Bolsover Castle 2 Antiques Roadshow

The Antiques Roadshow has ridden back to

Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire, one of English Heritage's finest

sites. And tucked away within the castle is a 17th century

riding house, one of the oldest in the country, and still in use today.

It was built by William Cavendish, the Duke of Newcastle,

a man who absolutely loved horse riding.

In fact, he was renowned as one of the best horsemen in Europe.

He practised his riding skills every day.

Having learnt the art of horsemanship in sunny Spain,

he wasn't going to let the grey skies of England get in his way.

Tall door so he could ride straight in,

a soft, sandy floor to protect the horses' hooves,

and high windows so the horses couldn't see out and be distracted.

Of course he had to have a gallery so friends

and guests could watch his daily training.

It was about teaching the horse how to dance, to move elegantly, working

around the post in the centre, performing graceful pirouettes

that showed the power of the animal and the control of the rider.

The key to all this was the horse

and rider working together, using the horse's natural temperament

rather than brute force - an approach that's still used today.

In fact, Cavendish is referred to as the father of modern dressage,

and wrote the book on the subject in 1658 -

A General System Of Horsemanship.

The book is still considered a definitive manual, which is

why copies like this are still in print today.

The 17th century originals are much sought after

and fetch handsome prices.

Imagine if one turned up for our specialist to see today.

We can but hope.

Do you know, a chair like this really suits this setting we're in.

But it doesn't suit you.

No, it... It's been passed down to me

through my grandma's side of the family.

Legend has it that she bought it in an antiques shop in Cornwall,

and that's all I know about it.

And so how long have you had it for? About ten years.

And in that ten years, you've never done research as to where or...

No, nothing.

I had it restored because it was a bit battered and a bit chipped.

And the fabric I had replaced

because it was mouldy and sort of worn through.

OK. So, I mean, it's an exotic-looking chair.

If you had to guess, which country?

I look at this and I wonder whether it's a peacock

and maybe possibly from India, but I don't know.

OK, not bad.

Yes, slightly stylised here. All in ebony is the next clue.

The best bit for this chair, for me, is these.

So, in my view, they're stylised bees,

but made of tea leaves.

Does that take you any closer to where that could be?

Uh, Ceylon, maybe?

Perfect, Ceylon. Obviously nowadays Sri Lanka.

This would have been someone who was pretty...

well to do within that

world, whether he was importing or owned a plantation there or

whatever, he would have had this made locally out of solid ebony.

Just to the highest spec.

It's... I'm almost lost for words, it's so exciting to see.

All of this carving is as good as you get. It's...

tricky. I mean, 1860, 1880 in date. And you've got this

slightly hidden, stylised helmet in there,

but all hidden within that foliage.

And that's actually what makes it so much more interesting to me.

I just think it's lovely.

Value wise, this is becoming much more collectable. I think...

?2,500-?3,500. Wow.

Well, that's lovely. It has pride of place in our bedroom

and never gets used, so it'll go back to staying there.

Thank you. Pleasure, thank you.

It's an amazingly modern-looking bowl, really, isn't it?

It is, but it's certainly 70 years old, because that's

when my dad bought it.

He used to call them Chinese pots, and he left me

quite a few of them, and I've been collecting Chinese pots ever since.

And that's one of my favourites.

Well, it's lovely, it's got this old label on there.

"From the collection of Sir Alexander Grantham."

It says "British Ambassador to China", but he was a governor

in Hong Kong in the 1950s.

But the mark on the bottom is an imperial reign mark.

To translate, it says "dar Qing Qianlong an jur",

which means "great Qing", as in the Qing dynasty. The next one,

"Qianlong", is the name of the Emperor, who reigned from 1736

to 1795. And the last characters translate as "made in",

so made in the Qianlong reign of the great Qing dynasty.

And so it... While it looks terrifically modern,

it's 250 years old.

The wear, it's rather scratched on the inside,

there's a little bit of wear on the outside. It's everything you

would expect from a Qianlong piece of porcelain.

Against it in the marketplace, when this was made, it's a

copper red glaze.

I'm sure that white patch was unintentional.

I think that's a misfiring in the kiln. Ah.

I don't think it was supposed to look like that.

I reckon it was supposed to be an even copper red glaze throughout.

Now, I am surprised you say that,

because I always thought it was absolutely intentional.

I don't think it is. Look at all of the other Qianlong copper reds

and they will be even. This is a misfiring -

it didn't get to the right temperature in the kiln here.

Even so, I think it's a lovely piece.

I think, in an auction, it would be probably

because of this damage, about ?3,000.

Well, you do surprise me. I am smiling now.

HE LAUGHS

That is lovely.

Well, this is a very flamboyant pendant. Tell me about it.

It was given to my mother by my grandfather.

It's in two parts,

so when my mother was born, the first painting was done. OK.

And then when my aunt was born three years, two months, one day later,

the reverse was painted and it was made into the locket it is now.

Ah, wonderful. So your mother's inside. So my mother's inside.

In there. Ah... I've got the photograph

at home that it was taken from.

It's very like the photo. Oh, fabulous, and then you're saying...

And that's my aunt, so she was a little bit older

when she was painted, and I think probably it's a better likeness.

Oh, isn't that lovely? Doesn't she look sweet?

She's a lovely lady.

And your grandfather had it made?

I presume my grandfather had it made up, yes. Yes, great.

He was an Oppenheim and interested

in De Beers and the diamond... Of course. ..diamond business.

I presume that it was made with the help of the family business.

We're seeing here, really, two different styles coming together in

the early part of the 20th century, so that would fit in, wouldn't it,

with the age of your mother and your aunt

in...in the actual portraits? That would be just, just right.

Yes, exactly, and then the

Victorian look, which was the engraving around the edge,

was something that carried on into the early

part of the 20th century, even though we were introducing a much

lighter style of design by the introduction of the platinum

in which the diamonds are set, which helped to lighten things and get it

very much into that lovely, delicate and feminine Edwardian period.

Now, I've had my colleague, Rupert Maas, have a

look at the miniatures, because I thought it's always nice to be able

to link everything in together. And he said that they are...

not the greatest of quality for the time, and this could well

fit in with perhaps the budget that your grandfather had at the...

Was working with, yes.

Working with. And that each of the miniatures

are worth about ?200-?300.

Right. And that the family association naturally

might add some value to it,

but really that's more an emotional and sentimental value for you.

Yeah. With regard to the locket,

again it's something that you will probably never sell, I'm sure. No.

I don't think it would mean very much to anybody else,

but it means a vast amount to my family. I'm sure it does. Yeah.

And have you worn it? I wore it for my wedding day. Did you?

If you ever put it up for auction, I'd expect somebody to be

paying round about the ?3,000 mark.

Right, OK.

That's lovely, that's really...

I never thought I'd hear myself say that, thank you.

THEY LAUGH

Well, this is the essence of elegance

and style, and I can only

really just imagine what sort of a home you live in. Tell me more.

Well, we now live in a 1960s architect-designed house. Quite a

lot of glass, very modern, very sleek...

and the pieces fit in fairly well. Just starting with these chairs,

I see they've been recently reupholstered.

And these are things you use, I guess.

Yeah, use them every day, they sit in our sitting room...

They remind me very much

of the American movies from about the '40s, where somebody's got

a cocktail and they've got maybe a cigarette in a holder and they've

just sort of had a disastrous day as they collapse into their chair.

So when we're finished here this evening,

that's exactly what you're going to do. Go home,

mix yourself a cocktail and sit down on these chairs.

I feel I've revealed too much, yeah.

THEY LAUGH

And these have a very strong sort of 1930s Art Deco style.

But I think they're a little bit later and, for me,

they prove quite an interesting point that after the war,

we didn't just flip straight over into the modern period

and the sort of 1950s designs. Factories were still effectively

picking themselves up after the war, and picking themselves up in terms

of design. They just carried on with what had been produced before.

So I think although they look 1930s, and they very much fit that

look, they are actually probably a little bit later in date, as well.

I think they're really nice, smart pieces that fit in with design,

but almost certainly from the 1950s.

And moving on to your plinth, where did you buy this from?

That piece I purchased from a generalist antiques fair.

It came with another piece, a coffee table.

But when I saw that, I just loved the sleek look of it.

Well, when I saw it, it sort of reminded me of skyscrapers,

and in fact there was a range of furniture

designed by an American designer called Paul Frankl, which was

called the Skyscraper range, and it's got that sort

of monumental, geometric Art Deco and a sort of almost art modern feel

to it. But it's not modernist, of course,

we have these little features

here, the ball feet and these inset discs here. But you'll notice

I said in the STYLE of Paul Frankl.

I don't think it's Paul Frankl.

What was it sold to you as?

Just as an Art Deco plinth. Not with any provenance of...

of who made it, just a... you know, of that period.

I've shown it to a couple of colleagues, as well,

just to make sure, and we all feel that it is actually in the style

of the Art Deco period and that it actually is a reproduction.

And there are a couple of clues.

First of all, we have these feet down here, which are billiard balls.

They are made of ivory, but they're billiard balls.

They're all the same size and they've been pegged in.

There's a good weight to it, but then again, that was...

That can often easily be added. But the real clue is,

if you take a good look at the base, it's completely clean. Mm-hm.

It shouldn't also have a base like that, it should actually be

hollow, effectively, inside and solid wood over the top.

I had wondered whether it had been restored, this very

sort of high gloss glaze just looks a little bit too good to be true.

I think it's probably somewhere

in the region of maybe 20, 30 years old.

All right.

Be brave.

THEY LAUGH

Yeah, can I ask what you paid for it?

I think probably about 150, 200 for it, yeah.

I don't think that's bad.

The chairs, probably ?200-?300, maybe ?300-?400 the pair.

Nice and practical, comfortable, indicative of a period.

Going back to your cocktails,

and you'll probably need one now, won't you?

Yeah. Any excuse. THEY LAUGH

And your wonderful idea of this 1930s style, in design terms,

I'm kind of wondering, who's Jeeves and who's Wooster?

THEY LAUGH

Yeah. We'll leave that one a mystery. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you.

Ah, thank you.

This is a 1796 light cavalry officer's patterned sword

and...phwoo, it's certainly one of the best-decorated ones I've ever

seen, and certainly in the best condition I think I've ever

seen. It really is absolutely stunning.

It looked like it walked out the sword cutler's shop yesterday,

but it clearly didn't. But...

you tell me where it came from. Well, my husband was a greengrocer,

he delivered every Friday to his customers.

This particular Friday, he...

took the box of greens into the house and the guy there was cleaning

it, and my husband admired it, as you would,

and that was it, he left,

went back the following week and the chap asked him if he would like it.

He asked him how much, and he said, "No, I want to give it to you."

And from then on he had free greens for the rest of his life.

And from then on he had free greens for the rest of his life.

He was 90 at the time, so... That's fantastic.

Why do things like that not happen to me?

It's just so unfair. It's a beautiful example.

And when you look at it, it's such a simple design.

It's got this very curved blade, it's a slashing blade,

and the light cavalry were used for reconnaissance

and they were also used for chasing up enemy troops that were

broken, that were running away. And they... Their job was

to make...to harass them beyond endurance, really,

just to keep them moving, and that's just ideal for that.

And it's got this very, very simple hilt on this, and we call it

a stirrup hilt because it looks like the rider's stirrup.

Oh, right, yeah, yeah. It doesn't give you...

fantastic protection for the hand,

but it's really just more than enough for somebody who's

quick moving, on a horse, and that would be a very fearsome thing.

It's in such good condition that this decoration on it,

which is called fire gilding and charcoal blowing,

so you get that yellow and blue contrast.

And as you work your way down the blade,

there are these swags of foliage.

The royal arms there, there's a trophy of arms, but I think the best

bit on this, and the bit I always love on these swords, is just...

I think it's fascinating to see the way that the Georgians portrayed

themselves, so there's this little light cavalry officer there.

And he's wearing a thing called a tartan helmet, which was like

a jockey cap made out of leather with a big bearskin top on it.

And that's what he would have looked like,

the man who owned this sword. Oh, right.

And I think that because it doesn't show any signs of use,

it was owned by an officer of the yeomanry cavalry,

and they were the sort of territorial army of their day,

and there's a huge interest in this period at the moment

because of the recent bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo.

And that's really pushed the prices up...

and you would pay for this between

1,500 to...

?2,000. Perhaps you might pay ?2,500 because they're so rare

in this condition.

And I think it's definitely worth a box of greens.

Oh, yes.

Where did your sister-in-law get this?

She got it at a school sale, in a box

of costume jewellery, for 10p.

It's a beautiful gem.

Really? Oh, OK.

And it's also gold, turn the back of it. It is gold, yes.

You can see here, it's all this beautiful gold work on the back.

Now this gold work is telling me a date,

and this is dating from around about

1800, 1820. And the value,

I would say, is going to be around about ?500.

She will be surprised. SHE LAUGHS

Well, I'd like to tell you I'd come to Bolsover Castle by train.

This suggests I might have done one day, but I couldn't, could I?

When did it close?

It was closed 1980. The lines have all been took away,

and the station totally demolished.

So there's no station, no trains to here, but there is a sign.

I mean, what could be more suitable to be here?

Where did you get it from?

I bought it at Barrel Hill, 1972.

And you paid?

I hate to say it, ?5.

?5 for something that doesn't exist anywhere

else in the world. I think that's pretty good.

And as a piece of local history, I'm going to say...

?300.

What do you think the ladle's made of?

I always thought it was made of silver

because of the hallmark on the back of the handle. Right. Now,

what it says there is "Nevada silver". Mm-hm.

Nevada silver was nickel.

Oh, right.

So that is pure nickel, there's actually no silver there at all.

Oh, right. That's... That's fooled me.

THEY LAUGH

It would have been made in Sheffield or Birmingham,

probably around the 1860s, 1870s.

Oh, right.

Today, you wouldn't be allowed to do it. Value wise...

?5. ?5.

Well, what a beast you've brought us in to take a look at today.

I certainly wouldn't want to bump into him in the middle of the night.

What can you tell me about him, where did you come by him?

Well, he's a family piece, he belonged originally

to my grandfather, who did quite a lot of travelling,

probably in the '20s and the '30s, and brought back

this lovely animal.

My father inherited the lion after

Grandad died, and then the lion

was in my parents' home, where it had pride of place - excuse the pun.

SHE LAUGHS

The first thing I've got to note about him is just how lovingly

polished over the years - he's

built up just a fantastic patina and colour. So was that...

That's Mum. Mum, OK.

Mum used to dust and polish him daily, she... OK.

She loved him. You can see that,

she's done a great job. It's just, it's created a wonderful

patination, which is very important with bronzes like this.

Yeah. So what is he?

He's Japanese and he dates from the Meiji period, which is

1868 to 1912, and he's probably produced maybe in that kind of

1880, 1890, so just the end of the 19th century.

And it's at a time,

particularly here, you know, in Europe,

where there was a great appetite for all things Japanese,

so he would have been made for the European market.

So if we just turn him over here... Can you do it?

Very carefully, there we go,

We can see underneath that we have this seal mark under here.

Now that seal mark tells us that it is...

Sawyer Sacco, which is

the workshops of Sawyer.

You know, what they're very good at doing is just capturing

the movement and

really bringing to life this very realistic casting.

At any moment you expect him to leap off the table

and run around the gardens here.

There's a great appetite for these,

and the Japanese market is certainly getting stronger and stronger.

If that came up for auction, I think that that would carry

a pre-sale estimate of between ?1,500-?2,500.

That's lovely, very nice, thank you very, very much indeed.

Well, I usually look at books and manuscripts,

and so I was surprised to see you come towards me with a picture.

It was painted by DH Lawrence for my father.

DH Lawrence the author? The author, yes. Right, I see.

He hasn't signed it, so we would really like you,

if you could tell us anything about it perhaps.

Gosh, well it's a... Let's just have a look at it first.

It's very simple, it's a pub scene, I think, as it's

playing skittles in the yard of a pub. It's accomplished,

but it's certainly the work of somebody learning to paint, I think.

Right. How do we know this is definitely by DH Lawrence?

It's always been in the family. My father told us

he painted it for him. My father was his doctor, and

DH Lawrence was very ill with influenza.

And he painted it as a thank you to my father for looking after him.

And he painted it as a thank you to my father for looking after him.

So it's actually a very, a very clear story... Yes, yes.

..that links it quite directly to him, which is wonderful.

..that links it quite directly to him, which is wonderful.

So where would that have been?

Lawrence was in London and abroad for much of his life...

It's when he was living in a place called

Mountain Cottage, in Via Gellia, which is near Ripley.

My father lived in Ripley. So we're talking about a very early stage

of DH Lawrence's life. 1912, I think it was. Right.

A little bit before he published Sons And Lovers,

which was his first... Yes, I would...

..important novel. ..think so.

Certainly long before the scandalous Lady Chatterley,

which I think we all know him for. It's the only one I know. Yes.

So we think of Lawrence, really, as a literary figure,

and a fairly scandalous literary figure,

so when I look at this, I think, "Hm, that doesn't quite fit."

Well, I'm quite pleased, really.

SHE LAUGHS

I mean, he did paint...throughout his life.

I think, at this stage, he was teaching himself to paint.

As he went through his career, he painted much more daring scenes.

Indeed, he did an exhibition of his paintings much later on, which

caused a great scandal as well.

His pictures are often nudes, they're often, frankly, sexual.

This is not at all, hence my question, is it really DH Lawrence?

Yes. But I am convinced by what you tell me.

I like it very much indeed.

I'm not sure our picture specialist would like it quite as much,

so I think a literary scholar would really enjoy looking at this

picture, taking apart, taking it apart in detail,

thinking about it and what it meant to Lawrence.

And therefore I think it has a commercial value.

I think it's worth ?800-?1,200.

Oh, right.

I'm surprised.

SHE LAUGHS

Here we have, in its entirety,

the relic of a long forgotten

cottage industry, that of lace making in the mid 19th century.

And I've never seen it in its entirety like this,

except in a museum.

It was given to me by a neighbour of my mother-in-law.

She knew I did lace making at the time, which was 1984.

All of it, lock, stock and barrel?

Lock, stock and barrel. With all these... It was all in the box.

And the bobbin winder? And the winder.

Which you, you know, you've helped us assemble here.

And this is obviously the thing that runs the wheel,

but that would have been leather, and it's now a shoelace. Yep.

And a remnant of old lace? Yeah.

And do you know how to make lace?

Oh, gosh, I wish I did, to be honest.

Never done anything like it, really.

And have you looked at these before?

Yeah, I have seen one before and I have been where they've been

made and that and... And you've been to see where they make those?

Yeah, really interesting.

Because I've seen old photographs of them sitting

outside cottages in the evening,

light making lace at tables, and this bobbin winding machine

tells us this must be mid 19th century.

My assumption is that

that would fit in there.

The cotton would come from

there onto the end of the bobbin. They could wind the bobbin up.

Perfect. My interest in this whole thing is that

I used to collect the bobbins. As I've said, I've never seen

the whole thing like this. And I like the inscriptions

on them and the names, and that one's got Emma on it.

And this one here says,

"I want a husband." And that just cracks me up.

I think that's amazing, because these would have been

made by the men-folk. So a lady would have asked a man to make her

one that said "I want a husband", maybe to give him a hint.

THEY LAUGH

And here we have one of a number of patterns pricked into nicely

tanned goat skin, and of course this would have been laid on a pillow

and made, as you probably know from making it. I mean, explain...

My assumption is that they would fix that end onto the pillow...

Yeah.

..unwind this. And then they would start with the cotton round

the pins and gradually work their way down, twisting the bobbins

and then putting pins in. Are you listening to this? Yeah.

Because you're going to be doing this soon. Trying to, it's going past my head.

No, it's amazing to see it all like this together.

I would think this whole lot is about ?800-?1,000.

Oh! Wow. Wow! Wow. That does surprise me.

Well, this one that said "I want a husband",

someone would probably pay ?75 for that one because it's so unusual.

Oh! THEY LAUGH

Well, they've been stuck in a cupboard for 30 years.

Well, there you go.

I love them. I've never seen them all together like this, it's a

museum piece. Well, thank you.

My pleasure.

This map from 1916, a geological map of the Sheffield District

showing the sites of collieries and important bore holes,

this reveals a landscape that has now vanished.

Tell me about it.

It shows the mines around Sheffield and Barnsley and south to

Bolsover, and also the other mineral that were available in the area.

Now looking down here, because Bolsover's just down here,

so we're here on the map and then the Bolsover mine was just there.

That's right. And then below here were the coal workers' cottages,

the National Coal Board was down here, there was another mine

over there.

And looking at this here...these are all the seams.

And the outcrops where they first started mining

the coal on the surface. And then they followed the seams

underground and that was the basis of the industry

in South Yorkshire, Sheffield and beyond.

You work for a local charity. That's right.

A hospice in Sheffield.

This was donated to you. What are you planning to do with it?

Well, after today, it's going to be available for sale.

I spoke to one of our experts about it.

It's difficult to know what it would go for. It will mean

so much to some people who are connected with the area or

connected with mining, and not much to people who aren't.

Certainly, according to our experts, possibly 50, ?80, but to the right

person, if it has a huge significance to them, it could be more.

It's so fascinating to see how, from this vantage point, what is

here in 1916...

..is just no longer there.

You are an immensely wealthy householder. And we will discuss

where and when in a moment. Let's go in and see what it's like inside.

Right. Well, this is the external locking key.

And it's jolly lucky we...you haven't lost your keys.

So, we're opening the door

to reveal an amazing lock that you have

just opened to let us in.

There.

So the key comes out...

And there it is, fantastic key. But the snag

is...no knobs,

nothing to get us out again. We've had a jolly good

evening savouring the contents of your cellar, but how do we get out?

Right. Well, this is the internal key...

and that goes on the square there.

There's a little sequence of pushing the button

to engage the lock.

And then you need to lift the lizard's tail.

And it draws back the... And it draws back. ..bolt.

It's a very early lock, of course. Of course.

Um, I would think probably early 17th century.

I think you're absolutely right.

Where was the house? Almost certainly in Germany. Yes.

In the area of Nuremburg, famous for its metalwork.

And one of the elements in metalwork we see reasonably

frequently on the Roadshow are the big so-called Armada chests.

Massive iron-bound chests that were meant to have come over with

the Spanish Armada. Absolute nonsense -

they all came from Nuremburg, and they have simpler versions

but quite clearly the same parentage, as it were as, as this lock.

Where did you get it? I bought it off a man that had actually bought it at auction.

And I bought it about two years ago.

What did you pay for it? I paid 1,475 for it,

which turned out to be ?100 less than the man had paid at auction.

You recognised it for what it is. I recognised it for what it is, being a mechanical engineer.

Right. And something I'd gone to buy - watches - but ended up buying a lock.

But it's all metalwork, you clearly appreciate metalwork.

Indeed. Let me see that key.

Yes, I mean, it is an immensely complicated key.

And all those cuts are vital to clear the various,

what are called wards, inside the lock.

The bolts all held in place by this wonderful little lizard.

It is actually more beautiful, it is

as beautiful as technical to most people's eye.

I think it's worth the best part of ?5,000.

I think it's wonderful.

You are a very lucky man. Thank you very much.

Now, here we are in a castle, a great castle, and of course to me

a castle means adventures,

and adventures mean Enid Blyton.

We're looking at, I think, the complete set of the

Famous Five books. I don't think I've ever seen such a thing before.

And of course, we're all plunging back in to...

nostalgia, memory. But first of all, why have you got the set?

You're mother and daughter, aren't you? Yes.

So whose are they? They're mine. OK. Why have you got them?

I have got them because my grandad passed them down to me

when he passed away. So you inherited them?

I inherited them, yeah. What do they mean to you?

They've got a lot of sentimental value to me

because I know how long it took him to collect them

and the methodical way of putting it all together from over the years.

I mean, the difficulty with a set is you've got to get the set.

And that last one might take a lifetime. Once you start, you've got to carry on, yeah.

What was Enid Blyton to him?

He loved reading the books.

Loved Enid Blyton, yeah.

Do you think he'd read them as a child?

Yeah, definitely, yeah.

And so at a certain point he went back as a grown-up,

and thought, I'll start again.

Yeah, for the grandchildren.

Yeah.

Well, she started writing, I think, in 1922, with children's poems,

but this, which is probably her most famous series,

Five On A Treasure Island, comes out in 1942,

and it's interesting it starts in a wartime context,

there are paper shortages.

There's all the difficulties of publishing in wartime,

and yet that is the moment this series is launched,

and then they come out at least once a year

steadily through the '50s and into the 1960s

and she was still writing when she died in 1968.

She was hugely popular.

If I say she did I think over 760 books through her lifetime,

she died at 71,

her first book was published in 1922,

which was called Child Whispers,

and then she suddenly got going,

and apparently she could write 10,000 words a day,

and that's why she produced so many books -

she was a writing factory,

and I think she was a phenomenon.

The problem was that although she was read universally,

come the '60s and '70s,

the sort of spectre of political correctness hung over her,

and certain libraries stopped giving her books out,

shops refused to sell them cos they were perceived to be unsuitable,

for all sorts of reasons.

Now, it's all changed,

and people can see that she's actually a great writer,

in her field.

Have you ever read them? No, I haven't.

So you own the complete set.

I own the set, and I leave it there untouched, as my grandad left it,

just so it's... So it's a memory of him.

Nice and secure, yeah.

Ten years ago, these were unsaleable.

I mean, I know he bought them and paid something for them,

but in principle in book collecting terms they were a dead subject.

Now, people have put aside all those prejudices

about her being elitist and so on,

and they've realised here is something worth collecting.

The covers are dynamic,

they have a wonderful period charm.

Everybody has memories, like I do.

And so the early ones, and here we have the first five,

now fetch reasonable sums of money, dependent on condition.

So, what are we looking at?

Well, Five On A Treasure Island, the first,

now goes regularly for ?1,000 in good condition,

and this isn't bad.

Two and three fetch similar sums,

and then of course as we get on down the line,

the value drops rapidly

cos it's all about the print run.

This was the first in the series,

small print run.

By the time you get to the end,

they're printing thousands and thousands,

and therefore rarity isn't an issue.

Someone would buy it as a set, so you're looking at about...

?5,000. OK.

And one day, do read them! Yes.

You'll have a good time.

Thank you. I will. Thank you. Thank you.

For this sort of timepiece, this is a most unusual shape.

Yes. Do you know what sort of clock it is?

I really have no idea.

Apart from the fact it came from my father-in-law's third wife,

I know nothing about it. OK.

Well, it is what we refer to as a sedan clock,

or a sedan timepiece. Goodness.

Normally, they are circular, sometimes square,

but this lancet-shaped case is really very unusual.

Typically, the frame, about 1820, always done in the same way.

With this sort of thing,

you've got the brass strap work all round the outside,

this is a sort of lacquered finish here,

you've got the gilt metal mounts,

and then the carcass itself is just a solid slab of oak. Yes.

The important thing about these is that

sometimes they used movements of the period. Yes.

Often rectangular plated movements from the 1820s,

specially made for these things. OK.

But very often, they used earlier, surplus watch movements

to put in here. Ah.

Have you ever looked in the back? Yes, I have.

I've just peered inside.

OK. Well, let me have a peek inside...

And I can tell you that that watch movement is very, very much earlier

than this case.

It's by a chap called Isaac Birdwhistle of London.

I want you to look at, for instance, the balance cock, which is big.

The foot is absolutely massive,

lovely big regulator.

Isaac Birdwhistle was free of the Clockmakers Company

in early 1690s,

and we know that he was still making certainly in 1702,

and probably some few years after that.

We don't know much more. No.

But I'm going to put this movement as being about 1705 in date,

so 120 years before the clock case. Before the case. Mmm.

And you obviously haven't had it running for many years.

Not at all, no.

Would it be worth restoring?

To clean and overhaul the movement, very definitely,

and then it would run.

Remember it's only short duration, it's only going to go for a day.

Actually, 30 hours. You'd have to wind it every day. Every day.

Which would, long term, drive you mad. It certainly would.

And because the case is so unusual,

and because, despite the fact it's grubby... Yes.

..it will be lovely when it's done.

I'm going to quote you an auction price in its current condition

of ?700 to ?1,000. Wow.

Are you happy with that?

You've added a nought to what I thought it was worth.

70 would have been my figure. Brilliant, yes.

Thank you, I shall certainly have it restored.

So, what made you bring a jug with no spout to the Antiques Roadshow?

Well, an aunt found it on top of a dustbin -

it was thrown away 30 years ago.

And we just thought it would be interesting to find out

more about it, really.

So, she took it in? Yes, yes. Looked after it.

You thought, well, should it have gone in the trash? That's right.

That's right.

Well, it's an interesting job because we've got, on the front,

we have a lady with a child being chased by a man with a whip.

We've the mark of Ridgway and Abington on the base,

who are the best makers of this type of ware.

And it's dated, as well, January 1st, 1853,

so what more could we want?

But when we turn it around, there's a different scene,

there's an auction, but it's not of art and antiques.

It's of people, and it's a slave auction.

Have you ever read what this says? I have, actually, yeah.

It's, you know...

"By auction this day..."

"..a prime lot of healthy Negroes."

It's a slave auction, and here is the slave family up for auction.

It's a... It's a very uncomfortable scene, and the bidders...

Something to our modern eyes we can't comprehend.

It's not celebrating slavery,

it's actually saying slavery was a bad thing.

This is actually a scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin,

which was a very famous American anti-slavery novel,

which came out in the 1850s.

In many ways, Uncle Tom's Cabin

sort of started to change the debate about slavery,

and then of course with the Civil War coming in the 1860s,

just afterwards, everything changed, so...

Whilst this is uncomfortable to us,

at the time, people who were supportive of

the anti-slavery movement

would have seen this as a good thing,

a celebration of what was good about anti-slavery,

and not a celebration of slavery itself.

Because of its unusual subject matter,

to the American market especially,

it's still going to have a value. Yes.

So I think your aunt did well to bring it in,

because she found about ?400 on a dustbin. Wow. Wow.

And what they've said is that slavery's broken,

and this is broken, so that's kind of quite nice, isn't it, as well?

It makes me goosebumpy. I'm goosebumpy, as well. So...

But that's a perfect analogy. Yeah. Fantastic, yeah.

There's great interest in the Napoleonic wars at the moment,

because we've had the recent 200th anniversary

of the Battle of Waterloo,

and what a better way of celebrating it on the Roadshow

with this fantastic Waterloo medal?

Yeah. Tell me about it.

My mum was helping my grandfather tidy up his house, pack up.

He was moving off to New Zealand,

and there was a box that he sort of just handed her,

and said, "I'm not sure what's in there,"

but there was a whole muddle of different medals and things,

and that was amongst it.

The letter that pertained to it said that it was gifted to

one of my great-great grandfathers by Anthony Planner.

So this chap Planner, he was awarded,

and we will be able to see, on the edge, his name,

Anthony Planner...

32nd Regiment...

Foot.

Do you know anything about the 32nd? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Right. It's known as the 32nd, the Cornwall Regiment

and that was the regiment into which Ross Poldark was allegedly...

Oh, really? In the stories, yes. Well, we like him.

Yeah! No, I think many, many ladies did.

This was given to everybody who fought at Waterloo,

and we can see on there Wellington's name,

with the figure of Victory there, with her wings,

and turn him over,

and there is the rather stout portrait of the Prince Regent,

who was in charge of the country at the time.

Obviously, it was Wellington's finest hour,

but Wellington himself always said it was a very near-run thing,

and he once said that it was "the most desperate affair I've ever been in in all my life,"

and it was very, very close run,

and I think had it not been for the Prussians turning up when they did,

the face of Europe might have been very, very different.

The Cornwall Regiment stood very stoically in the centre,

against the French attacks, these great French attacks,

they just rolled in, they kept rolling in,

and they stood there very stoically and saw them off,

and really took a lot of the brunt of the fighting,

and when they engaged, they were 647 men.

By the time that they'd finished and Napoleon had been seen off,

there was 131 left, so I think it's a very special medal,

and if you had to go and buy that from a dealer,

I'd guess you'd be paying about ?5,000 for it.

Oh, my! Yeah. So that's a lot of money. Wow.

Goodness gracious.

Of all the things I'm going to see on the Roadshow today,

I think this will be my favourite, because I LOVE hats.

Obviously, so do you. Absolutely.

And this is all of your collection?

No, there are a few more at home.

So how many do you have?

At the last count, about 350...

..but there are a few more, sort of, been added since.

Where do you keep them all? They've got their own room.

LAUGHTER

The hat room? Yes, yeah.

And why hats?

When I was a young kid, it was de rigueur to wear a hat

if you were going to church or some social occasion.

It was just one of those things that you did,

and, as a teenager, it used to be

the thing on the way home from school

to drop into shops and try these hats on.

Well, I have to say when I was a teenager,

it wasn't the thing to try on hats,

and you know we're not a dissimilar age, so... Must be a Midlands thing.

Yeah, a Midlands thing! Gosh, I love this one.

And you're a milliner, is that right? That's right, yes.

These are a variety of vintage hats,

so as well as creating your own hats,

you just decided you were going to start your own collection.

Well, actually, the collection foreshadowed my occupation as a milliner -

I think that's what made me do it.

Now, this caught my eye.

It says here, "The sun or rain hat that inflates and deflates."

Yes. So tell me about this one.

Well, I got that from America. I'd never seen one before,

and... Right. ..they were just so quirky I had to have them.

So when I go on holiday, I always put one in my bag,

in case of rain or heavy sun.

You actually wear it? Yes! LAUGHTER

So you... You blow in here, do you?

Yeah, just remove the green cap,

and blow.

LAUGHTER

Oh, God, there's an art to it that I haven't got, I think.

Hang on a second.

It's going, it's going.

Oh, my goodness.

It's starting to go. Oh, look! Yeah.

Here it go... Oh, this is brilliant!

And have you had anyone assess your collection? No, not yet.

Well, I think Hilary Kay is your woman.

She'll be as thrilled to see this lot as I am.

Thank you. Thank you.

It's a piece of glass made for a job,

and I need you to guess what that job was.

Is it for separating something, milk and cream,

or something like that?

No. No. It's not that.

Anybody else, what's this for?

For pouring mead.

Pouring mead.

It's not for pouring mead.

It's for drinking left-hand or right-hand,

I mean, right-hand, or left-hand. LAUGHTER

And so, your idea?

It's a rinser. Go on, explain that.

It would be used at a dinner party,

so when you'd used your glass, you would put it inside there

to rinse it out for the next time you use it.

So, that's exactly right.

What you had... As a meal progressed, you kept the same glass.

When you changed the wines, you would put your glass into here

with its stem resting in one of the ears.

You'd rotate it in iced water, then flick it out,

and you're now ready to have your second type of wine,

and of course you had the guest from this side would use this side,

and the guest sitting on this side would use that ear,

and that is exactly what it is, a wine-glass rinser.

Brilliant, good for you, Mrs.

Very good. Well done you!

I would like to think that there's going to be a time

when, once again,

we don't consider ourselves dressed until we wear a hat.

And there are enough to choose from here.

My grandmother was a milliner, and I've grown up with the habit of...

They weren't worn for special occasions, they were just worn. Yes.

And I think that's somehow what this collection represents to me,

is the fact... Almost the normality of hats.

It was not a special occasion,

it was the final piece of your dressing. Yes.

You would choose your hat, and off you'd go.

Now, the hat you're wearing is very striking. Who is it made by?

It's a Howard Hodge, who was an American designer.

Now, we've got a number of Hodge hats here.

This has got its original box and its swing tag and so on. Yes.

Is this Howard Hodge in... This is him, yes.

Now, he was working in America,

and I think a number of these are American hats, aren't they? Yeah.

The style is fabulous! It is, yes.

I mean, that's made out of reeds. Yes.

It's a fabulous hat. Thank you.

I mean, I've got lots of favourites here,

but which would you say is, in your opinion, the rarest?

For rarity, it would have to be

the little black Charlie Chan lookalike there, with the studs.

Not the most exciting, is it?

No, but if you look at the label,

it's Warner Brothers,

and Warner Brothers themselves used to have foyer sales.

So they would have costume,

they would also have hats that appeared in the movies,

and that is a copy of the movie hat.

That is just fabulous, and to have that fully labelled, too.

Although hats themselves weren't rationed,

of course, the materials that they were made out of were. Yes.

And I love this, which is a little wartime hat, isn't it? It is.

Made out of strips which are poppered onto the base,

and it means then that you could... you could have a yellow one. Yes.

Of strands, of felt, to go with a yellow outfit.

This was a hat that was infinitely usable,

and very cheap, and using perhaps little bits of off-cuts,

which weren't rationed. Brilliant!

The...

issue, I suppose, is...

..are they being sought after today?

Because they certainly were then.

I mean, I know the most expensive hat that ever came up for auction.

The estimate was $150 to $200,000 American dollars.

Yes. Now, I guess you're not paying quite that much for yours.

Not really, no. So what are your ranges?

I'd pay anything up to about ?5-?600,

and then hopefully they appreciate in value afterwards.

I'm absolutely certain with the good eye that you've got,

which comes from the insight of being a maker yourself.

Overall value, I mean, looking at what you've got here,

it has to be between 15 and 20,000.

LAUGHTER

And, look, all the audience are going to go back

and look for their grandmother's hats!

LAUGHTER

It's a fabulous collection here,

and thank you so much for letting us enjoy them with you.

Thank you. Thank you.

If Dirty Harry was around in the 1800s,

that would be the sort of pistol he has.

It's fantastic quality.

It's yours, you lucky fellow. It certainly is, yeah.

This is a reasonably recent purchase?

About three years.

I can see lots and lots of reasons why you would purchase it.

What appealed to you specifically?

Well, flintlocks appeal to me, period,

and I like the barrel, and all the silver mount -

it just shouted quality.

I think that's an excellent reason.

You're absolutely right, it just shouts quality.

It's late, with a flintlock.

Waterproof pan, stops the powder getting wet,

because if powder gets wet, it don't go bang.

The Damascus is fantastic,

it's really bold,

it's got a wonderful colour,

German nickel silver,

half-cocked safety,

spur trigger,

and of course you've got the bore size.

Ten bore. Right.

That's the size of the regulation musket,

which is a big thing.

It weighs a lot.

This is a little thing you fire one-handed.

That's got to be the last word in man-stopper. Yeah.

I put it right at the end of the flintlock, so 1810, 1820.

It's made by Richardson of Manchester.

I wonder if it might even be London quality,

and then badged.

That's the only issue,

it's from Lancashire, I'm from Yorkshire, so...

LAUGHTER

I'm surprised you could bring yourself to touch it.

It's just a superb pistol.

We have to address value,

cos you said you bought it about... Three years, max.

Can you tell us what you did,

without embarrassing yourself in front of the family?

No, me wife knows. I paid ?1,500 for it.

?1,500, about...

Three year ago. ..three years ago.

With the quality of that,

if you had to go and buy it now,

I think you'd have to pay twice as much. Right.

I think that's ?3,000 worth of pistol. Good news.

It is just...fantastic.

Pleased I bought it. I'll bet you are!

Thank you so much for bringing this in. Pleasure.

It's one of the most stylish things we've seen all day.

From a distance, it looks like a bit of an abstract pattern,

but when you get closer,

intertwined, lying, reclining, on a hillside, or a beach,

and it's painted in very, very fine watercolour,

with this real injection of red which outlines the male figures.

The artist has signed, right in the middle, Sidney Hunt, 1925.

Now, 1925, that's such an amazing period after the First World War,

right in the middle of the roaring '20s.

Can you tell us how you got it?

I got it from the flea market in Chesterfield,

about three years ago. You got it from a flea market?!

Yeah, a flea market, yeah, I was surprised. How did you spot it?

Well, I saw it and, erm...

I looked for his name, Sidney Hunt, on it.

I didn't know of him,

so I did quite a bit of research before I bought it,

and it's very difficult to locate him anywhere.

He's a really rare artist... Yeah.

..which is why it's so exciting to see.

And how much did you pay for it in the flea market? ?250.

One of the reasons why I've come across his name

is I've never seen that many images of his work before,

but in the '20s, probably the most avant-garde society

that there was to join

was something called the Seven and Five Society. That's right.

And the most famous artists like Ben Nicholson,

Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth,

they were all key members of the time,

and if you look at the list of members,

Sidney Hunt was one of them.

What was it that drew you to the image?

Well, I like Art Deco. Ornaments and so on,

anything to do with Art Deco,

and I thought it very Art Deco, the painting.

I think you're spot on by saying it has an Art Deco feel about it,

it's because it is SO stylish.

What's so clever about Sidney Hunt in this picture

is that he's only used a very fine outline

which he's managed to portray...

This figure here, I think, is just fantastic,

where you can tell that this is the leg coming over,

this is the foot,

and he's actually in quite a contorted position. He is, yes.

And I mean if I tried to draw that it would look a complete mess,

but Sidney Hunt's managed to do it just with a very fine line.

I don't know whether you know that much about Hunt's life.

I've looked into the history of him,

and he was born in 1896,

and unfortunately he was killed in the Blitz in 1940,

and I think a lot of his work perished with him,

and you can still get some of his work,

but it's few and far between now.

He's a very rare artist.

Someone who doesn't appear that often,

and for me the exciting thing about it is it's the kind of thing that,

if you were put it up at auction at, say, something like ?6-?800,

you'd really expect people to fight for it,

and it might make somewhere in the region of ?1-?2,000

on a really good day. Oh, right. That's lovely.

Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you very much.

Of all the things in your house

that you could have brought to the Antiques Roadshow,

what on earth made you bring this?

I've no idea.

Just really, I think, to find out what it was.

Has it been in your house long?

30 years.

Grief! You've had it for 30 years?

Mm-hm. And did you buy it in a boot fair, or did you inherit it?

I found it in the garden.

What do you mean, you found it in the garden?

I was weeding, and I just found it in the garden.

What, buried in the garden? Yes.

That's extraordinary.

This is as far away from this spot on Earth as anything could be.

It's from the other side of the hemisphere,

in New Zealand.

Do you know what this is? No, I don't.

It's called a heitiki, or tiki, as it's commonly known as,

and it's a pendant worn usually at the throat,

often on its side like that, usually at its side,

with a thong through there,

or drilled through the head as this one is and worn straight down.

Right. And it represents either an ancestor,

or the goddess of childbirth.

Is that supposed to be a baby, then, this?

Tiki just means "carved human figure". Right.

And some people think it represents the first man,

in Maori mythology.

Really?

And it's made of jade, nephrite, a very, very hard material,

that's very prized in New Zealand

and certainly was when this was made.

Prized because of its colour,

and this is a beautiful colour, it's often darker,

and its hardness. It was incredibly hard to work.

It took for ever to make something like this,

and only noble classes,

higher classes, wore these,

and this one is really old.

I'm going to stick my neck out - I say it's 17th century. Really?

It's just extraordinary. So, what was it... Was it just buried?

It was in a cloth bag. Ah, I see.

And I had a look, "Well, what's in here?"

And that fell out and that's as much as I can tell you, and then...

I just can't believe it. Believe it.

And how old's the house you live in?

It was built in 1676, as far as I can tell. Oh, my God.

So that fits in with what I'm saying.

Well, this takes generations to wear.

They were often buried with guardians,

later dug up,

and kept somewhere special,

and brought out in times of mourning,

or when maybe a woman was having trouble conceiving,

and the husband's family would give it to the woman

to wear as a fertility thing,

and they're very, very collectable.

If this was in really good condition...

A piece like this would make at least ?12 to ?15,000. No!

Blimey, I can't believe that.

I just thought it were a piece of green rock.

And just this little break in the leg there

actually doesn't make that much difference,

so I'm still going to say that's worth between 12 and ?15,000. Oh!

I can't believe that, Emma.

Because it's irrelevant, it's the bottom part.

It is fantastic, the wear is beyond belief.

I've always wanted to find one of these.

I never, ever have.

I've got one that's probably about 1900, 1910,

that is really nice,

but it's not a patch on this!

Really? It really has.

I just can't believe it.

I know a few people I could show this to and they'd be blown away.

I gave this to Emma 20 years ago.

You're a lucky girl. Didn't I?

Do you want it back, then? No, you can have it. No, no, I don't.

You lovely woman. Thank you. Thanks very much.

Amazing to think it was dug up in the back garden.

What a find!

Do you remember this glorious collection of hats

that we saw earlier on? I absolutely love them,

but there was that inflatable rain hat

that I was trying and failing to blow up.

Well, since you last saw me...

Thank you very much.

..I have succeeded.

Here it is, and I think...

this could be an essential for every member of the Antiques Roadshow

because you never know what the weather will do.

So, from Bolsover Castle, and the Antiques Roadshow team,

until next time, in the hope of good weather...

..bye-bye!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE