Tewkesbury Abbey 2 Antiques Roadshow

Today, the Antiques Roadshow makes a return visit to a location

that's been witness to a battle on more than one occasion,

a bloody conflict and a war of words.

Welcome to Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire.

On 4th May 1471, the Abbot was celebrating Mass here as usual.

Inside, all was calm, but outside,

the Battle of Tewkesbury was raging -

one of the most decisive of the Wars of the Roses.

And then suddenly, without warning, the doors of the abbey burst open

and Lancastrian troops rushed in seeking sanctuary.

Hot on their heels, the Yorkist victors and Edward IV,

baying for their blood.

The Abbot was all that stood between them.

With masterful diplomacy,

he managed to restore calm and avoid bloodshed within the abbey.

But it was only a temporary reprieve for the Lancastrian soldiers.

They were executed a couple of days later.

Here in the sacristy, where the abbey would have stored

its treasures, is a memento from the Battle of Tewkesbury

that our military experts would love to get their hands on.

And here it is.

These strips here on the back of the door are strips of metal

believed to be from the horses' armour during the battle.

And it's all covered in little holes.

Look, there are a couple here, which are most likely arrow holes

caused by the arrow piercing the horses' armour.

It's a wonderful old door, isn't it?

A case of medieval recycling, if you like.

And security was clearly a concern in those days.

The monks even had a spy hole built,

so they could look in on the room and make sure that no-one

was coming in and stealing the church silver.

Not all the abbey's treasures were so easily protected, though.

Until the mid-19th century,

the abbey still retained its precious medieval features.

All it took was a Victorian architect to literally wipe away

centuries of history.

In 1874, Sir Gilbert Scott, the English Gothic revival architect,

took charge of a plan to supposedly restore Tewkesbury Abbey

to what he thought it ought to look like.

There were some positive changes,

but they were overshadowed by some real howlers.

For instance, the Norman pillars were scrubbed clean

to remove images from the Bible.

It was thought that they were unsightly and a later addition.

In fact, they were original artworks dating from the 13th century.

The restoration provoked a high-profile war of words.

William Morris, the textile designer and social activist,

was outraged and publicly rubbished the project.

He went on to found the Society For The Protection Of Ancient Buildings

as a result of what he saw as the desecration of historic sites.

Fortunately for us,

the abbey is still a beautiful place to visit today.

Rather ironically there's a William Morris textile

kept here at the abbey,

though no-one knows where it came from.

Maybe our experts can shed some light on it.

Let's join them and our visitors for today's Antiques Roadshow,

outside in the abbey's Pageant Meadow.

So, we're dealing here with an art mystery,

a picture that is just referred to

in your family as "The Impressionist".

Yes.

How did it come into your family?

Well, I don't know, maybe my father bought it.

He collected paintings.

I've had it hanging up in my bedroom and it doesn't look very interesting

there at all. It's the first time I've ever seen it

with the sun shining straight on it, and it looks so beautiful.

Isn't that astonishing?

And it's the sunlight upon snow,

because this is a snow scene, I think.

So it seems to be a French village or the outskirts of the village.

Date-wise it seems to be early 20th century.

OK, you're getting close, because you called it The Impressionist,

and Impressionism is what this is really all about.

And when it was introduced in 1870 as a style,

as an approach to art,

it was revolutionary.

It was the artistic equivalent of splitting the atom.

Suddenly people looked at form, looked at shape, colour, nature,

approached subject matter in a completely different way.

The thing that one can really enjoy are these conspicuous brushstrokes,

and as your eye burrows into the bottom right-hand corner,

you can see these curly strokes.

The strokes themselves become an animated part

of the overall composition.

It's as if, it's as if they border on sculpture,

and this is something that Monet was so good at.

He reinvented the brushstroke, and this artist, whoever he may be,

has clearly looked at Monet.

Now, I know that it's signed bottom right

and you've tried to work out what it says.

Artists don't often make it easy for you to read the signature,

but this one is a little bit more readable than one might imagine.

The artist is Gustave Loiseau.

-Oh, right.

-Now, who was he?

-Yes.

-Well, he was an Impressionist,

but if you were to rank Impressionism

you would put the top figures,

people like Monet, people like Pissarro,

all of whose influence can be seen beaming down on this,

just as the sun is now.

The artist is clearly aware, he's in thrall of it all,

but he's not quite learnt to have the same vision and clarity

as those artists. But nonetheless, he's learnt the language.

This is what we're dealing with,

an artist who is a second-rate Impressionist.

Oh!

What a shame!

But this is what we're dealing with,

a second-rank Impressionist.

LAUGHTER

We know, for example, this artist was born in the late 19th century.

We know that he got a legacy from his grandmother,

and as a result of that he was able to leave his job as a decorator

and become an Impressionist.

-Oh, he was a decorator?

-He was a decorator to start with.

-How fascinating.

-And perhaps one can see a bit of that, do you think?

A bit of dragging and rolling?

-Yes!

-LAUGHTER

And perhaps he thought that house there

was in need of a lick of paint.

Well, why not? Let's just say that if it were by Monet, Pissarro,

you could add a few noughts here.

Yes.

But even though it's not,

it's still worth between about £10,000-£15,000.

Oh, goodness!

Well, that's very good news, thank you.

These mountains were used by the literati,

the scholars in China...

Right, OK.

..as objects of contemplation.

Oh, OK.

So they would have that on their table

and they would get inspiration from it,

and they were often in the form of mountains like this,

a mountain range.

You would have pines, symbolic of long life, or resistance to winter.

-Right, OK.

-You'd normally have a couple of figures on a bridge,

or scattered about in here.

