Fountains Abbey 2 Antiques Roadshow

Today we return to an estate in Yorkshire

which is home not only to the ruins of Fountains Abbey,

but also to a unique 18th-century water garden.

The two were brought together in the 1760s

and, since then, have been awarded the highest accolade -

that of World Heritage Site.

Welcome back to the Antiques Roadshow

from the Fountains Abbey Estate near Ripon, in North Yorkshire.

BELL RINGS

BIRDSONG

This is the fabulous view

that wealthy Georgians would travel to see

on a well-trodden tourist trail.

The ruins of Fountains Abbey and the Water Gardens,

designed by John Aislabie.

At least, he spent the latter part of his life creating these gardens.

Before that, back in 1695, he was the local MP for Ripon,

and then Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In 1721, disaster struck his career.

He was expelled from Parliament, imprisoned in the Tower of London

and disqualified for life from public office,

all because of his part in the South Sea Bubble financial scandal.

Within the walls of his prison cell in the Tower of London,

John Aislabie found his own way of escaping -

he spent his time dreaming of plans for a garden,

and when he was released, he returned to Yorkshire and spent

the rest of his life devoted to creating Studley Royal Water Garden.

He consulted an architect, a water engineer, master masons

and gardeners, and employed hundreds of local men from nearby Ripon,

who dug and built the garden using the River Skell,

to feed the canals, cascades and ponds.

But it was John Aislabie's ideas

and passion that created this amazing water garden.

John Aislabie wanted to provide his visitors with one surprise

after another so, at every twist and turn, there would be

a strategically placed folly, or a cleverly engineered vista,

providing his visitors with a place to stop, pause,

and admire the scenery.

Look at that.

'And to give his guests a gentle fright,

'they were encouraged into the serpentine tunnel.'

I can't see a thing!

Phew!

Oh!

I won't be doing that again in a hurry.

And just upstream from the water gardens is Fountains Abbey,

where people are gathering for today's Antiques Roadshow.

Well, let's hope there are no frights,

but lots of surprises in store for our visitors and our experts here

in the gorgeous ruins of Fountains Abbey.

And who knows? You might be in for a surprise yourself

if you play along with our valuation game.

Test your skills, press red on your remote control, or go to

bbc.co.uk/antiquesroadshow on your computer or on your smartphone.

What a glorious summer's day we're having here in Fountains Abbey.

We're so lucky.

And you came to my table and you put this in front of me

and you said, "I reckon I've been sold a pup."

Well, I was suspicious that I might have been sold a pup.

I wasn't quite sure.

I bought it as a Victorian...

gold and diamond and amethyst brooch,

but since then I've thought - this is quite bling-bling.

Is it maybe a bit too good to be true?

And why were you in the shop buying this?

Well, my stepfather sold the farm that I grew up on -

for which he's never been forgiven - and I had some cows of my own

and, of course, they all went in the auction, and I thought I would

spend the money on something that couldn't be frittered away.

So I thought I would buy a piece of jewellery

and I'm just wondering whether it was a good purchase,

or whether I was sold a pup all those years ago.

Now, how many cows did you sell?

Well, there were eight altogether, but this is worth six cows worth.

Six cows worth...

-..40 years ago.

-Yes.

This cost £285 which was an awful lot of money at the time.

That's an awful lot of money.

Well, rest assured that these are sparkling really well,

because they are diamonds.

Good.

And the amethyst is a lovely colour amethyst.

You know you can get amethysts that are pale in colour

and they go all the way down to a deep, dark violet colour.

And this has got this wonderful richness about it,

this wonderful rich quality.

The diamonds are cushion-shaped diamonds.

Why they're so bright is

because they've got very little inclusions inside.

The date of this brooch is about 1850, it's sort of mid-Victorian.

-Good.

-This is...all this beautiful, scrolled, embossed work, in gold.

So, the value, the value of six cows...

Well, they've gone up a bit since then.

Have they gone up a bit?

Well, your brooch has also gone up a bit since then too.

I would say that if you were to sell this at auction...

It would be in the region of around about £3,000.

SHE GULPS

Well, that's a relief!

-Thank you.

-So all those beautiful cows you had,

you know that they've all gone into this brooch and enjoy wearing it.

Thank you.

It's wonderful to see a child's book with child's illustrations in it,

but in this condition, and for this date, 1879.

"Juvenile Sketches by Robert Lowndes Aspinall and

"Augusta Isabel Aspinall, intended

"for their Aunt Bessie Aspinall."

Do we know anything about them? Where do they come from?

Yes, they lived in Chelsea, London.

-Yes.

-They were obviously a well-to-do family

cos in the 1871 and 1881 census,

-they had eight servants in each...

-Good heavens!

-..in each census.

-And you looked up these...?

Yes, I found it and on top of that, when their mother was widowed,

she moved to Folkestone where

-Bertie - Robert - went to boarding school.

-Yes.

-And she even had seven servants in the house then.

-In Folkestone?

-Yes.

-Which was the cheaper place to go.

Chelsea - well, Chelsea wasn't very fashionable in those days.

Ah, right.

But here we are, look, this is a wonderful one of a cricket match.

Look at this, all these stick people but they are really quite,

quite remarkable, aren't they?

All the carriages here, and the runners there,

and the lady painting on the boundary.

Goodness me, I hadn't even noticed that.

She was the long stop obviously.

Right.

Or could she be...? Oh, and the couple down here, a couple,

they're boxing, there's a fight going on down there.

This is a child's imagination. How old were they?

-Do you know how old they were?

-Yes, yes, Robert was ten,

and his older sister was 13.

Yes. Oh, now, look at this one, by Augusta, this is at the zoo.

Zoological Gardens - this must be in Regent's Park.

I presume so.

They've got a camel and a zebra here, parrots...

..a flamingo,

-a little baby trying to feed itself to the lions.

-Yes.

All the family is going out, this is absolutely wonderful,

all in their dress, in this slightly primitive, but absolutely exact.

You can...it's almost a diary of a nobody.

We rarely ever see this sort of thing pictorially

and for it to have survived, as I say, is quite remarkable.

But going on from that, this is one I rather like.

I suppose I like it because of the good colour in it.

This is an enormous drawing room,

and there they all are,

there's the tea and all the buns on it.

This one's the vicar, he looks as though he's got indigestion,

and wonderful gossip going on in this corner.

Two ladies in the height of fashion there.

This is the sort of thing you just don't see.

We see pictures of interiors in all the ladies' magazines, and all

that sort of thing, but nothing like this, from the eyes of a child.

So...

you collected this, you bought it?

In 1970.

Why did you buy it? What attracted you?

The fact that it was 35 children's illustrations

of life in London at the time.

Which is virtually unknown.

Yes, absolutely.

You'd never seen anything like it.

Well, I haven't seen anything like it,

and neither has the Museum of Childhood.

I mean, if you saw that on the market now, how much would you pay for it?

I think somewhere in the region of £2,000... More likely.

It's a fabulous collection, thank you for bringing it in.

So, a rather exotic-looking table in Yorkshire.

Where does it come from?

Well, my grandma bought it from the Hutton sale in Marske Hall in 1947.

Marske Hall being a big property?

Yes, it was, owned by the Hutton family.

OK, and do you know how much she paid for it?

£5.

She must have liked it.

Well, she didn't actually buy it, her mother did.

She was at work and she wanted a coffee table from this sale.

-Yes.

-And they went for far too much, she said about £7 or £8 then.

And this happened to be in the back room,

it wasn't catalogued or anything,

at the end of the sale it was brought in

and she got it then.

So it was extra to the catalogue.

Yes, it was, they didn't know it was there...

Oh, that was one of the great gems of going to house sales

in the old days, that they just fished stuff out they hadn't spotted

for the catalogue, and the reason I'm talking to you about this

is it's got a stonking great big piece of porcelain in the middle.

You've had a look at this porcelain obviously over

-several cups of tea over your young years.

-Yes.

What conclusions have you come to?

Well, I've always thought it was Chinese but, um...

Yes, well, it is, it is Chinese.

If you look all the way around,

you can see the way the glaze runs to the edge.

That is the original edge surface,

this has not actually been cut out of anything else.

This piece of porcelain was designed to do what it is doing,

which is to go into the middle of a piece of furniture.

Do you use it?

Well, Grandma uses it as a table, as she has her newspapers

and her glasses, you know, for cups of tea, it will sit there.

Cups of tea? Well, I think that's exactly what it was

used for in the mid-19th century. It dates to around...

1850.

You've got images of couples and families out of doors...

..enjoying themselves, playing games, drinking...

looking at texts...

..about to play musical instruments...

..playing the Chinese game of Go, Chinese chequers.

And all this beautifully painted,

so that as a piece of porcelain is actually rather a fine work.

Five pounds. Well...

..if you were going to buy one of these today,

I think you would have to shell out somewhere between

£2,000 and £4,000.

Very good, excellent.

Grandma will be pleased.

As a First World War enthusiast, I know all about Blues,

you know, the uniform worn by

people convalescing, wounded people,

-back in Britain in hospitals.

-Yes.

I don't know that I've ever seen

an actual Blues jacket.

They're quite rare, aren't they?

They are rare and the thing with this jacket

-is it's a World War Two.

-That's extraordinary because...

the First World War, there were lots of reasons -

if people walked about in civvies they were accused of being cowards,

their uniforms were probably torn to pieces and, therefore,

they were given a uniform,

so although wounded, they were still in uniform.

-Yes.

-That was the key to it.

Come the Second World War, all that's become meaningless.

Um...

I've never seen - as I say - certainly a Second World War one.

They weren't used - or only at the very beginning, if at all.

We have to say how we know -

and it's very simple - inside there's a label dated 1940.

-1940.

-You know, a War Department label, so there's no doubt,

-this is a Second World War Blues uniform.

-Blues uniform, yeah.

And I think what happened was they probably had old stocks

or they carried on making them to the pattern,

they thought it was going to be the same,

and they quickly realised it wasn't.

-Wasn't, no.

-Because by 1940 - the early part -

there weren't thousands of wounded coming back anyway.

I'm sure an enthusiast who wanted such a thing,

will never find another, and therefore what would they pay?

£50, £100, £200 for it - it's in that range.

It's got to be somewhere in that range, yes.

-Thank you very much.

-You're quite welcome.

Lovely to touch something I never thought I'd get hold of.

It's an odd group of objects

and I know the viewers at home will be thinking - what's the connection?

-But there is one, isn't there?

-Yes, there is,

and they were all collected by my great-grandfather

round the turn of the 19th century

and they were bowling trophies he won.

Are they treasured possessions within your family?

Yes, they are, they're all still out on display.

The clock works and my favourite is the...is the gnome.

Is the gnome. I mean he's certainly the odd one out.

I mean, these are...

really quite high quality trophies.

I mean, some of the trophies - you think of the trophies you get today,

-they're made of plastic and plated.

-Yes.

I mean, whoever he was...

played it to a level where you got some serious prizes,

I mean, these are pretty good.

If we take...the silver cup here...

made by Walker and Hall from the 1890s.

I mean, that's as good as it gets.

I love the fact that he's put on there,

"Having won for the third time."

-You get to keep it.

-You get to keep it, like the Schneider Trophy,

they say, "You've won it three times,

-"there you go, it's yours."

-Right.

-And the clock...

I mean, that really is a case of Victorian bling.

-Yes.

-It's not the best clock.

-No.

-It's not a great movement.

-No.

But as a trophy, you know, to be handed that -

you can imagine his face, and then on the flip side of that,

you can imagine the disappointment

when at some point he's handed a gnome. I mean, it must have been...

I'd love to see that photograph of him being presented with the gnome.

The value of silver has shot up over the last few years

and that's where the value is. In a cup it's worth about sort of -

-you know - £600-ish.

