is most unusual

and many people don't know what it's for.

No, and I must admit, I've only ever seen three or four pairs of those.

They're a pair of ends for knitting needles

and there they go.

-A knitting needle in between the two.

-Absolutely, joined by the chain.

But, yeah, that's quite an interesting item, very unusual.

Most of these date from the 19th century,

some are slightly earlier, some are into the 20th century.

But, you know, it's a fantastic collection.

With regards to prices on them,

obviously the prices vary a lot.

For the little Glamour Girl promotional item,

perhaps £15 to £20,

the little bone tampers, £40 and £50 apiece.

The little boot actually, that's nice,

-that would be probably around £100 on that.

-Oh, right.

-How many do you have?

-Just over 50.

Obviously, some are worth more than others,

but I think just what we have on the table, you've probably got

about £1,000 or £1,500 worth.

Excellent, excellent.

-I'll keep looking at legs.

-Do!

HE CHUCKLES

So here we are, in one of the supposed 365 rooms

in this fantastic house, Wentworth Woodhouse,

with three pieces of that rare beast, Yorkshire porcelain.

It was made at the Rockingham factory

which is only four miles from where we're standing,

at Swinton, around about 1830-1835.

What's your connection with these pieces?

Well, the story goes

that my four-times great grandfather worked at the factory,

-he was the manager at the factory in about 1822.

-Right.

And then his sons followed as students

and then, eventually, they started their own factory.

They didn't make anything so fine as this.

-Well, this is incredibly fine, isn't it?

-Yes.

And you look at these three objects

and, personally, I find them quite mind-blowing.

-Enchanting objects, yes, yes.

-Enchanting objects, enchanting.

This little piece here - to modern eyes,

it looks rather like a little ashtray,

but I think at the time,

-they would have used it as a pin tray.

-Yes, yes.

And it is hand painted, which is quite incredible,

with these wonderful flowers.

I think the painting may have actually been done

by John Cresswell,

-who was one of the floral painters at the factory.

-Yes.

Very much in his style.

And this exhibits a really interesting thing -

-the Rockingham mark.

-Yes.

Which is based on the crest of the Fitzwilliam family,

-patron of the factory.

-Yes.

And the strange thing is behind us is that fabulous marble fireplace.

-With the same...

-With the same griffins.

A wonderful connection.

-This is an extraordinary thing, isn't it?

-Yes, yes.

That's really attractive.

Again, a bit of a Meissen connection here -

I think this was inspired by a Meissen rose box

made in the 18th century, but when we look at it carefully,

we realise it's made in two parts.

And the top of the rose, she comes out

so I guess you'd have put a little piece of pastille in there and burned it

and a wonderful odour would have come out

and obscured all the grimy smells of early Victorian life,

and again, that has the Rockingham mark.

Slightly larger in scale,

I guess this must be a perfume bottle.

-Yes, yes.

-It's got a detachable stopper

and it's covered with finely modelled -

modelled by hand, and painted by hand -

these encrusted flowers.

Again, a reference to Meissen.

I think it's absolutely beautiful.

It is, it's incredible ware

and the great thing about Rockingham,

above all other factories,

it has its own distinctive look, it has its...

It sort of speaks with its own Yorkshire accent,

it's different from all that stuff made farther south in Staffordshire,

it's got its own style.

-Yes.

-It really has.

Are these things that came down through the family

from your connection with the factory?

No, no, they've not - they're things that we bought

because we've got an interest in it

after finding out that the family had done lots of work there.

Well, I suppose we'd better look at some values.

And the little pin tray there by John Cresswell

is worth around about £1,000 -

-maybe £800 to £1,200.

-Gosh! Surprising.

Despite its larger size, this scent bottle -

it's sometimes the smaller things

that make more money,

but that's going to be...

-£600 or £700, something like that?

-Very nice too.

But the bric-a-brac intrigues me.

-Presumably, it was cheap.

-About £28, I think.

£28 for that rose box.

Well, I've only ever seen examples in books and museums,

I've never actually handled one before.

-Oh, good.

-That's how rare it is.

And your £28 is now certainly

-£1,500 or maybe £2,000, possibly more.

-Gosh!

THEY LAUGH

-It was worth coming.

-Good, good, good - so actually,

you've got about £3,000 here.

Yes! Gosh.

Now, the last time I saw you with this tiny, tiny thing,

you just hurled it into the bottom of your handbag,

-just like that, didn't you?

-Yes.

Now, who asked you to bring it, and why?

My mother-in-law - she was given

a big bag of paste jewellery and what-have-you

by an old lady that she used to do gardening work for,

they didn't think it was anything.

-And so you raked it out of the bottom of your bag.

-Yes.

And you showed it to me and it was rather startling, I must say,

because the thing about it, and it probably alerted her,

is that it absolutely shrieks of quality, doesn't it?

-Yes.

-It's got a little voice, a very powerful little voice,

tiny, tiny object.

It's a core of gold and perhaps silver underneath here, too,

hand engraved with a sort of sunburst,

so every time you move it, it moves like silk.

And then the artist has sat

and painted the first layer of enamel with these dendrites,

these funny, tree-like ornaments which are hand painted,

and then fired again,

and then covered with a flux of pure white enamel

-which protects the surface of the paint.

-Oh, I see.

And then a little division, if you like, of gold laurels.

And this is all fine and dandy and it's tiny.

But the one signal to what it might be,

-is that it's actually Easter egg-shaped.

-Yes.

And makes one give it a second look

and I'm very pleased to tell you that it's made by - without doubt -

the most famous goldsmith that ever lived.

-It's made by Peter Carl Faberge in Russia in 1900.

-Wow.

-And the momentum gathers enormously.

-Yeah!

Because with Faberge, Easter is the key word

and it was a celebration of the most important festival in Russia

which took precedence over Christmas.

It was Easter. On Easter morning, if you lived in the country,

you would give your mother or your sister

a painted chicken's egg,

and if you lived in the city, in Moscow, in St Petersburg,

you might give a porcelain egg or a painted wooden egg.

But if you lived in the strange, claustrophic world of the Romanovs,

then nothing less than an Imperial Easter egg from Carl Faberge

would do for the Tsarina.

And you'd go to Faberge

if you were anything less than the Tsar or Tsarina

and buy a little egg to give to your goddaughter

and then she would add it to a chain,

and there may be 100 of them, if she was really lucky -

not all from Faberge, some stone, some silver.

This comes from the factory of Henrik Wigstrom,

one of the chief workmasters of Faberge,

creator of the Coronation Coach egg,

-possibly the most famous of the Imperial Easter eggs.

-Hm.

We know that because this tiny object is signed,

an almost undetectable "HW" there.

Right - we couldn't...we couldn't see it.

We could see markings, but we couldn't see what they were.

Faberge was very interesting

in that he had these substrata of suppliers,

but they belonged to Faberge, it was made by the Faberge firm.

But he allowed them, in St Petersburg,

to sign their own work -

rather an unusual gesture at the time

and happily, it's still there.

More often than not, when these little Easter eggs come to us,

this loop here where they're signed has been clipped away

and so clipped away goes the signature.

But you have not only a pristine Easter egg,

but a signed Easter egg by the chief workmaster to Faberge.

-This is in mint condition and you can't ask for more.

-Right.

With everything that I've told you,

and all of this charm, comes value.

People collect them very avidly, they want them desperately,

it's a crystallisation of everything that Faberge means,

and so a tiny, tiny thing like that...

£10,000.

Right. OK.

And they fetch more.

Good God!

-This is a very, very rare object.

-Yes.

-Very, very exciting.

-Thank you so much - wonderful, thank you.

-Thank you.

Who could have predicted such a tiny object

would carry such a high value?

A classic ending from Faberge aficionado Geoffrey Munn.

From Wentworth Woodhouse and all the Antiques Roadshow team,

bye-bye.