Do you have any history with this?

All I know, really,

was that my parents bought it when they were out in Singapore,

late '50s, early '60s.

-OK.

-My mum, she came out of London,

she was brought up by Sally's Army

and effectively escaped after the war.

-Gosh.

-Met my dad out in Singapore,

and they were as poor as church mice.

I mean, they wouldn't have spent any money on this.

This was the piece that she loved and...

-More than any of the others?

-More than any of the others, yeah,

and they collected bits and bobs.

Do you know what she liked about it?

She loved the detail. And, in fact, that's exactly what I love about it.

I can look at this and look continuously

and find another little scene and think, "It's so pretty."

I can't get my head around how they can create a scene

as detailed as this,

and so refined as this,

where you're just using some little tools and eyesight.

-It is Chinese.

-Right, OK.

The date is actually fairly difficult.

It could have been as late as when your mother bought it,

-but I don't think it is.

-Right, OK.

I think it's further back into the 20th century,

or even the late 19th century, probably about 1880, 1910,

somewhere round there,

and it would have come onto the secondary market when she bought it.

-Right.

-Do you know what it's made of?

No idea, and this is one of the reasons we came today.

OK, what it looks like is jade.

Right, OK. Now, Mum used to call it The Jade...

-Right.

-..but I felt it was too soft for that.

-And it is in fact soapstone, not jade.

-Yeah.

The colour of the stone can vary enormously,

-and this one is very jade-like.

-Mm.

I've never seen a better soapstone mountain.

-Really?

-No, no.

-Oh, it's lovely to hear.

It's a fantastic object.

It could do with a bit of cleaning.

-Fair enough. Yes, it does...

-Who's in charge of that?

Erm, me!

DAVID LAUGHS

-I think it's a lovely thing.

-Thank you.

The Chinese, at the moment, are buying...

I think one would probably put £1,500-£2,000.

Fantastic, yeah, lovely.

I mean, it's a treat to hear that.

For me, it just gives me a massive amount of pleasure.

And it's quite nice to hear that it was designed for contemplation,

because I look at it and I think it's just beautiful,

as my mum did as well.

-Thank you very much for bringing it in.

-No, thank you.

On the back of this piece we've got a plaque that's inscribed

that it was given to Princess Beatrice on her wedding day in 1885,

given by the town of West Cowes.

When we look at the front, this is possibly the best, largest,

loveliest silver mirror I've ever seen on the Roadshow.

Where on earth did you get it from?

I actually purchased it from an auction

between five and six years ago.

I went to buy an item of militaria

and saw this mirror in there and it just caught my eye

and I thought, "I've got to get it."

And actually, in the auction sale,

it never sold and I purchased it after the auction.

-It didn't sell?

-It didn't sell, no.

-What did you pay for it?

-I paid 3,000.

Right, OK. Well, let's look at the mirror in general.

We've got the Royal Arms at the top.

We've got the English Royal Crown here,

we've got the Crown here for Henry Battenberg,

who was her husband when they got married in 1885.

She was 28 years old when she got married.

And for years she had a number of suitors,

but Queen Victoria refused to let her get married.

Eventually she relented and allowed

Battenberg to marry her daughter,

and Beatrice was her youngest daughter,

on one condition -

that they stayed with Queen Victoria

for the rest of Victoria's life.

So, if we look at the hallmarks at the bottom,

it's got a date letter for 1885.

That's the very unusual makers of

Judah Rosenthal and Samuel Jacob.

Now, I don't think I've had a piece by those makers ever before.

So I'm sure this, well, it had to be a special commission.

And going back to certainly the 17th century,

it was tradition for the bride to be given a dressing table service

on her wedding day.

And part of that dressing table service would have been a mirror.

-Right.

-So this would have stood on Beatrice's dressing table,

but the thing that I love about this is,

can you imagine the faces that have looked into this?

-Yes.

-Queen Victoria herself probably looked in this very mirror.

And can you imagine all the lovely silk and satin gowns

-that faced this mirror?

-Beautiful.

I mean, it conjures up wonderful imagery.

But we need to now go back to what you paid for it.

I'm confident this now...

..if it came up at auction, would make £8,000-£10,000.

Wow.

Crikey! I never expected that.

Should I call them boring or not?

Really, they're just graduation photographs, aren't they?

-They are graduation photos.

-And, you know...

Actually, you've got an American twang,

so did you bring these from the States with you?

No, no. I bought them at a car-boot sale, of all places, in Cheltenham.

And what drew you to them?

Well, I saw these two old photos just sitting there.

-Yes.

-I thought about it for a minute,

so I took a closer look and they were signed by Dorothy Alexander.

They are indeed signed by Dorothy Alexander,

and I suspect that obviously meant something to you, didn't it?

Absolutely, because I studied her in high school in my art class,

-as a matter of fact.

-That is amazing,

because she is in fact an incredibly famous photographer, isn't she?

-Yes, she is.

-And so what you have here, essentially,

are two very early examples of her portraiture.

And, I mean, to be honest with you, she's often referred to

as the doyen of the British photography scene.

I mean, she's quite old now, but she was a very, very interesting lady.

Her surname is Bohm, and I believe she was born in Prussia,

and she was Jewish, basically, and she escaped from Prussia

and came over to the UK and became a post-war photographer, didn't she?

-So, how much did you pay for them?

-Honestly?

-Yeah.

£1 apiece.

-The frames are worth more than that, aren't they?!

-Probably so.

Now, listen, I don't think they're worth absolute fortunes,

but I think historically they're interesting,

because they show kind of a very early evolution of a very,

very good photographer.

I think they're probably worth maybe £100 for the pair of them,

but I think there's a lot of history in these and I think you did

extremely well to spot them, well done.

-All right, then, thank you.

-No, my pleasure.

I got it from a charity shop.

There were four of them that the man was putting up.

-A charity shop?

-Yeah.

And I was working out how much I could afford to pay,

cos I thought they were going to be more than I could afford to pay.

-And?

-And so I said, "How much are they?"

and the woman said, "20 quid?"

Now, when I see pictures by this artist, Henry Rushbury,

they're usually signed etchings.

-Oh.

-And here we've got an original watercolour.

Well, I'm going to tell you that, because of the occasion,

and it's the Coronation, and these are the original drawings, well,

the original watercolours, they're historical,

and I think they're worth £4,000-£6,000.

Each or together?

-No, together.

-Together.

-Don't be greedy!

SHE LAUGHS

We're looking at a fabulous William Morris textile,

a pair of textile hangings.

And I think I'm right in saying, Philippa,

that William Morris had a relationship with Tewkesbury Abbey.

Now, you are the Executive Officer of Tewkesbury Abbey,

so if anybody knows you should know, so please tell me.

William Morris didn't like the plans that were put forward

by Gilbert Scott for the restoration of the abbey.

We think it's therefore unlikely that he actually was commissioned

to make these or gave these to the abbey,

but they've been here for quite a long time.

We have a photograph that shows them in situ

some time between 1893 and 1899.

Now, saying that, this presumably is that image.

-Yes, that's it.

-So it's behind the high altar.

Behind the high altar.

And these are the hangings either side of the crucifix, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

So, let's talk a little bit about this design.

I mean, the bird pattern started in 1877.

He liked it so much, William Morris,

that he actually used it to decorate his country house, Kelmscott Manor.

One has to think that in that period in 1877,

he was running Morris & Co, which was a commercial interior designers.

So this was one of his popular designs.

He took a lot of time perfecting indigo,

and there are wonderful reports of him walking around the works

with his arms died indigo from the top of his arm all the way down

to the tips of his fingers, trying to get the exact, correct colour.

Now, the passion for Morris designs goes on unabated.

I mean, the company itself, Morris & Company, survived him -

they went on until the 1940s.

And I think you're absolutely right -

bearing in mind there was no love lost between Tewkesbury Abbey

and Morris, he would neither have donated these,

nor would they have gone out of their way to buy them,

so it must have been a benefactor...

-I think so, yes, yes.

-..at some point.

With this type of textile in this type of condition

and this size,

I would have no hesitation in putting an auction value of between

£10,000-£15,000 on the pair.

Wow.

Thank you! That's great.

Everybody will be very pleased to hear that.

We've got a sketch here that looks really very interesting,

and I can see these two chaps

listening very intensely to the wireless.

They're from the RAF, because they've got little badges

-on their shoulders.

-Yeah.

-More than that I can't say,

other than the fact that there's some rather unpleasant blue pencil

has been...

And we've got written on there, "Not passed, adjutant general."

-Yes.

-Tell us about it.

Well, I got this from my uncle who passed away a number of years ago.

He was a radio operator in the war. Wanted to be a pilot,

his eyesight wasn't good enough, so he became a radio operator.

He never said a great deal about what he did,

he said during the war he did an awful lot of listening

all over Europe. When I was clearing out, I found this sketch.

There's an inscription on the back - it was done by a guy called Grimes,

who worked for the London Evening Star,

and he was sent over to France to document

what the listeners were listening in at in the '40s,

under the instruction that he shouldn't take any photographs

or do any sketches.

Obviously he did a sketch, and as you can see by the front of it,

there's a big blue cross on there, "Not passed", so it was confiscated.

Now, how my uncle got hold of it, I don't know.

I'm somewhat puzzled as to why a sketch of two chaps sitting,

listening carefully at their radios...

There's a civvy one there as well, probably for a bit of light music.

-They properly had the Light Programme on.

-Yes, probably.

If a German intelligence officer saw that, you'd think,

"Well, there are two RAF chaps listening to the radio,

"more than that I can't say," so I wonder why they were so secretive.

I don't know. I mean, back in...

I think early... 1940 this was done,

in Metz in France.

It says with the transcript I got they actually hid these guys

in fake hay bunkers, lofts.

-Oh, yes.

-All over the place, like.

-What do you think it's worth?

-I really have no idea,

because I've never seen anything like it.

I think because it's so, so evocative,

and obviously unique and has that sort of back story with it

that builds up the human bits of it

and shows the importance of counterintelligence

and gathering information,

I think if that was in an auction catalogue, you'd be paying...

..at least £250 for it, and probably more,

if you've got two or three people who wanted to fight you over it.

-Yeah.

-It's a good thing.

I think it's just great that you've saved it.

Very happy.

Well, on a day like today,

there's nothing better than an absolute injection of colour

with one of my favourite factories, Poole Pottery.

But also, not only do we have these fantastic pots,

to my left we've got a wonderful painting featuring one of these

very same pots. So, what's the connection here?

-My mother worked for Poole Pottery as a paintress.

-Oh!

She painted from 1926 to 1936.

She had been to art school and at the age of 14 she left art school

and took her first job, which was at Poole Pottery.

What we have here are three of her pots

and one painted by a colleague of hers.

So, what was your mum's artist's name

-when she was a painter at Poole?

-Doris Marshall.

Doris Marshall, I know it, yes, of course!

But here we've got a painting signed D Atkins,

-but this is your mum's work, then?

-Yes, that is my mother's work,

and Doris Atkins was her married name.

My earliest days I can remember the picture,

and I can remember the pot here, and this one,

which is probably the best of the very many pieces I have of hers.

Within the family we have a significant number of other pieces.

My daughter and my son and my brother all have pieces.

Well, the nice thing about Poole is the fact that

they are all very easily identifiable.

If we look to the base of this, you've now answered for me

and I know that that is your mum's paintress cipher, then.

That's her little moniker on the bottom of every piece.

And actually, this one has, of course, a different series of marks.

You mentioned painted by a colleague,

well, that mark is by a lady called Norah Preston...

-OK.

-..who worked for the factory from 1934-1941,

so there's a very brief overlap.

-There was.

-This piece will have been made,

and I can tell from the mark that's impressed here, this piece,

because of the combination of marks, paintress pattern, is a 1934 piece.

It may have been something your mum loved, wanted to buy herself,

was given as a gift, maybe a late leaving present.

-Could've been.

-But she loved enough to feature it in a painting,

and obviously a career in art and decorating and painting

that ran on long after she laid down her painting brushes

at the ceramics firm.

So, we must look at values,

and can I really put a value on your mum's work?

Well, please, please try.

These are very much sort of nice entry-level pieces,

and today the market will pay you per piece

between £80 and £120, £150 for these.

This piece is a bit more of a show stopper.

It's a bigger piece, it's a slightly more piece that

a shop would have had as a centre display,

to show off the work that the factory were producing.

It's a great pattern, good artist, good date, good period.

It's got all those nice box-tickers that you want.

And as such, a vase at this size is going to be more in the region,

for me, of £400, maybe £500.

But the painting, I just love that.

This, for me, steps away into a different market.

I think if you put that up for auction, a good,

dedicated Poole collector will probably give you in the region of

maybe £500, even £800 for that painting.

But the exciting thing is, by meeting you,

I am just one step away from a lady who painted the work I love.

-Good.

-Thank You. Thank you.

This is a very distinctive image for me, and it can only be by one man,

Andy Warhol, and it's Chairman Mao.

Andy Warhol of course being the major pop artist in the '60s

in New York, and, you know, he was the top of his tree.

I see on it it's 1974,

it's got Andy Warhol and Mao

on the right-hand side.

But at the bottom I see it's signed and inscribed

by Andy Warhol to Caroline.

-Who's Caroline?

-That's me.

-That's you?

-That's me.

So tell me about it. How did you get this?

My sister was au pairing in New York for a family from about '77-'79,

and the name of that woman was Amy Sullivan.

She was the cousin to Stan Lee,

and I think her dad also was involved somewhere

amongst the Marvel Comics empire.

-OK.

-And hence they all hung out, really, they were friends,

and Amy and her friends would go down to The Factory

and hang out with Andy Warhol.

When my sister was coming up to leaving and returning to England

they said, "We're going to see Andy tonight,

"shall we bring you something back?"

And this was one that was signed to me.

There was another one signed to my other sister, Annabel,

and my sister Sue has one, which is the blue and yellow cow.

She did meet him once at one of his exhibitions in New York,

which was an exhibition about fruit, and she had a signed apple from him,

which has since obviously disappeared and gone its own way.

What?!

Well, I think this is all pretty cool.

I think it's fantastic.

But it is in a bit of a state.

-Oh, yes.

-I mean, we've got roll marks here.

Where has this been?

It's been on a wall,

and then it spent about five or six years in a garage,

where it was thrown amongst some other stuff

that my sister didn't want.

Then when she realised it said "to Caroline"

and she'd have to give it back to me, I got it back,

and since then it's been knocking around on the top of a wardrobe,

or down the side of a wardrobe and it's never really, as you can tell,

-been very loved.

-I think it's fantastic.

I mean, when you think about The Factory, Nico,

Velvet Underground, that whole scene...

And I think it's amazing to have got this back from that period.

And as a present for you, it's wonderful.

Taking a walk on the wild side, as Lou Reed sang,

I can take a guess that it's worth £3,000 to £5,000.

Blimey.

# Said, hey, babe take a walk on the wild side

# And the coloured girls go

# Doo, doo-doo, doo-doo Doo, doo-doo

# Doo, doo-doo, doo-doo Doo, doo-doo

# Doo, doo-doo, doo-doo Doo, doo-doo

# Doo, doo-doo, doo-doo Doo, doo-doo

# Doo... #

You've brought along an absolutely cracking Arts and Crafts bowl.

Very good weight, lovely condition.

I suspect you might have an idea who made it.

It was made by Omar Ramsden.

-Quite right.

-And it was given to my grandfather,

who was an accountant in the city and joined...

and volunteered to join the Artists Rifles.

So your grandfather was Captain RF Turnbull...

-Yes.

-..that's inscribed in the centre here?

-Yes, yes.

-OK, let's turn it over and we can have a look at the marks.

We can see that it was made...

..by Ramsden and his original partner, Alwyn Carr.

They were at the Sheffield School Of Art together in the 1890s

and then came to London and set up business.

This is actually dated for 1916,

and it says "Omar Ramsden et Alwyn Carr me fecerunt" -

Omar Ramsden and Alwyn Carr made me.

Typically with Ramsden,

instead of making it on four feet or even three feet,

he's made it on seven feet.

Odd number - normally a bowl would be octagonal -

but Ramsden liked to do things differently.

The interesting thing about this bowl, however,

is the badge in the middle.

And you referred to the Artists Rifles.

The Artists Rifles were founded in 1859

because of the threat of invasion by Napoleon III.

A young chap called Edward Sterling, he was an art student,

went round all his artist friends and said,

"Come on, let's form a volunteer company,"

and it took off and became really popular.

And during the First World War they had a very distinguished record.

Now, the most interesting thing about this is that Alwyn Carr,

one of the makers with Ramsden, signed up for the Artists Rifles.

So he would have been possibly in the same regimen as your great...

-As my grandfather.

-As your grandfather.

So here we have a piece...

Very rarely do you get a connection

between the maker and the recipient like that.

And especially, you know, they were both lucky enough

to survive the First World War.

So, lovely piece of silver.

Inscriptions generally don't do...

..the commercial world of silver any favours.

You're not going to sell this, I'm sure,

because this is a priceless family piece,

but if something like this came up on the market,

I think it would make easily between £2,000 and £3,000.

Well, I mean, it's lovely.

And the quality of the engraving, you know, it's so deep and...

-It's wonderful.

-It's lovely.

-Thank you. Thank you so much.

-Thank you very much.

I saw the boys bringing this in, big, hefty lads.

This is a piece of furniture which carries some weight.

So, where do you keep this?

So, this is kept in the entrance hall to a local hotel pub.

It's been there forever and a day, we think.

The building itself is an amalgamation of historic buildings,

some dating back to 1380,

and we've got Tudor parts as well, Georgian parts.

We don't really know what part it came with

or if it actually is from there originally,

or anything about it, really.

So, how do you use it in the pub, then?

So, this is in the main entrance.

We've usually got menus, condiments stored on the bottom,

table talkers in the drawers, so it's still very much used.

It's just there for everyone to enjoy, really.

-And how do you clean it?

-We don't really know how to look after it,

and that's something we were hoping you could probably tell us.

Is that a very polite way of saying you've never cleaned it?

Yeah. It gets dusted, but other than that,

yeah, not much goes on with the table.

What I suggest, if you look at your end there,

-you've got this wonderful what I call toffee colour.

-Yeah.

That can be enhanced by literally using some wool...

-Yeah.

-..and just, you buff it up.

And the lanolin in the wool

will literally make this whole table sing.

When you stand back and you look at it as a whole

you see these baluster carved legs,

and we see those on what we call a court cupboard...

..or a short cupboard.

So we've got these wonderful Tudor legs.

Then we look at these three long drawers, beautifully carved,

all the original carving.

And they say something to me as well,

that, you know, this is a really good thing.

The wood. Any idea, what do you think the wood may be?

-I've no idea.

-Cos it looks really heavy.

It's very, very heavy.

I've got no idea.

Is it oak? Is it, no?

-It's actually better than oak.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

It's walnut.

-Walnut, oh! There we go.

-Walnut.

I personally think this would have been adorned with silver

and all your foodstuffs.

And so this is like a very important, like,

-serving table.

-Right, yeah.

When it comes to the date,

this is a Tudor-period piece of furniture,

-so it is very, very old.

-Yeah.

And being made of walnut, it makes it even more exciting.

I may have had an e-mail from a general manager today saying

under no circumstances am I to sell the table, so...

Yes, yeah, we thought it may be quite valuable.

-I can see this in a very modern environment.

-Yes.

And it could look so sharp, so sharp.

Well, I think this is a great piece of English furniture.

I love the condition. I would leave it alone.

I'd quite happily, seeing this piece of furniture...

Well, I'd put a value on it between £15,000 and £20,000.

-Wow. There we go!

-It is serious.

-That's serious, isn't it?

-It is so rare.

Going to lock it to the wall now so it doesn't go anywhere!

It's brilliant, it's lovely.

So, here we are in the back of your dad's milk van.

-That's right.

-Tell me about it.

Well, he started the dairy in 1938 with a little Morris Eight van

delivering 30 gallons a day of milk round the Tewkesbury area,

and most of it was delivered with a ladle from a churn

into the customer's jug.

You'd see them twice a day, knock on the door...

And they would come out with a jug to be filled by your dad.

That's right, yes, yeah.

And it's been put to more unusual use, this van,

-hasn't it?

-It has, yes.

In late 1939 he was delivering milk to one of his customers,

a Mrs Belcher, and there was great excitement -

her daughter, Doreen, was getting married that day at the abbey.

And it was pouring with rain.

So he jokingly said, "Would you like me to take you to the abbey?"

Was she going to walk, otherwise?

She was going to walk, yes, of course, and get wet.

And so he quickly finished the milk round,

polished the van, went to pick her up,

and she sat in the front of the van and he took her to the abbey.

And because it was so wet he drove all the way down the abbey drive,

straight into the abbey porch, which is quite large,

and then he accompanied her to meet the bridegroom in the abbey.

-He took her down the aisle?

-He took her down the aisle as well.

Whoa! Was he still in his milkman's uniform?

No, I assume he dressed up!

And then afterwards, of course, he put the bride on the front seat

and the bridegroom sat in the back on a milk crate

to go to the reception.

Oh, brilliant!

And then he got invited to the reception as well.

Well, he had a starring role! I should hope so, too.

But he was a lovely man, my dad.

I've had a brilliant day here today, I've seen some lovely things,

and just when you think it can't get any better,

you bring along this collection.

Now, tell me about it.

When my husband retired he wanted an interest,

and he brought a lot of Maundy money and then built up the set.

OK, and Maundy money...

..is one of the things I collect, along with other coins,

and it's actually one of the things which I love.

Do you know much about the history of Maundy money?

I do know that it was given by the monarch to poor people

-on Maundy Thursday.

-Exactly.

Not to waffle on too much about the history,

but it basically started when Jesus was preaching to the disciples

and he was washing their feet. It was all about giving,

and giving of oneself to another.

And that's where the term Maundy comes from,

it's basically showing love to someone else.

It's derived from that.

I think, basically, in the Middle Ages it was

still up to washing people's feet and at some point someone thought,

"No, I've had enough of washing stinky people's feet.

"I'm going to change it." And that was the monarch,

and it was around Charles II period

when they changed that into giving of coins.

The cases are in pretty good condition.

This doesn't help - when you have a little bit of sticky tape

put on there, it's really not good.

There's a family story behind that.

My daughter, who was five when he died and is now coming up to 17,

she used to go into his office, rip bits of tape off

and stick them all over his office so he would know where she'd been.

And we found that and we thought,

"Well, we can't really take that off

"because she put it on there for him to find."

So you've never tried to remove it?

-Nope!

-I was going to tell you off,

because it looks like someone's tried to stick it down.

But now, never move that.

No, no, it's staying!

That's all right. It's forgiven.

Now, what made him go for Maundy money?

We're not really sure,

but he developed it and it became a real passion of his.

He started with the one set,

and started collecting a second set and was...

Over how many years?

Over about seven or eight years.

That's quite quick to build up a collection like this.

Have you been through...?

Because basically they start in, well, 1676.

I mean, you've got a couple that are earlier,

but they're in the 17th century and that's really at the height

of when they sort of started.

And you go through to the last date of...?

We continued collect... He died in 2005

and we continued collecting for a couple of years after that.

OK, so we've got varying grades and we have got...

I sort of counted out 63 odd coins in that tray.

Some had three or four coins, but there's a lot in there.

And, well, it's really all I can say.

It's just, I've never seen a collection

-of Maundy money like it.

-Wow.

These could be worth sort of £30 to £40 to £50 each.

Which isn't a lot,

but when you think that you've got over 2,000 of them...

..in these two cabinets, that comes out at between

£60,000-£80,000.

AUDIENCE EXCLAIM

-Gosh!

-Yes, thank you very much.

-That's really great, thank you.

-That's really interesting.

Well, these are a really beautiful pair of English art pottery vases,

their glaze just glinting in the sunlight here.

Do you know anything about them?

Well, I know they're

made by Doulton and that's about as much as I know,

about the turn of the century, and they're as large as I've ever seen.

Yes, the size is certainly amazing, isn't it? They're incredibly big.

Yes, they're Doulton and we know that because on the bottom

there's the impressed Doulton mark.

And they were made in Lambeth and they were made about 1900.

-I agree with all that.

-Right.

But what's really lovely is the decoration,

-which is what we call impasto decoration.

-Mm-hmm.

And it's decoration using raised slips to build up

a kind of leaf design which here

is incredibly detailed and beautiful.

I've got so much admiration for that work, I want to know who did it.

And unusually, pointing at the bottom of the vase there,

-is a monogram.

-That's it, yes.

I have looked it up in the book...

You've looked it up? Oh, thank goodness!

Yes, and it says that it's by an artist called Frances Linnell.

-Frances Linnell.

-I don't know anything about her, but...

Well, she was very talented,

and the results of her work were absolutely stunning.

So, can you tell me how you got them?

Yes. About four or five years ago I spotted them

in an online auction catalogue in the general antiques sale

and I put in a bid, or left a bid with them,

and I was very surprised when I got them.

I rang up, actually, to have them delivered and to pay for them,

and I was shocked when the price to send them to me

was more than I'd actually paid for them.

And I nearly put them back in the sale and said,

"Well, it's too expensive to have them,

"put them back through the next sale,"

but luckily a work colleague happened to be in the area

and she very kindly collected them for me,

and so I got them.

But when they arrived they were a good deal more than twice the size

that I had expected,

because I'd actually not looked at the picture very closely

and not read the description very well, either.

And I'd read it as being 18cm and, as you can see,

-they're more like 18 inches.

-No! Extraordinary.

So you haven't told me, I'm itching to know -

how much did they cost?

From memory, I think I paid about £100 or £110

-plus the auction house's costs.

-Right.

And you were quibbling about the cost

of having them shipped to you, as well.

Because that was going to be over another £100, yes.

Oh, so they were going to cost you 250 quid.

That's it, yes, and I very nearly...

Well, I think you're extremely mean, because you were quibbling 250 quid

over a pair of vases worth £1,000.

Heavens!

That's amazing. Great!

Diamonds and pearls, fabulous combination,

beautifully-executed pendant.

How have you come to get hold of it?

I saw it in a jeweller's a few years ago

and it had been in the jeweller's for a good couple of years

and nobody bought it, and I'd fallen in love with it

the first time I saw it.

And eventually I plucked up the courage and went and bought it.

Good for you. So it was obviously meant to be.

-Date-wise, it dates from the 1860s.

-Right.

And we've got natural pearl in the centre surrounded by

diamonds in the mount, which, of course,

has got this fabulously intricate star incorporated into the design,

which is a very typical image of the Victorian period

around the 1860s.

Because of the way that it's put together we can be sure that it was

by a very good maker, although of course it isn't signed

or hallmarked as Victorian jewellery didn't have to be during that time.

What's also fascinating about it,

it's not just a pendant with the hoop that we've got here,

but if we turn it over,

we have a brooch pin which probably would have been fitted later.

And then this disguises two other fittings underneath,

which would have been for a bracelet fitting.

Oh, I did wonder whether it was part of something else.

Yes. And the bracelet, believe it or not,

would have been made of human hair,

more than likely.

Right. I'm glad I didn't have the bracelet!

THEY LAUGH

Well, yes, I'd kind of agree. I think human hair is very personal.

It's about the memory of somebody that you might have lost and loved.

And the ability to be able to combine the two

in the Victorian period was really important.

So, having fallen in love with it, do you wear it?

If I can, I do.

But it's not something you can wear every day.

-Well, I don't know about that!

-I wouldn't wear it to work.

-No!

Oh, but it is extraordinary,

and I think it's absolutely adorable.

Should you ever decide to part with it

because something else comes along

that you've fallen in love with equally, I think auction, obviously,

is always a good way forward and an auction estimate on

a brooch like this would be between £5,000 and £7,000.

AUDIENCE GASPS

Gosh!

I didn't realise it was that...

Right, thank you very much.

Well, I'm happy that you're happy.

-Thank you.

-That's the main thing.

-That's lovely.

-Pleasure. Thank you for bringing it in.

-Thank you.

We have oil paintings on the Roadshow, we have watercolours,

but it's lovely to have an in-between medium, pastel.

Where does she come from?

Well, I found her in an antique dealer's paint shop,

basically, and I had just begun working with some pastels and I had

a book on the French pastellers.

In it, there was a picture of her...

..almost identical and I thought, "Oh, a lady," but with a monkey,

holding a monkey in her arms. It's in the Louvre.

So, this sort of excited me, and I looked up Rosalba Carriera,

who possibly was the artist,

and realised that she was in Paris in 1721

and that she had brought pastels, really,

to introduce to the French artists of the time.

And how much did you pay for her?

About £1,000, I think.

-Yes.

-So, the question is...

..is it by Rosalba Carriera,

the famous pastellist and portrait painter,

as you hope, but have yet to prove?

-Indeed.

-And wouldn't it be wonderful if we could?

Because Rosalba is the most exciting of painters,

or we should perhaps say pastellists,

because she's in the vanguard of female art

in the late 17th and early 18th century.

Born to a lowly family in Venice,

she started with miniatures and then made her way upwards

towards doing pastels, went to France.

She was patronised by all the aristocracy -

even Louis XV himself.

I mean, she was a woman who turned heads, and so did her portraits.

I have to say, I do love the way that her eyes,

lips and nose are done. There's a real sensitivity to them.

Yes, yes.

And it's also worth bearing in mind that

if we're going to try and work out whether this is by Rosalba,

we have to factor in the condition, and pastel is one of those things

-that is enormously fragile.

-Sure, sure.

If you touch the surface, you end up with it on your finger.

-I would say this was slightly faded and I would say that...

-Oh, it is.

Look at the blue round the shoulders.

I mean, that has undoubtedly faded.

Well, you've asked for an opinion

and I'm going to give you an opinion.

So I do think, on reflection,

you DID buy a work by Rosalba Carriera.

Thank you. That is good to know.

And, as to value, well...

You know, it's a...

It's good-looking portrait,

and pretty images, when you can

combine them with a good name,

are the sort of things that people want.

And despite the slight misgivings I've got about certain aspects

of its condition, I would say this is worth £10,000-£15,000.

Really?

Well, that confirms, I think, my hope that it was by Rosalba.

-Thank you.

-For it is her.

Indeed. Thank you very much.

What I noticed, that whoever made this chair,

you look at it and it's, to me, so Heath Robinson.

It's just been kind of cobbled together, putting the sides on,

we can see these lovely big clout nails,

then putting the top on, what we call the hood.

But I'm sure you must have noticed this...

..the chair maker.

Well, we noticed it's inscribed on both sides.

-WC!

-WC, yeah.

LAUGHTER

Of all the initials in the world on a commode, we've got WC!

But I think someone's put that there.

No, the calligraphy on that is what you'd expect

on late 18th century.

It's the way it's been executed.

So, tell me your story about it.

Well, my story is that, when we bought my grandparents' house,

the commode was in the house and it had to be part of the house,

and my auntie said it had to stay within the house.

And... So obviously we bought it.

But I, as a young child, grew up seeing the commode in the corner

in the sitting room and obviously appreciated it

as a part of the house.

It's made of oak and elm.

I just love the colour that, as it's been near a fire,

it's got all the soot and everything from the fire.

So you've got this really, really dark dirt,

for want of a better word, and where people have been touching it,

it's what we call bleeding,

so you can see the natural colour of the wood itself.

And this, this is obviously to help get the little potty out.

That's right.

I would date this around...

..1800s, 1790s, 1800.

But it looks much, much older.

I could quite easily see somebody getting very, very excited

if this ever did come on the market.

I could see a collector being happy to pay

at least £1,500, possibly £2,000 for this.

It's different.

Thank you for bringing it along. That is a pleasure to see.

And, yeah, if you see another one, let us know.

Well, we've moved out of the sun,

under the boughs of this magnificent tree

into the grounds of the abbey.

And you brought me along this...

what I have to say is probably one of the dirtiest toys

that has ever been brought into the Roadshow!

Where has it been living for the last 150 years?

Well, for the last 60 years, it's been living on top of

a bookcase where it was placed by my father

after he finished playing with it.

So it's not been played with for 60 years?

No, it's not been touched for 60 years until this morning,

when I decided to take it down and bring it to this Roadshow because,

when I was about 12, my best friend at the time said,

"If ever the Antiques Roadshow comes to this area,

"you should take it in and let them have a look at it."

-So that was when you were 12.

-Yes.

And you're a bit more than 12 now, so that was some time ago.

-It was, yes.

-And you've kept it aside,

-and still haven't brought it until today.

-Correct.

It was treated with reverence, so we weren't allowed near it.

Neither were my nephews, nieces, or the grandchildren in the family,

so it's sort of been up there.

Well, I'll let you off, because actually,

had you kept pristine and got it down from the top of the cupboard,

-you would've played with it and you would have broken it!

-Mm.

Agreed!

That's what's nice about it. And in fact, the dirt has preserved it.

It will clean up, and I think from a collector's point of view,

that's really important.

So, any other family history at all about it? Or, you know...

Well, I believe it's German, but I'm not sure.

I understand it was probably my great-grandfather's,

or my great-great-grandfather's, but once again I can't be sure.

-Yeah.

-It was passed down from generation to generation

and the last generation to play with it was my father who,

obviously, then stored it.

And the family have always lived in the same house?

We have. We're farmers by trade

and we've been in the same house since 1864.

Fantastic.

Well, great provenance, great history, great original condition.

So, I can confirm it is German.

Well, the bisque head is certainly German,

and I assume the costume is too.

And you'd wind it up and it would go along,

and the little legs would go up and down.

He's got a little bit of lace coming down the front

and he's got metal hands and wooden feet.

The mechanism and the tricycle part of it I think is made in France.

So it's a combination between France and Germany

to produce what is, I think, a wonderful toy.

And the date is sort of 1890,

so I think it's probably your great-grandfather

-rather than your great-great grandfather...

-Yeah.

..if we just go back down the generations.

Well, I think it is nice.

It's eminently restorable and I think it's in the condition

that every collector wants to find.

So if you decide to sell it and to put it into auction,

I think it could easily fetch between, well, £2,000 and £3,000.

-Oh, wow, that's amazing.

-Very nice.

So congratulations for not looking after your toys!

Thank you!

Looking at this dress,

I can sort of picture the scene one misty morning -

a woman walking through the abbey meadows.

It's wonderful. Is it a family heirloom?

-No, no.

-Oh.

LAUGHTER

So, what is it?

Well, it was given to me by a friend in the 1960s,

and she just gave it to me because I'd just had a daughter

and I think she thought she might be interested

later on to dress up in it.

And did your daughter dress up in it?

No, no, it's never been touched.

-I've never seen it out.

-You've never seen it out?

-No.

-This is the first time you've actually seen it?

Yes, seen it on show, yeah.

-How do you think it looks?

-Very nice. Beautiful.

How have you kept it? In a box, or...?

Just in a box, or in a drawer, yeah.

Well, let's talk about what it is.

It is what's known as a robe a la francaise,

or a sack-back robe.

People might say,

"Oh, obviously it's incomplete. It's got an open front."

Well, it was an open robe, and you would wear a very beautiful...

We call them a petticoat, but it was an underskirt, really, under it.

And of course you would have had wide hoops under all that...

That's what I thought, yeah.

..to give you that wonderful silhouette.

Yeah.

And if you can imagine wearing this,

and in the candlelight of the 1760s or the 1770s,

which is when it dates from,

how that would have glistened and sparkled,

and you would have seen shadows down the side of the dress.

It would have been quite extraordinary.

Yes, it would have been wonderful, I should think.

The material that it's made from is really quite exquisite.

Because it's painted silk.

Oh.

It's not embroidered. There is embroidery on it,

-but it's painted silk.

-Oh!

And so, this fabulous painted silk would have been imported to Europe

to be made up into this dress here in England.

The decorations on it are also rather wonderful.

You've got at the front here these little...

They're little sort of dangling tassels of chenille work.

-Yes.

-And then down each side

you've got raised pockets, almost,

which have got a little piece of wool inside.

-It looks almost like a piece of cotton wool.

-It does, yeah.

But it's real wool inside this panel here,

to give it a three-dimensional view.

-Extraordinary, isn't it?

-It is, very.

What I'd like to do, if the breeze will allow us,

I'm just going to turn it round, if I may.

Can you give me a hand?

Gently, because it is...

And we can see...

..the back here, which gives it its other name,

which is a sack-back robe.

And you've got pleats running from the shoulder blades,

box pleats running all the way down to the bottom,

which gives it a sort of train effect.

-That's right, yes.

-So, when you wore this,

you were making really quite a statement, as you can imagine.

I think so, yeah. It's beautiful.

I'm going to turn it back now, if I may,

and we can enjoy the front.

What I also like very much are these scalloped edges.

We've got scalloped edges, particularly on the sleeves here.

When one looks at a dress like this,

one has to appreciate that this is an extraordinary survivor.

Painted fabrics are notoriously difficult to keep,

and the fact that it's been kept in a box for so long would perhaps

explain why it hasn't just fallen to pieces,

which is what so often is the fate.

It is an incredibly rare survivor.

It's beautiful.

It's a lovely design.

And, perhaps more importantly,

a dress like this is of huge demand internationally by collectors

and museums. This has a future way outside

here at Tewkesbury,

and who knows where it will ultimately end up?

But this is for a major museum somewhere in the world.

And what was just a present from a friend...

-Yes!

-..is now going to be worth something around...

..£40,000.

Oh! Oh...

Don't tell my granddaughter that!

Oh, dear, I can't believe that.

What an amazing find.

And to think the dress has just been sitting in a drawer for decades!

We've come to the end of our day here at Tewkesbury Abbey,

but before we go, a visitor has brought along something

that's reminded us of Antiques Roadshows past.

Do you remember in a previous series we featured a musical penknife

worth a staggering £60,000-£80,000?

Well, what about this?

Whopper!

Have you ever seen a penknife quite this large?

It's a piece of memorabilia to advertise penknives,

made of staghorn. Look at this.

And Bill Harriman, our military expert,

absolutely fell in love with it.

He said, just for the sheer size alone, to a collector,

that could be worth £1,500.

From the Antiques Roadshow, and this massive penknife,

until next time, bye-bye.