-Right.

-Which isn't a lot when you consider how decorative it is.

-No, no.

The clock I would say would have...

a similar value.

You know, it's not huge,

-£600 maybe £700.

-Right.

-But...

what I really like is the gnome.

There's a company called Hesner and they're the most famous

for making garden gnomes and I'm certain that he's of that factory

and would date from the late 19th century,

he would have been new as a prize,

-and I would put him at somewhere around £800.

-Gosh. Yes.

So the one he was most disappointed with,

is probably the best one, well, is the best one.

Yes, it's my favourite so...

-Good choice. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

I'm the first to admit

that I'm no expert in photographs and especially old photographs

but this looks like it might be

a picture of Hong Kong here.

Is that right?

I think it will be, probably in the 1890s, late 1890s.

My, hasn't it changed?

Because now, that whole hillside is filled with skyscrapers.

Absolutely.

But what intrigues me more,

which is much more personal, is this other album

and it's got a wedding photograph here.

Is this a family group?

Yes, I think that will be my maternal grandmother or my...

a great aunt.

Because all five of them went out to the Far East and

all but one got married out there.

I see, so this would be in the 1890s as well?

Late 1890s, I think, possibly early 1900s.

And...what are these items arranged on this next page?

As far as I know, they are the, umm...

wedding gifts that were given at that wedding.

What's interesting for me is, today,

people have been bringing in things just like this carving set,

-these fish knives and forks, and brush sets.

-Yes.

Now here we've got the silver page

and these spoons here look remarkably similar to those.

They're not the same ones, are they?

-As far as I'm aware those are the spoons, yes.

-Good heavens!

So, it's so nice to see them in their original brand-new

presentation boxes here, and if we have a look at them.

This is absolutely a copy of a Victorian fruit spoon.

What I love about it

is, instead of having an apostle,

-which an English one would have...

-Yes, yes.

-..it's got a Chinese figure, that's their take on it.

-Yes.

And if we turn it over,

-it's got a couple of marks, and it's got the mark WH.

-Yes...

And that's a well-known maker, a firm called Wang Hing

-who were making exactly in the 1890s.

-Yeah, yeah.

So, I love these because they are so...

English, but with that lovely Chinese twist.

-I think so, yes.

-And a very good figure.

-And we still use them.

Well, that's really good to know.

Now I've spoken to one of my colleagues

-about the photograph albums.

-Yes.

And he thinks...

they're well into four figures, we're talking of possibly approaching

£2,000, maybe even more for those.

The spoons I love and they're in lovely condition and...

very unusual. I've never seen any of these spoons before

with Chinese marks on.

Today, I've seen almost identical English ones,

-from the 1880s and 1890s.

-Extraordinary.

So, trying to put a value on these is quite difficult

when you've not seen something the same before.

-Yes.

-I think...

..certainly...

-£700 to £1,000.

-Mm-hm.

-Yeah.

-Happy with that?

-Oh, yes, yes.

HE LAUGHS

And you'll carry on using them?

Absolutely. Oh, yes, I like using them. I'm very fond of them.

Wonderful documents, and lovely pieces of silver, thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

So, the sight of a box like this usually stops my heart,

my pulse, but I've got a funny feeling that what is within

is not going to continue that level of excitement and there it is.

I think you're right!

Tell me about it with you, this faithful dog,

how did it come into your life?

It came into my life -

as many things do these days - from an internet auction site,

and I was aware at the time that I bought it,

that it was my infatuation with Imperial Russia

that was getting the better of me, and, um...

yes, and when I got it, I was pretty sure that it had.

SHE LAUGHS

Anyway, it was a rash purchase, but nonetheless

a very interesting one for us

because it is a fake Faberge object.

-The person that made this object made it to deceive.

-Yeah.

And it may not be that the person who was selling it wanted to

deceive you, because they may have been deceived in their own right.

But the reason that we can tell that is

because on the inside of the lid satin,

which you've already spotted, in Cyrillic, it says,

-"Faberge, St Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa."

-Yeah.

That would be a marvellous signpost to the fact that you had

something enormously valuable,

because the centre of the Faberge storm is what we call

the objects of fantasy, the things that are,

like so many of one's friends,

utterly useless and charming. Those are the ones that are...

the ones one values the most,

and so it's the animal carvings and the flowers and the Easter eggs

that are why Faberge's reputation is so excitable,

and why these things are so intensely valuable.

Well, it is a fake Faberge object,

but in a way it's got qualities of its own.

I mean, it's a very charming little sculpture of a white dog

in perfectly chosen white stone, little black onyx snout

and a gold collar with diamonds,

and I suppose it cost a certain sum on internet auction.

How much was that?

I can't remember exactly, but I believe

-around a thousand pounds.

-Hmm.

Well, it's a thousand pounds for a very joyful little fella

made of stone, and maybe without the box he marches on, you know,

as a little work of art in his own right.

I suppose it must have a value, and I think maybe it's worth

£300.

The real rub of this is is that, had this been genuine,

and I suppose there is the remotest chance that one could acquire

an object of this nature that way,

that you would have received a little registered parcel in the post

four or five days after bidding, and you would have opened it and

you would have been, well, a quarter of a million pounds better off.

Even I knew that wasn't going to happen!

Well, it has happened to people.

-But it didn't happen in this particular case.

-No.

And in a way it's a powerful lesson,

not only for the internet buyer,

but for me and anybody else interested in works of art,

and thank you very much for bringing it.

My little bit of FAUX-berge.

Fauxberge, absolutely!

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

These were my grandparents.

They shared the same birthday

and they were married in the middle of the Second World War,

1st January 1941.

They were married for over 70 years

and they died very recently within three days of each other.

So theirs is a real love story.

-It is.

-Spanning the decades.

Well, over 70 years of married life,

it's an amazing achievement really.

You found a massive stash of letters

when you were going through their home. Tell me about that.

I had no idea they were there.

I found a tea chest in a cupboard that I didn't know existed

with some shoes on the top of it

and when I looked underneath, there were over 250 letters and telegrams

that they'd sent each other

right from just before the Second World War,

all the way through 1939-1945,

whilst my grandfather was serving in the Army

and my grandmother was a nurse.

Did you parents know about that?

My mother had heard that they'd written to each other,

but nobody had seen that collection of letters at all.

So, have you been reading them?

I've read some of them. There's a lot to go through.

I can imagine.

But...and they're quite detailed and they tell quite a bit

about war life and what they hoped

would happen afterwards and the things that happened during the war.

And they're also tremendously romantic, are they?

Oh, they are, yeah,

-there's some very moving, moving passages in them.

-Let's see...

"I'm very sorry, my beloved, I can't get home.

"That's all I live for - home and you.

"You are the most wonderful, marvellous, precious,

"beloved, lovable, adoring, adorable, charming,

"divine and loving sweetheart wife that has ever lived.

"Darling, come a little closer and let me whisper in your darling ears,

"all these loving words because they are meant for you, my sweetheart."

-And it goes on, I mean...

-And it goes on for pages.

It does, and there's 250-odd letters like this.

Yeah, both from my grandfather to my grandmother

and back from my grandmother to my grandfather,

and when they couldn't write to each other, they sent telegrams instead.

-They were born on the same day...

-The same birthday, yeah.

..and died within three days of each other.

Let me just read the end here. "Well, sweetheart it's bedtime" -

-it's your grandfather writing.

-Yes.

"Goodnight, sweet dreams, I send all my love and everything to you,

"my wonderful and loving wife, all my love, Fred,"

lots of kisses and then,

"PS, darling, I love you more than anything else in the world."

I think that's true.

Isn't that lovely to see these?

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

MUSIC: "Goodnight Sweetheart" by Al Bowlly

# All my prayers are for you

# Goodnight sweetheart

# Goodnight. #

We've got this wonderful little carving of this monk here,

and out of this begging bowl,

see the tail emerging?

He conjures a fabulous...

..dragon which crawls up and meets him here,

and he holds onto the horn.

It's the quality, it's amazing.

Thank you.

It's difficult to know where to start

with these wonderful little bits of Japanese sculpture.

Where did you get them?

A long time ago, I bought them and my husband bought me some.

I just liked them because they were little,

portable and just nice quality.

It was just something I loved from the first one I ever saw.

I stopped buying them about 40 year ago.

40 years ago you stopped buying them?

Yes, I had a daughter and I couldn't afford both.

Yeah, well, you know.

They are Japanese netsuke as I'm sure you know.

These ones were made in the Meiji period.

The Meiji restoration was 1868, so 1868 to 1912,

and this is the period of the real flourishing of the arts

in Japan and they made metalwork.

These are mostly - but not all - ivory.

-This one here is a bone one.

-Yeah.

But netsukes, originally, were the...

-..toggles...

-Toggles.

-..or buttons, you had a netsuke...

You didn't have pockets so you had a box or an inro

hanging from your waistband,

a little, tiny little bead

called an ojime and the netsuke, and those were all in the round,

rather like this one, but these ones were made to be decorative.

They do it so well. Which is your favourite?

-That one.

-This one? Let's take a look at this.

It's my husband and a baby, my baby,

because my husband's got a tummy like that.

Has he? Has he really? Is he here?

You don't want to see him. Put it down.

And was this one of the first ones you got?

Er, it was quite an early one, yes.

I think they're really beautiful things. I love them.

You could look at these and talk about them for ever.

We've got a little group here of people carrying rice.

I mean, the rat and the quality of the tail on there is amazing.

What was the most you had to pay for them?

We have paid up to about...

£200, I would think.

That was quite a lot.

Yes, it was a lot of money in those days.

-But, I mean, some of them were very, very inexpensive.

-Yeah.

-Some of them were.

-And this isn't all of the collection?

No, I have one or two more.

-You've got some more.

-Yeah.

-I think they're fabulous.

-Thank you.

It's difficult putting a valuation on a collective group of pieces.

-Yeah.

-And it is always somewhat guesswork.

Just what's here has got to be...

..£6,000 to £8,000.

No!

It has!

This one here is...

over £1,000 worth of netsuke.

Good heavens!

I didn't expect that sort of money.

I knew they were nice and lovely to me,

but I really didn't expect that sort of money.

Well, they're fabulous things to see.

-I would like to keep looking at these for days.

-Thank you.

We inherited this table from my husband's farming family

and at Great-grandma's funeral,

all the uncles declared that we were to inherit the Richard table,

because there were no more Richards, and my husband's called Robert,

at which point I said, "No, thank you, don't want that,

"don't want anything French polished, fancy

"in my house, it'll get ruined".

And they all fell about the floor laughing,

which I thought was quite rude.

-Right.

-And they then announced that I clearly hadn't seen it and maybe

I should go and look at it before we did, and this was it, so...

..they'd butchered things on it,

and hidden underneath it, and danced on it and...

so I thought it would be quite safe with my boys.

Your boys are a bit rough and...?

-Yeah, they're all built like farmers.

-Right.

-Yes.

-So, where do you keep this, then?

-This lives in our dining room,

the conservatory, and it's used every day.

When we first got it back to our house, it was...

I didn't think it was very clean

so I made my husband take

it down to the local garage and he jet-washed the top.

Did you get arrested?

Most people clean their cars in the jet wash,

not go in there with a gate leg table.

I know, well, I think maybe we shouldn't have done,

but it's nice and clean, it was, yeah.

I don't know what to do with it, to look after it, which is

partly why I brought it here.

-How old do you think this is?

-I think it's...

300 or 400 years old, from its original state,

cos I think it's made of old bedding boxes and things.

Bedding boxes?

Yeah, if you look underneath.

Right, OK.

You'll tell me. Yes.

Now it is, you know, yes,

a 300 or 400-year-old gate-leg table.

-It's a lovely piece of furniture.

-Yeah.

Yes, it does need some TLC to bring it back up. Umm...

I'm sure if this could talk, it could tell some

-really, really interesting stories.

-Yeah, sure, yeah.

-It dates back to around about the 1700s.

-OK.

And, um,

it's made out of solid oak.

-What I'd like to have seen is a drawer.

-OK.

Because normally when you had these tables,

-they normally have a nice, long drawer, but this one doesn't.

-No.

It would seat six to eight people comfortably,

and do you sit round it and dine?

We do, yeah, we do, it's used fully, yeah.

Yeah, and I think that's really important that,

you know, these things

-are to be used, not to be looked at and treasured.

-Yeah.

-If we look at the tips, at each end.

-Yes, they're loose, aren't they?

-They're loose, they have been replaced.

-Ah, yes.

And that's where... On the underside, you can see they've been carved.

Well, what's that from, then?

They...someone's found a piece of old timber

and instead of throwing it away -

make good and mend.

When we look at the base, oh, it's glorious, because

along the rails there, they're all so thick and chunky.

-Mmm.

-It's...

as I say, a good substantial piece of furniture.

When this is waxed up...

-Waxed?

-This would be a lovely, lovely colour.

-Don't jet-wash it!

-No, no, I won't.

Just put...get some wax and rub it in there and it will just glow

-because the foundations are there.

-Yeah.

Waxing this up and giving it some good TLC,

I would put a valuation on this, when it's done,

-around a couple of thousand pounds.

-Really?

-Yeah.

It's going to look great, cos it's going to be a good colour.

It is, yeah. I'm pleased with it, thank you.

Now I'm holding here

photographs which I know were taken at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945.

Now it's 70 years nearly

since this event took place,

and it may be that people have begun to forget how important it was.

It wasn't just about sorting out the chaos of the Second World War,

it was actually about establishing principles of international justice

which have been maintained to this day.

So, I know the story, but what do they tell you?

They are evidence of my mother having worked there

for the length of the trial,

from 1945 into 1946

and she's actually photographed on some of these photos.

-Where is she?

-She's at the...she's just on the right-hand side here.

So she's in the middle of those three people

in the back of that photograph. What was she doing?

She was secretary to the chief judge who was Lord Justice Lawrence.

Yes, yes, and she was there for a long time, I imagine.

She was there for the full length of the trial.

I'm trying to get my head round what that meant.

You sit all the week listening to records of ghastly events

and then what do you do in the evenings and weekends?

-You go off and play, presumably.

-I think they lived pretty well.

-Well, I've heard that.

-They certainly partied, they went away at weekends,

they had a lot of rations, I mean, there's even a ration book here.

-Yeah, and we've got maps and guides.

-Yeah.

So, in your off time, you just enjoyed what...

I think they let their hair down.

Yeah. This is a close-up of the presiding judges.

Now, let's get this right.

Geoffrey Lawrence was the sort of, the top judge...

Yes, he was, yes.

-But there were judges on the panel from America, from Russia...

-Yes.

-..from France, in effect from the four powers.

-Yes, yes.

And so he was in charge of that judicial team and, of course,

everything had to be multi-lingual and so there were translators,

there were transcribers, it was a massive operation.

Obviously, we all know that picture, there we are looking at the dock.

I can't do them all and I don't really want to,

-but we start with Goering, Hess.

-Yes.

-You know these are all,

in a sense, terrible names from history.

The trial was about bringing these people to justice

in an international way

that would satisfy justice in a sense for ever -

that's what they wanted to achieve. This is an interesting document.

She seems to have collected the signatures of most of the judges.

-Yes.

-And why is the paper headed Adolf Hitler?

-I've no idea.

-They must have acquired this.

-Yes.

-And it was a sort of rather grim souvenir of the time.

-Yes.

Geoffrey Lawrence, the presiding judge.

Great names - Norman Birkett, the French judge, Shawcross,

you know, they're all famous legal names.

And the famous Russian judge, Nikitchenko, who was,

I gather, very tiresome, you know, but you know they sorted it all out.

-So that's a wonderful personal souvenir, isn't it?

-Yes, yes.

The other thing I like - I'm quite amused by - is that.

Now I'm sure the Nuremberg Trials didn't produce

souvenirs for people to take home.

Well, maybe not quite like that, no.

But certainly a souvenir, I think perhaps it was, let us say,

acquired unofficially.

-I think, I suspect that.

-So, there was this young girl thinking,

"Oh, I think I'll take something a bit more positive."

-Yes, probably got tucked in the suitcase at some point.

-And why not?

Will you ever see another ashtray from the Nuremberg Trials?

I doubt it.

No, probably not.

So, you know, she's shown me something I never knew existed.

Yes.

-That document is probably the best piece.

-Yes.

That collection of signatures is very rare

and you'd never get it again.

I don't think many people did that at the time.

In value terms, that's probably...

..£800, £1,000, £1,500.

-It's such a rare document.

-Yes.

-Bizarrely, the ashtray is probably quite desirable.

-Yes.

Put it all together because of who she was, and what she did,

-let's say £5,000 for the lot.

-Wow.

-Something like that.

That's incredible.

But it's not important.

-No, it isn't, no, it's not going anywhere.

-Good.

You might ask why I'm interested in what

looks like a sort of rather bizarre hedgehog or pile of nails,

but I think that it's a sculpture by an incredibly interesting

and influential American furniture designer.

I think that this is a sculpture by a gentleman called Harry Bertoia.

Correct, yeah.

Who designed a number of well-known bits of furniture in America,

and studied at a number of very influential schools, and worked with

a number of influential designers like Charles and Ray Eames.

-That's right.

-But what I need to know from you

is how on earth did it make its way to Yorkshire from America?

Well, it was sent over from America

by Harry Bertoia...

to a company called Interiors International,

who were manufacturing the range of furniture

that included his particular wire chairs.

And we had a showroom in London and a showroom, believe it or not,

in Pontefract in North Yorkshire, and they decided to bring

certain artefacts up from London to Pontefract and that's where it was.

And then the parent company, unfortunately, went to the wall,

and so they suddenly decided to sell these things off

and I happened to be there at the right time.

I was still working for them, but that's how it came about.

And when was this? This must've been in the '70s.

I bought this in about 1973, it came over about 1970.

It's part of a series of sculptures entitled Bush.

-Right.

-So it's one of his Bush sculptures.

-Yeah.

And they come in various sorts of shapes and sizes

-and they're made from patinated bronze.

-Ah, that sounds interesting.

He was hugely inspired by nature and it was the sort of randomness,

but also the symmetry of nature. So you've got all these

nail-like structures with these little beads

all flowing out of this main copper trunk underneath here.

-Yeah.

-And you've got the randomness but also the symmetry,

-it's still a very pleasing whole.

-Yes, yes, it is.

-And it's that pleasing shape you only get in nature.

-Yes.

When you bought it in 1973, how much did you pay?

I think about £17 for it.

£17 - maybe it's a considerable sum of money then, I suppose.

-I bought some carpet as well.

-Oh right, thrown in?

No, no. And some Carrara marble ashtrays.

-About £40 the lot, I think.

-OK.

My one concern about looking at the value today is it has had

some life, I think it's fallen over.

-It's been in the family.

-Right. OK.

They sell for considerable sums of money

and I'd like to say that this should be worth at auction

somewhere in the region of

-£10,000 to £15,000.

-Mmm!

Wow, that surprises me.

Brilliant! I never expected it to be worth that much.

I said to my wife, "I don't think it will be worth a great deal,

-"200 quid maybe."

-And what did she say?

She didn't say anything, I've got to ring her and tell her now.

Repeat, 10 to 15.

-£10,000 to £15,000.

-Thank you very much.

But there's possibly even better news.

We're in Yorkshire, in England.

-The market for these really is the States.

-Yes.

You may find that if you took it out to a good American auction house

or an American dealer and put it for sale in that environment,

-it could easily top 20,000 or maybe 30,000.

-Crikey.

That's very good, thank you very much.

I like objects that have labels on them

because it's the start of a journey of investigation

and it really gives you somewhere where you can actually concentrate

and start the ideas flowing about finding out about something.

I always look at anything like this as a bit of detective work,

you know, you have to find out, and there are clues on it.

And when someone is kind enough to write a thing like that on there,

you think your birthdays and Christmases have come all at once.

And it says,

"Taken by Sir Richard Strachan from Commodore Beaumoir..."

using my best French there,

"..after the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21st 1805."

Who was Sir Richard Strachan?

I don't know.

I know that he was in the skirmishes after the Battle of Trafalgar,

but that's all that I know about him.

So, this hasn't come down in your family from him?

No, I think there's no military, no naval people in my family at all.

I think it must have been purchased by my grandfather.

That would probably figure, because people often bought small things

like this as ornaments and, although it says "taken after Trafalgar",

one thing that is absolutely certain - this isn't a weapon.

This would not have been on the gun decks of some great French warship

that was being hammered into submission by one of Nelson's ships.

-It's actually a cannon that's used for signalling.

-Ah, right.

So, it's a piece of communications equipment, if you like.

Quite often, you found small cannons were used with a blank charge in.

I don't think this was ever intended to fire a projectile.

I think it just had a big charge of gunpowder rammed in it

with a wad of oakum or tow or something rammed down on it

and fired when they hoisted the signal.

So, the flags would run up the halyard, for the signal flags.

The people who were supposed to be reading that, heard a bang

and thought, "Ah, I'd better look!"

And, "Ooh, yes, they want us to come about.

"Bring her about, number one."

So, it was a communications equipment rather than a weapon

because obviously it's tiny.

But it's clearly the sort of thing

that somebody who was a senior French officer

probably had on his quarterdeck

or something like that, for signalling purposes.

And after the battle, whoever Sir Richard was,

he acquired it from the vanquished Frenchman who probably was

a bit miffed that he had to give it up.

I mean, I would be, because I just think it's so beautiful.

And this is a nice little gun.

It's about 1750, something like that, made of bronze,

probably in the Low Countries, Flanders, somewhere like that.

Lovely, lovely patina on it.

Please don't ever polish it, it's beautiful like it is, a lovely green.

Worth...

£1,500 to £2,000 - it's a nice thing.

So, whoever Sir Richard was, I'm very glad

-that he had it away from the French.

-Thank you, Sir Richard, yes.

Yes, thank you.

What we're looking at here is really the madness, exuberance,

of American design of the 1940s, '50s.

That's right, it's an extraordinary time of kind of excitement and pride

after winning the war and this sort of sense that

we are the greatest nation,

we've achieved all these things, incredible wealth of course,

compared with the rest of the world, and it's expressed in this

kind of silly frippery that you've got here, it's great fun, yeah.

What first attracted you to these bags?

Their sheer madness.

I mean, who would have thought a carrot could be a fashion statement?

Or a little mermaid. I mean, let's face it,

they're not particularly practical.

-Not at all.

-But that wasn't the idea, was it? No.

This was a time when, you know, we'd had all the deprivations

of war - except the Americans hadn't had it nearly as much as we had.

-Yes.

-So we were all... People in this country,

-looking back at this period, wouldn't think of all these mad designs.

-No.

So are you completely manic collectors?

No, it's very difficult to buy these in this country.

I'm fortunate that I travel with my job in the States

and I always try and come home with a bag.

But it's really the social history of them

that we both get enthusiastic about.

This is my favourite and it's a four seasons bag.

It starts off with the summer here, and we go through to fall

with pumpkins, and then winter, and then finally spring.

Bag for all seasons.

And of course some of them were probably kits

when people got them, weren't they?

Yeah, it's hard to know, I don't... I honestly don't know

whether someone's had a kit and done the needlepoint themselves

and followed a plan, or whether it was sold like that.

-But you can just imagine, you know, a 1950s' Desperate Housewife.

-Oh.

-Walking along...

-It's very Mad Men.

This is Betty Draper and her life is rubbish and Donald Draper is

sleeping with whoever, and all she wants is a silly handbag to

show off to her friends. It kind of speaks of the era.

There is something a bit desperate about them.

-I think there is.

-Almost trying too hard.

You know, you've got the Cuban Missile Crisis

and a bag made of lolly sticks.

But that's what's lovely about them.

That's what it's all about, it's all about letting go,

forgetting all your troubles and being silly.

-And walking around with a little bag.

-Yeah.

-It's great fun.

-Is this the whole of your collection?

-No.

-No?

-No, come down to our house

and you'll see that it's certainly not.

We have a special cupboard in the house with boxes of them

and then what I like to do with them -

because they sit very nicely, or the ones I tend to buy sit nicely -

they're very useful for kind of putting precious keepsakes in,

like tickets or scarves, you know, jewellery.

I sort of, you know, swap round bags on a display in the bedroom.

And valuation - you say you've got more -

but I would look at this selection, and I would say that

what we're looking at here is certainly in excess of £3,000.

-Fabulous.

-It's something I'm going to hang on to

because I think they're only going to become rarer as we move

further and further away from that point in history.

Now, this luminous and vibrant oil sketch is by one of the

greatest painters of everyday life that the Victorian era provided.

The greatest since Hogarth, really - William Powell Frith.

And it's painted in about 1866-67

and it depicts Charles II on his last Sunday before he died.

Are you particularly interested in history,

that you've got this picture?

Yeah, I think I've always been interested in history, actually.

The other day the bank rang me up and asked me a question

and said, "What is the password,

"what was your favourite subject at school?" and that was history.

Oh, well, there you are. And of course this is...he's about to die.

He certainly looks rather bilious, doesn't he?

And in contrast to Nellie Gwyn here with her spaniel,

and his spaniel.

She looks the picture of health. She's very pretty, isn't she?

Yes. I'm told, actually, that the man who stood as the model for that,

actually died a week after this was painted.

Oh, that's very spooky, that's very spooky.

Because he died of kidney failure, I think, and he looks really ill

and these two gentlemen here are looking on worried, because,

of course, they were worried about the succession, they didn't

want another Catholic king. That's what they were really worried about.

But what this picture is really about is excess.

He's the Merry Monarch and it's Sunday, they should be in church.

-Yes.

-We know that but, instead, they're playing cards and drinking,

and listening to music, and having a great time,

and really it's based on one of those Dutch scenes of inn life,

-you know, where they're having a massive party.

-Yeah.

And there's lots and lots of sort of neglect going along.

In fact, you can see here, these spaniels are chewing a glove

and eating out of a dish on the floor. That's a classic sort of Dutch trick.

Tremendous, yeah.

But what I really like about it is the way it's painted.

This background is so sketchily done and yet, as I said,

it's luminous and you've got this light coming in round the back

and into the room, flooding it with light and everybody is glittering,

you get a real sense of the silver on the table, there's loads of

drinking going on and obviously it's taken its toll on the Merry Monarch.

Frith's great trick was to arrange lots and lots of figures

in really quite a small canvas, convincingly.

Now, this is a study for the finished picture.

Now the finished pictures - which are much larger -

often make six figures.

-Yeah.

-Quite often.

And this is from the height of his career

so I'm going to put £12,000 to £15,000 on it today.

Jolly good.

Thank you.

Do you remember how I told you, back at the beginning of the programme,

that this was a thriving monastic community in the Middle Ages?

We have here a relic from that time that was dug up

from the ground of the ruins of Fountains Abbey, wasn't it?

-It was.

-Now tell me about this ring. Who did it belong to?

Well, it probably belonged to Abbot Marmaduke Huby,

who was the abbot here from 1495 to 1526.

He's actually responsible for reviving

the fortunes of the abbey and he's also responsible for building

that tower which is now called Huby's Tower.

-And I know you're English Heritage, aren't you?

-I am.

And English Heritage are responsible for maintaining the artefacts

-associated with the abbey.

-They are, yes.

It's massive, this ring.

He either wore it on his thumb or he was enormously fat?

He may have been a large person, we don't know.

It's likely that he wore gloves

and therefore it would have fitted over gloves.

Because if I try and put my thumb in it, see the sense of scale.

That's about the diameter of my thumb and as much again.

It's a lot about status. It's made of copper alloy, so bronze or

brass, it's then been gilded by a very expensive process,

mercury gilded, so it's designed to be a really fancy object.

And then used as a seal,

because this is an imprint of a seal that's come from here.

It is, yes, so it would have been his personal seal.

It also tells you something

about just how wealthy the monks were here, which seems...

When the order started here

and they wore simple coarse sheep's robes, they didn't wear

underwear in order to make it just that bit more uncomfortable.

How did it go from that to gobstoppers of rings like this?

Part of it was about the development of the site and how the riches

of the abbey were built up, through the wool trade in particular,

but a lot of it is actually in the name of the Lord,

and showing how much, how pious you were at the time

and also how influential you might be.

And I think this ring nicely reflects his importance

and the memory that he's left for visitors at Fountains Abbey.

Two fabulous pieces of English domestic embroidery.

Do you like them?

-Oh, yes, I think they're lovely.

-Do you?

-Absolutely, yeah.

They were made in about 1680 and maybe 1660 at the earliest

but they are so beautiful.

Did you buy them?

No, no, I didn't buy them.

My father passed away last year and they were in his flat

and that's all really I know about them.

Well, let's talk about the mirror frame to start with,

because mirrors were a very expensive commodity, you know,

they were real luxury aristocratic pieces to get a looking glass.

And to make the best of what would have been

really quite a small piece of glass in the middle,

they created these wonderful mirror frames

and you've got lots of symbols there,

things that were of interest at the time.

On either side you've got portraits.

On your side, there's Charles I.

-Right.

-And on this side, there's Henrietta Maria.

Now they were married in fact in 1625,

so this is very much looking backwards to that time.

And then elsewhere, you've got, again,

motifs that were incredibly popular with that period.

So you've got a carnation -

a very kind of now flower of the latter part of the 17th century.

Oh, right, OK.

But then, bam, on either side, you've got these wonderful castles

and a house with smoke belching out of the chimneys.

I think those are great designs, aren't they?

Now all these designs,

the embroideress would have got out of a pattern book.

-She wouldn't have drawn them freehand.

-Right.

They would have been available as patterns.

I love this embroidery here.

It's the judgment of Solomon and you can see, here is a child

being held up by his foot, with a sword poised ready to dispatch.

Right.

And here are the two ladies arguing about whose child it actually is,

so that's the story there.

-Why is that face not embroidered?

-It's not finished.

Right.

But it gives us a very good indication of how the work was done,

you know, it was drawn first, or printed first,

in this case drawn, and then embroidered on top.

They are tip-top of what collectors are wanting,

-apart from the condition of this one.

-Right.

So I'm going to say for the mirror frame,

I'm going to put it at around £15,000.

In that condition?

In that condition.

The embroidered picture is going to be worth a little less than that

because they are not quite as rare,

so I would put that at around £8,000 to £10,000.

-But it's adding up nicely.

-It's adding up nicely.

They are wonderful objects,

the very best example of English embroidery at this golden period

and...

it's been a bit of a treat for me.

Well, been a treat for me as well, thank you.

-Thanks very much.

-Thank you.

So one day, you and your sister were shopping in Chipping Norton.

-Yeah.

-Saw an antique shop,

popped in and it happened to be Ronnie Barker's antique shop.

Correct.

And I think a lot of people don't realise that when Ronnie Barker,

one of Britain's greatest comedians, retired...

he opened an antique shop, and is that you with Ronnie Barker?

-No, that's my sister.

-But you were there.

-I was there, yes.

-So what happened? Tell me about it.

We went in and my sister absolutely fell in love with them.

They were actually Ronnie's himself.

-He'd had them hanging on his snooker room wall in his London home.

-Right.

And then he'd moved to Oxfordshire and had too much stuff,

so was selling, selling stuff on so...

So like every good antique dealer, raiding his wall to fill the shop up

-when he needed a bit of extra stock.

-Yes.

They're by Friedrich Goldscheider,

who was a well-known factory in Austria.

Yes.

They date to the late 19th century

-when Moorish, Arab subjects were very popular.

-Yes.

So your sister bought them. Can you remember how much for?

They were priced at £180 each and she bought them both for £350,

which looking back, he didn't really knock much off, for buying the pair.

But you were buying from Ronnie Barker.

But you were buying them from Ronnie Barker, yes.

And it's no joke that they're worth twice that, so that's £700.

She'll be a bit nervous about that now, hanging them on the...

Well, as long as it's a good bit of wire, which it is.

So all I have to say now is it's goodnight from me.

And goodnight from him. Goodnight.

-Is this your daughter?

-Yes, it is.

I think we've found the perfect wedding present for her.

Oh, my! Really?

Well, this is a Chinese bowl and it's got dragons on it

-and it's got phoenix on it.

-Mm.

Now dragons and phoenix represent the Emperor and Empress of China,

but it is also a symbol of conjugal bliss

and they are frequently used as wedding gifts.

Oh, right.

So it's got to be the perfect present.

Where did you get it?

I think it belonged to my great-aunt

who gave some items to my mother

and I just took a fancy to it, and she said take it.

How long ago was that?

-Oh, probably about 10, 15 years, I can't remember.

-Fabulous.

Well, I mean it is, it's lovely,

I mean, it's painted with these dragons, phoenix, we've got flowers,

we've got Buddhist symbols around the border here,

but if we turn it over,

we've got a six-character Chinese mark.

It reads from here first and it says Da Qing Daoguang Nian Zhi

so it says basically,

"Made in the Daoguang reign of the great Qing dynasty,"

is how it translates, and this chap was an Emperor

who reigned from 1820 to 1850, so the first half of the 19th century.

They started by painting it in underglazed blue

and then firing it and then it's come back out and they've

then re-enamelled it with these iron red, green, yellow etc on it.

And they were popular bowls, they'd been making this design

since the Kangxi period, back at the end of the 17th century.

Throughout the 18th century and 19th century, you see the same bowls,

so without turning it over,

I wouldn't have necessarily been able to tell you when it was made.

Where do you keep it now?

Um, I keep it in a pile of other similar sort of bowls

and plates that I just like the look of. It comes out every now and again

to have peanuts or something like that put in it.

-It's a peanut bowl.

-It's a peanut bowl.

I love the fact that it's a peanut bowl. Well, you're very lucky

that your peanut bowl is in such amazing condition.

It is very, very flawless, really.

It's definitely from this period, this is not a copy.

There are subtle differences and they are difficult to tell.

There's a slight way the inside of the base is finished,

it's gone slightly brown,

again, you can see the colour draining slightly from the rim.

The quality of the painting is the other issue, it's a very good thing.

Lovely object. And terrific wedding present, well done.

The last one at auction fetched just over £20,000.

Gosh. Mm.

So it was worth coming today after all.

-I think we'll share it.

-No, we won't!

Do you remember at the beginning of the programme

I talked about the Georgian tourists who would flock here in their hordes

to see the ruins of the abbey and the wonderful water gardens?

Well, this is a kind of Georgian frock coat

one of those tourists might have worn.

One of our visitors brought it along today,

picked it up for about £80 and it's worth several hundred pounds.

And of course it wouldn't have been worn with the kind of things

I'm wearing, but with lovely lace at the throat,

lace coming out of the cuffs, a tricorn hat.

I couldn't resist putting it on because it is a fabulous thing.

From the ruins of Fountains Abbey

and our visitors and the Roadshow team, until next time, bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd