Arley Hall 2 Antiques Roadshow

Today we're back at Arley Hall and Gardens in Cheshire,

and if you're a garden lover, prepare to be very excited,

because this is one of the oldest country gardens in existence.

And it's believed this double herbaceous border

is one of the oldest in the country.

Look at it - isn't it glorious?

This has been home to the Warburton family since the 15th century,

and it seems that successive generations have viewed the garden

as being at the heart of this home.

With records going back more than 250 years,

it's such an important part of horticultural history

that it is Grade II listed.

The garden is best known for its fabulous herbaceous border.

There's even a plan of it dating back to 1846 -

the earliest plan for a herbaceous border ever found.

This was a breakaway from the more formal gardens,

pioneering the idea of mixing lots of plants and colours together

in one space.

And it must have caught the eye of artist George Elgood,

who painted these watercolours in the 1880s and '90s.

The plants were also much admired by

the acclaimed garden designer Gertrude Jekyll,

who wrote in this book, Some English Gardens,

about one of the paintings done by George Elgood,

and she said, "Throughout the length and breadth of England

"it would be hard to find borders of hardy flowers handsomer,

"or in any way better done than those at Arley in Cheshire.

"It's easy to see in the picture

"how happily mated are formality and freedom."

What a gorgeous backdrop to see what stories will blossom

on this week's Antiques Roadshow.

We don't get many nuns brought into the Roadshow, funnily enough.

No? Probably not.

And here she is, a beautiful porcelain nun.

I bought her a few years ago in Braderie de Lille, in France.

I just loved her when I bought her, so I've had her ever since.

What appeals to me about it is the really crisp modelling,

it's like a piece of sculpture.

A piece of sculpture in porcelain, and it's beautifully painted.

When you look at this little border around the edge of her habit there,

that's actually hand-painted. These tiny little scrolls.

-Oh, right.

-Isn't that gorgeous?

-Yes, yeah.

And the Bible that she's reading, when we look there,

it's difficult to show it, but can you see there?

-I can, I can.

-There's an inscription in the Bible.

-Yeah, Omnia.

Exactly, it says Omnia Vanitas,

which is from the Latin version of the King James Bible.

-Right.

-So she's a nun and she's reading the Bible.

The irritating thing about this nun, the only irritating thing about her,

there's no "Made in France" or factory mark or anything.

-No, no.

-So how on earth would you know what she was?

Well, yeah, I don't.

-I'm hoping you do!

-I do, that's the good news!

I do, because I recognise the kind of porcelain that she's made from.

-Right.

-I recognise the colour of the gilding here,

it's a particular tone of colour, of gilding.

I even recognise this blue that her Bible is bound with.

-Yeah?

-These are all features of one factory,

and that factory is not in France.

-Is it not?

-It's in the East End of London.

-No!

-It's in Bow.

-Really?

-So she's a Cockney nun.

Would you believe it?

Can you believe that?

-She's a Cockney nun.

-Wow.

And even more amazingly, from the way that she's decorated,

she was made, and this is almost unbelievable,

-she was made 1758, 1760.

-No! Oh, my goodness.

-250 years old.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Wow.

-And a really early piece...

-I'm astounded.

..of English porcelain by one of the best makers there is.

-How much did she cost you?

-10 euros.

-10 euros?

So maybe £8.

This nun, made in London at Bow,

cost you 10 euros.

It's worth a minimum of 350 to 400.

-Really?

-450...something like that.

-Wow!

Wow. That's amazing.

These very sombre portraits are the kind of thing you might have seen

in any Victorian parlour, aren't they?

But the eyes rather follow you around the room.

Who are they?

This is my lovely great-grandfather, James Davies Taylor,

and my great-grandmother.

And really unusually, these are paintings over photographs,

-did you know that?

-Yes, I did.

You can sort of tell once you know that they are.

As a result, the eyes have been done in

with this kind of very blue colour

that perhaps wasn't really there. I don't know...

-Your eyes are blue, though.

-My family do have very blue eyes.

That will be, they've brought them out.

But incredibly, you've actually got the original photographs which were

blown up and then painted over to make these.

If you compare them, first of all your very pretty great-grandmother,

you can see it's exactly the same pose, can't you?

All they've done is added a great deal of colour,

and made her look as though she's living and breathing, haven't they?

And the same with him.

All the props have been coloured in, that basket of flowers,

and then he himself has been spruced up no end.

His moustache looks rather splendid.

Tell me, why did they bother to have these rather grand portraits made?

We're not sure why they had them made, but he did die the year after.

We believe he was instrumental in bringing about legislation

to force the pit owners to insulate the wiring systems.

-So this is down the mines?

-Yes.

-And the wires were uninsulated?

Initially they were uninsulated, and people were dying because of it.

I can imagine, actually. I mean, you're down the mine,

you're very sweaty because it's incredibly hot,

you're probably not wearing a shirt and it's pitch dark.

You bump into something and give yourself 240 volts.

No wonder it was dangerous!

It's insane. It's absolutely unbelievable,

and I once asked my grandfather why they didn't insulate,

because I couldn't believe it,

and he said the pit owners said it was too expensive.

Well, there you go - money, money, money.

And so how did he manage to get that done?

Well, he supported a lady who had lost her husband to electrocution,

and he supported her in a legal case,

because although he wasn't a lawyer, he was well-versed in law.

And he provided the funds for her to bring the case.

They won the case. She wasn't compensated,

but as a consequence of that,

they had to insulate the wires, and that was passed throughout England.

-What, nationwide?

-We believe so.

So where did he get the resources and funds

to be able to represent this widow?

We believe the funds came from the Foresters,

which was almost like an early welfare system

prior to the welfare state.

-So everyone would put the dividends in...

-The workers?

The workers would put their dividends in and when they were

in dire need, they were supported from the fund.

From the fund, I see.

And this medal.

Yes.

-What does it mean?

-Well, it says on the back...

-You've got the medal with you.

-Yes, I have got the medal with me.

It says "with thanks for services rendered" on the back.

-And it's from the Foresters?

-It's from the Foresters.

So the community must have absolutely adored him

-for this kind of work.

-They did,

and when he died the whole of Barnsley turned out,

and apparently my grandad said he remembered the streets

being completely blocked with the whole of the community,

who were mourning his loss.

Isn't it extraordinary, the depth of stories that lie behind images

that you might just skip over occasionally?

Yes, and I'm so proud of him,

because he did so much for the community.

So, they're not worth very much,

-and I don't suppose you expected them to be, did you?

-No.

I would have thought, even so,

he seems to me a very important man in the early trade union movement.

Before it all began, almost,

and so that makes it important, in that sense.

I'm going to put £500 on the pair.

And the medal, which has got to have an interest in value,

perhaps the same again.

-So a total of £1,000.

-That does surprise me.

They're very precious, we'd never, ever sell them.

I wouldn't either, if they were mine.

Cockerels. You see them in nearly every continent in the world.

Where do you think this cockerel was made?

Well, I don't know, but I come from The Potteries

and I wondered whether he came from there or from Ironbridge,

somewhere like that, because I think he is bronze

and he is extremely heavy.

So, you're thinking Ironbridge

-and all that cast metal, all the foundries?

-Yes.

Well, certainly from a foundry, but not in Britain.

-In fact, he is absolutely, definitely Austrian.

-Oh!

Cast in a bronze factory in Vienna,

and the most well-known is the Bergman bronze foundry.

-Right.

-So, absolutely, he weighs...

-A tonne.

..a tonne, doesn't he?

The foundry was first started in 1860

by a man called Franz Bergman

and he then handed on the factory to his son,

who was another Franz, around 1900.

And I think that he was made in the early part, then,

of the 20th century. But the problem is, the mouldings,

the castings remained the same.

They were handed down from father to son,

so it's quite difficult to tell exactly when he was made.

He has a slightly indistinct stamp underneath

that has been painted over. It's a two-handled urn with a capital B.

That confirms what I already feel about it. Who did he belong to?

He belonged to my uncle Harry, who was 20 years older than my father.

And so did you know this as a child?

No, I didn't meet him until my uncle Harry had died

and then he came to live with my father and then eventually,

he's died and he's come down to the rest of the family.

He just keeps on moving on, don't you?

The paintwork is in such good order and that is a really nice thing

because a lot of these bronzes get very scratched over the years.

The glass eyes are perfectly intact and he's very colourful, isn't he?

Yes, he's very smart, isn't he?

I've seen a lot of cockerels

and they fetch around £300

-but that's when they are this size.

-Oh, right.

This is...not quite life-size, but he really weighs a tonbe,

-and on a great scale.

-He's a big boy!

And he's worth £3,000.

Ooh, that's nice. That's a surprise.

Oh, well, you were worth lugging around!

Jewellery. It's about love, it's about power,

but it can also be a little bit about scandal.

Who would have thought it with a beautiful bracelet like this?

Tell me about the history.

Yes, well, it's supposed to have been given by the Prince of Wales

to his wife, although at the time,

she wasn't held to be his wife.

It was a secret marriage.

This was when he was trying to persuade her to come back to him.

We're talking George IV here, aren't we?

-He eventually became George IV.

-Yes.

He married, in secret, Mrs Fitzherbert in 1795

and this is when he was trying to persuade her

to come back to him in about 1799.

So how did the bracelet come into your family?

It was passed down through my immediate family

and probably was given to my great-great-great-grandmother.

Of course, it's all around the time of George IV,

who of course was Prince Regent to start with.

He had quite a complicated love life, really, didn't he?

-I think that's the best way of putting it!

-Yes.

Very much in love with Mrs Fitzherbert, the love of his life,

but of course, he had quite a reputation for gambling

and building up debts and it was correct that

the government said they would pay off all his debts

if he married Caroline of Brunswick,

so she comes over and they get married,

but it doesn't quite work out. Well, I think when you're in love

with somebody as much as he obviously was with Mrs Fitzherbert,

it was never going to be, was it? It's such a shame.

The bracelet itself is made of gold.

We have this lovely, delicate chainwork around here

and then the detailing across the top

which has got an inscription on it in French, which is...

"Rejoindre ou Mourir."

That is supposedly a clue to its provenance.

"Let's get back together," "Let's get reunited or I'll die."

-So tragic!

-The point being that when he tried to woo Mrs Fitzherbert

in the first place, there was a mock stabbing.

He supposedly tried to kill himself

to try and persuade her to marry him.

So this is possibly a link back to that first occasion.

It just shows the passion that you can have for somebody.

It's extraordinary, isn't it?

So, that's the inscription there.

We also have a lovely bit of agate in the centre

and then a little turquoise in the middle there.

Turquoise in the language of lapidary and stone and love

means, basically, forget-me-not,

because it's supposed to be the true colour of the forget-me-not flower.

What we have here is a slightly

green colour which is its original colour.

Then when it's polished, it goes to that lovely forget-me-not blue

and then reverts back over time to the green.

If we carefully turn it over,

there is a little locket on the back.

If we open it up, we have inside

a very, very daintily painted little eye.

That's always been said to be George IV or the Prince of Wales' eye

but I suspect it may be a bit too feminine

and I wonder whether it's actually the adopted daughter,

so that might tally.

It's also got an inscription on the inside of the locket as well.

That says "mirror of my heart".

Oh, it just gets so fabulous, doesn't it, as we go through?

So, all in all, I just think

it's an absolutely gorgeous piece of jewellery.

I think with the Royal provenance that we have with it,

which hopefully we can secure, in an auction environment,

you would be looking at an estimate of £2,500 to £3,000.

It's got the possibility to fly, though,

because everybody does really love a little bit of scandal.

Your plate?

It's funny - I've done vases

and decanters and windows

on the Antiques Roadshow,

but this is the first time ever

-I've done eye baths.

-Is it?

It is. and so when you came in this morning, I thought,

that is such an interesting collecting area,

and you've made it your own.

-Yes, I have.

-So, tell us about it in your life.

One of the schools around here, the local school

was having its 200th anniversary

and we started getting out the stuff

that had been in the school for a long time.

One of the things was a first aid kit, and that was in it.

And I loved it.

It's lovely, isn't it? A lovely colour.

So I said to the headteacher, can I give you my plastic one

that I've got at home and can I have that?

And he said yes.

So I had it and then I've just collected them ever since, really.

-How long ago is that?

-Oh, 20 years, a bit more.

-Do we have your entire collection here?

-You do, yes.

OK. They were in everybody's home, weren't they?

We all had one when we were kids.

You'd get something in your eye,

-your mum would get some warm water with salt...

-Yes.

And you'd put it there and then she would tell you to blink.

-Yes.

-And it worked!

-It was warm water, you didn't have to buy some product or anything.

-No.

-A bit of salt.

-Bit of salt in there. Warm water and salt.

So, where do you find them?

I go round antique fairs, and it gives you an excuse.

You don't have to spend a lot of money

but you can be in an antique fair and get something.

Or the children buy them for me. They see them somewhere

in a junk shop or something and I sort of acquire them, really.

They are, funnily enough, an extremely collected area.

Don't feel as if you are alone in the world of this bonkers mission.

You're not. The people who collect them most are ophthalmic surgeons,

-eye doctors.

-Really?

-Most of these,

it's fairly easy to guess where they are from

because it says "British made,"

which I find is a bit of a giveaway -

I think they're probably Polish!

They were made largely in Yorkshire for at least 300 years,

but you haven't got any that are very much more old than 100 years,

and they really are... I've kind of grouped them.

Your best ones are here and some of these are approaching 100 years old.

So, I think that you were paying about three quid for these.

I mean, that's fine.

They sell for that kind of money and maybe a little bit more,

but where you are spending a tenner, for instance,

on things that are about a hundred years old,

then I think that you're buying quite well

because I think these are sort of 20 quid each.

20 to 30.

One like that has got to be 30 or 40 quid.

Isn't it funny? Look at that, the way it is all falling over

and being badly made. It's brilliant, I love it.

I love badly made stuff.

So, here you've got thruppence each, as it were,

and here you've got the cream.

What you need to aspire to is that level there.

OK.

And it's fun doing this, isn't it?

It is. My family buy them for me so I'll tell them now,

they have to buy me more expensive ones!

You can't walk down the high street these days without tripping over

mobile phone shops, estate agents and tanning shops.

But what happens if you're in the 1930s and you wanted to tan at home?

You get, of course, the Vi-Tan home tanning machine.

Why on earth do you have this rather scary-looking device?

It is quite terrifying, isn't it?

This belonged to my grandfather and when he passed away,

it was one of the things I inherited from him.

So, this was a chap, who, in the 1930s or 40s,

had a home tanning machine.

Was he some kind of bronzed Adonis therefore?

He was a man of means, I think.

He had his own aeroplane. He had a Sopwith Pup.

A guy used to fly with him and he was the writer

of the Broons cartoon in the Sunday Post.

They're the Scottish cartoon characters?

There the Scottish cartoon characters, that's right.

My grandfather, whose name was Robert Buchanan Henderson,

was actually the inspiration for Hen Broon and if you look

at the character in the cartoon, it's very much like Grandad.

Very tall, upright, long, angular face,

little bristle moustache and quite the man of the house.

So from Broon to brown if he stood in front of this thing for a very,

very long time and got a good tan!

As you can see from the label here,

it was made by the Thermal Syndicate Limited.

In the late 1930s,

they released the Vi-Tan which was a home tanning machine,

something you plugged into the electrical socket and you stood in front of it.

I just love the label on the back here.

"Always wear the goggles provided when near the lamp.

"Normal initial exposure, three minutes at three feet.

"No effect will be felt for three or four hours.

"Under exposure is better than over exposure."

I mean, it's kind of terrifying, isn't it?

-It is.

-It's not exactly the most valuable piece in the world but in its day,

you mentioned he was a man of means and he would have had to have been.

They cost about £15 so when you think the average weekly wage

at that time in 1930s and '40s was around £6 a week,

you have two weeks just to afford this,

so it's very much a wealthy person's piece but today,

I think somewhere in the region of £30 to £50 as a curiosity.

Yes, well, it certainly is very curious.

-You wouldn't want to plug it in, would you?

-Please don't do that.

Please get it looked at before.

You know what? I don't think I would want to stand in front of it either.

I think, basically, would you prefer to stand in front of that

or a nice holiday in the Costa Del Sol?

Come on! We know the answer, don't we? Fantastic, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

So, on the table, we have a set of miniature World War II medals

showing that a man was in Burma.

We have an Indian army ordnance corps cap badge,

we have the prisoner of war postcards sent back from Japanese prison of war camps

and then we have this.

-What is this?

-This is a diary kept by my father, who was taken prisoner

in Singapore on the 15th of February 1942 and the diary is written virtually

daily from the 15th of February until September 1945 when he was released.

In that time, he was in Changi jail

and seven months on the Thai Burma railway...

including the River Kwai

and the stories that we all know from that magnificent film.

Included in it is the emphasis on the malnutrition, the cruelty,

the lack of any hope, virtually,

of knowing when it was going to be over,

and then the comments where somebody has died,

and it's not quite matter of fact, but

there were 130,000 working on this railway

and 67,000 or 70,000 died.

I think at night, he would sit down literally and fill in,

just saying it was a good day or a bad day.

There's no drama in it, it's not dramatic.

Like these terrible people and these terrible tortures.

It does mention it and they were terrible,

like growing bamboo through you and leaving you out for 24 hours with a

bowl of water you can't reach and things like that.

In the end, it was survival and

the camaraderie to help each other through.

Did he ever tell you how he kept it?

-How did he keep it?

-He buried it.

-He buried it?

-Yes.

-Where did he get the ink from?

They made the ink from...

..fruit, from spices, from...

from anything they could lay their hands on that they couldn't eat but

they could use for other purposes.

There is this moment here where the ink probably ran out and they moved to a pencil.

What is the significance of this moment?

There was a five-day train journey in metal, er...

..carriages which were rice carriers

with 28 or 30 people per carriage.

They were unable to sit down.

There was no food, no sanitation and it was a five-day journey from

Singapore to Ban Pong which was west of Bangkok and the beginning of the railway.

How long did he work on the railway for?

Seven months. The railway only took one year to build.

They say a person died per railway sleeper and it was 215km long.

When he came home?

He was repatriated back to the UK,

kept in the Army because they were in such a miserable state, and posted to Germany

as part of the Army of Occupation, but probably a more gentle job

to get back to normal health.

It is such a unique record.

I don't think...

I've really ever seen a diary written like this.

You can't imagine in any way what these people went through and yet,

your father sat there and kept a record

in this tiny, tiny writing

of every day and as his friends died

he wrote their names, and because I've seen some of them written in and I know you've told me

that you've been out to Thailand and Burma to see where they are buried now.

It's almost impossible to put a price on this.

I mean, how can you put a price on five and a half years in a prison camp, when,

bless him, he probably had nothing?

A bowl of rice to him was worth the earth.

I would imagine if something like this came up

for auction and was sold,

it would actually really wouldn't realise what it would be worth.

It would probably be £600 or £700.

But to what he went through,

there is no price that you could put on this.

Because of this one man,

we at least have the story of a lot of people who were in those camps and

who didn't come home, but at least the amount of effort they put in

to staying alive is recorded here.

Well, here we are, poised in front of three copies of the most iconic

children's book of the 20th century,

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak,

and here are you and I am wondering why you collected three copies.

Well, about ten years ago we were on holiday in California in Laguna Beach

and in most of those small American towns,

there are always fundraising things going on.

-Yes.

-Fundraising for the local library and Brenda came to me and said,

"I've bought a copy of Where the Wild Things Are,"

which she was very pleased about.

She said, "and it's a first edition."

I said, "Let's have a look."

I turned the page over and said, "Do you know it's signed?"

-I didn't.

-She didn't!

So, how much did you pay for it?

25 cents.

Let's just have a look at this.

25 cents and you say it's a first edition.

-Yes.

-Well, let's just look inside.

Here is the first page and it's copyright 1963, first edition,

Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak.

Yes. And this is the signature here.

Maurice Sendak. To Jeffrey and Emily.

Boo!

Well, that's wonderful. So,

you bought this first edition and what I would say is wrong with it

-is it's lacking a dust wrapper.

-Yes.

Which is a great shame, yes.

But about these other two? You've got one here in Welsh?

Well, buying the first one set us off to look at every copy

of Where the Wild Things Are that came along.

In the local flea market, that's where the Welsh edition turned up.

-And the third one?

-The third one was a car-boot sale.

It's the 25th anniversary edition.

What are you going to do with these?

I think it's been published in very nearly every language in the world,

so we've got a lot to go at if we can get a first edition of every one?

-Have you got children?

-We've got grandchildren, yes.

We've got four grandchildren so we definitely need another one.

So you're going to give one to one, one to another, one to another?

It would be a lucky dip, I think!

Right, let's start off with prices, shall be?

The three you've got.

The 25 years edition,

it's not going to be terribly valuable but I imagine £20 or £30.

The first Welsh edition, probably a similar amount of money.

It does have a dust wrapper but the condition is not terribly good.

But this one is going to be worth...

-..£3,000.

-Oh, my goodness!

Now, you're going to break up the family if you start distributing that, aren't you?

What are you going to do?

The best thing about it is,

it's an absolutely wonderful story to read to the grandchildren.

I couldn't help noticing your potty, sir.

Are you worried about the length of the queue?

-I am, yes.

-In case you get caught short?

Where did you come by this marvellous potty?

My dad knew some friends,

an old couple of men that never got married and they were moving into town

where they could walk to the shops so he thought,

I will go and see them off before they go.

They said to him, "Do you want this pot?"

He said, "Yes, I'll have that, that's lovely."

Playing music.

And that's how I've come to get it.

So, it plays music. It says, "Ooh landlord,

"fill the flowing bowl" which is a drinking song, isn't it?

I think it is, yes, but it's changed, hasn't it, to fill this.

Clearly. Oh, look, it's got "patent non-splash thunder bowl".

Well, sir, I shall leave you with your potty and hopefully

you won't be waiting so long you'll find yourself in need of using it!

Well, you don't have to be too keen on clocks to think that this is

actually rather nice.

-Do you like it?

-I love it.

-It is beautiful.

-Is it yours or a family thing?

It was my father's.

My father passed away a few years ago and I found a whole collection

of clocks and watches that he had accumulated.

He was one of these people that could repair anything and understood

everything from first principles,

but he always said this was his favourite clock.

The story is that it was either the clock or a family holiday and he went for the clock!

Wow!

Where was the holiday to?

I imagine it would have been somewhere like Frinton-on-Sea

and I know for a fact that my sister was scared of going on the beach

and screamed so it was probably a wise choice.

Well, we'll see later,

but let me just tell you that it's English through and through.

Mid-19th century, sort of 1850, possibly 1855.

It's everything that the English clock collectors want.

The wood is satin wood.

Two winding squares, one for going, one for striking.

You've got this fantastic...

subsidiary seconds at the 12 o'clock position.

The size is lovely and you associate most clocks with a pendulum,

don't you? This doesn't have a pendulum.

It has the most fantastic giant platform.

Lovely. Let's look at this dial.

Beautifully engraved, lovely fleur-de-lis hands.

It is a really nice dial.

The only thing I can fault on it, there's no signature.

Looking at the side,

twin fuses, the original chains,

maintaining power for the going train,

which is what you would expect, and then on the back,

you've got this large coiled gong

and you've got the most fantastic regulation scale there

for the back of the platform.

Size is not too big.

It is top-of-the-range.

I don't know why it is not signed.

We will never know, but it is anonymous.

I suppose that holds it back a bit.

So, what would be your chosen holiday now?

I think I'd go for Honolulu.

-OK.

-I've never been to the South Seas.

So, what's that going to be for two of you?

I suspect about £10,000.

-About ten grand?

-Yes.

-So, Frinton or this?

Or Honolulu or this?

How do you think it equates?

Well, I think I'd rather keep the clock than go to Honolulu.

Well, I certainly would, particularly as the clock,

if you were to sell it at auction, would make a minimum of £15,000.

-Wow!

-So, I would put it to you...

..that it was a very good decision to have made initially by your father.

He made a lot of good decisions, so, he's done it again.

It's not every day that I get to record with a piece of glass that is

larger than my mouth!

But that is the case today.

You've brought this along on your barrow.

This is a beautifully made piece of stained glass, I really must say.

Tell us how it fits in your life.

I was working next-door to a property which was being refurbished and

there was a stone facade on the side of the house that my son wanted a

stone facade for his cottage, but behind the stone facade was this window,

so I took the stone facade down and took the window down,

paid the man, and I have had it for 13 years.

It is beautifully made.

Looking at the joinery around here,

this is all oak and the skill that went into making this

is extraordinary, really, and around the other side, of course,

you have wrought iron straps on it to protect it, because we are on the

inside here, aren't we?

This is the inside and this is the outside.

This is where the oak is.

I would think it's somewhere about 1880.

Its value rests on who is going to buy it, of course,

and what you're going to use it for.

You've got to have a very specific place for it.

I notice you haven't done anything with it.

It's just sat in your garage for the last 13 years, hasn't it?

Well, I've been waiting for planning permission for my extension!

-To do what?

-To do an extension to our house.

-Oh, you're going to use it?

-Yes.

Oh, brilliant. Look, I tell you.

It's English, 1880s.

-How much did you pay for it?

-£150.

13 years ago?

-13 years ago.

-Well, I think that if you went into a reclamation yard

and wanted to buy this today, I don't think you'd get any change from 500 quid

and then I reckon that this barrow is worth another hundred quid,

so I reckon the lot is 600 quid, so I reckon 150 quid,

-you've done all right, mate!

-Very good.

Thanks for bringing it in.

Thanks very much.

You might think you're looking at a portrait by a European artist of the 1930s.

In actual fact, this painting

was done by an Indian artist in the 1950s.

It's obviously a portrait.

Can you tell me something about the sitter?

Yes, the sitter is my mother.

It was painted in India and...

..the artist worked for Grindlays Bank,

which was where my father worked, and that's how we got to know...

That's how he came to paint your mother?

-Yes.

-Well, the artist has actually signed his name.

A very well-known artist in India today, Krishen Khanna.

So, obviously, you have a family relationship with him

-or you had a family relationship with him?

-Yes, my mother did.

I was too young at the time but my mother knew him and I believe has kept

in touch occasionally.

The story of Grindlays bank is fascinating because Krishen Khanna,

his family originally came from Lahore and with the separation of India

and Pakistan, they moved to Shimla, where he worked in Grindlays Bank.

Absolutely. The artist gives up banking in 1960

and he becomes a professional painter.

He takes the leap although he had very little money,

he took that big step to become a professional artist and of course,

most of the works we know of his date from that later period,

from the '60s, '70s, '80s etc.

It's extremely rare to find a picture by Krishen Khanna from 1954.

From this experimental phase,

he had just taken a few evening classes in painting and was practising and

he went on to become a really important figure,

one of the great modern painters of India, along with MF Husain, Raza,

Souza, Gaitonde,

all of these names that have now really achieved celebrity globally.

It's a fascinating picture.

It's very, very much rooted in the European painting of the 1930s.

It has a very, very luminous effect with a nice impasto,

this very thick painting.

Krishen Khanna has become a big name and what has happened is,

the whole market for modern Indian painting has gone through the roof,

partly with the birth of private museums in India,

with the Indian diaspora, Indians in Britain, in America,

in south-east Asia,

who want to reclaim some of this modern heritage and who have started to collect.

Do you have any idea of the value of a 1954 Krishen Khanna painting?

None, none whatsoever.

It has never been valued.

I mentioned to my mother that I might bring it here today and she said,

"Go ahead, see what happens."

But no idea whatsoever.

Well, I think she would be happy to know that were it to be offered at

auction, it would probably be with an estimate of something like

£30,000 to £50,000 today.

-Crikey!

-Are you shocked, or am I?

I think you're going to make her a very happy lady today.

Thank you very much indeed.

She will be.

Well, I'm mindful that these days,

ladies don't do so much lunch as they are doing afternoon tea.

Absolutely. I'm having afternoon tea on Sunday.

Oh, are you? Are you using your best china, that's what I want to know?

-Afraid not.

-I'll tell you what,

if I was to produce this china for anybody, they would have to be very,

very good friends.

-Where has it all come from?

-It comes down on my mother's side and was

given to her by my grandmother

and I believe it was her great-grandmother's wedding set.

When did she get married?

It must have been around about 1830 something like that.

Right, OK. You know full well who made this?

-Yes.

-Because on the base of this saucer, we have a mark.

That is a mark of the Rockingham porcelain factory.

The mark there is the puce mark, and that mark was used from 1830 to 1832.

-Oh, right.

-So that would tally in absolutely perfect.

-Yes, yes.

-What strikes me is the quality of the flower painting.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It is, it's exuberant.

I mean, let's just take this one cup.

Everything you see on there has been painted by hand.

But what an expert hand.

Now, this is just a selection of about how many pieces?

-About 50, I think.

-About 50.

What was left after my father tended to break it...

-When washing up.

-Well, it's a high-risk area.

Rockingham porcelain has been a victim of trends

and it's been a bit of a downward trend when it comes to price.

So I think it's fair to say that what was worth, let's say,

£3,000 25 years ago is probably

nearer £1,500 - £2,000 today.

-But does it matter?

-No. Not at all.

Course it doesn't matter because this is the best of

Yorkshire porcelain and let me tell you, coming from a Lancastrian,

that is the ultimate tribute.

MUSIC: Everything Stops For Tea

HENRY SANDON SPEAKS

in a Stoke-On-Trent museum.

So, tell me, how did a piece of modernist Americana get here

-in leafy Cheshire?

-Well, I was

living in America and a friend of mine's aunt passed away and I helped clear out her estate.

And this was one of the things that we found and

I was given it as a gift for helping

do the bull work of clearing everything out.

So you obviously love it as much as I do.

I do indeed.

It's made and designed by Homer Gunn, who is a recognised artist in America.

He did a lot of monuments.

He studied in the Rhode Island School of design and art, 1938 - 41.

And the origins of this are in the Art Deco period, the interwar period,

which is when he would have been getting his act together

to become the sculptor that he actually was.

Some people say his work is brutalist, but it's very simplistic,

in my mind.

I love horses, as you can tell,

and I love the way he's just made this move

as if it is jumped together almost out of a tube into life.

You must have loved it to bring it back from America.

I do, I love the fluidity of movement in it.

The simple construction but it really gives the shape of the horse

-and the movement.

-Just two lines of brass.

-Yes.

-And a little bronze mop on it.

To give the symbolism of its eye and its ears and its mane,

and it's even got a bit of movement in the curve of its spine.

And when we look at it around here, its body is just two circles.

And its tail is even floating away this way.

It looks as if it's going to just jump over a fence and float away.

He was an important designer in several art circles in America.

The Boettcher six were one that springs to mind.

And he actually did several big monuments.

Symphony Orchestra monument, big gallery monuments,

but this works in a small and simple and acute style.

-How long have you had it?

-Since 1994.

Well, it's made in 1965 and on the base,

we can see it's signed, or inscribed, Homer Gunn '65.

And it is very typical of the period of the brutalist modernist period.

These are the antiques of the future.

These are the things which are making the money now.

There's not lots of his work available,

but those that do command some good prices.

Really?

And this simple set of circles probably out of a couple of pounds' worth

of material, a couple of circular pieces cut into sections,

is now going to be worth £1,500.

-Very good.

-Thanks for bringing it to England because I love it.

This is what's called a duck's foot pistol because it looks

like a duck's foot. Sort of.

And it was made in about 1770.

And it was designed purely for law and order,

to intimidate large groups of people.

They are rare, rare things.

There's huge amounts of fakes.

And I'm pleased to say I've had a really good look at this and I am

certain that this is not one of them.

Oh, well that's very nice to know. Very nice to know.

-Where did you get it?

-I bought it in a shop in Pudsey.

-Oh, yes?

-Where they sold not only at the time current firearms but also

they had an antique section.

And I popped in one day.

He brought one out, he brought that out, and I said, I'll have it!

So it was a bit of an impulse buy then.

-Yes.

-Well, I think it was a very good impulse.

It's a lovely, lovely thing.

And, if we just look at it, you can see on the side, the maker's name.

-Laugher.

-Right. Yep.

He was the man who made it in the 1770s.

If you imagine that you were the captain of a merchant ship

and you had a couple of these, you had a mutinous crew,

you stood on the quarterdeck...

If you had two of these, the crew is not going to try and storm you.

You can say, "Right, you lot, back below decks."

And really this...

This predates the 19th century perfection of the revolver,

which gave you five or six shots.

That gave you four automatically.

Over a spread, and certainly,

no crowd would want to have a go at anybody armed with that.

If you had to go and buy that today, in a buoyant market, at auction,

you'd be paying something like £3,500 for it.

So, quite a lot of money.

And it's a fantastically good thing.

It's been just great to see it here today.

-That's good. That's good.

-Nobody will argue with that, will they?

Thank you very much. No, they won't.

I like to think this is the young Mary Berry.

THEY LAUGH

Could be.

Actually, the date is 1942.

Now, how do I know that?

Luckily for me, there's a label on the back.

Telling me that the painting is by Doris Zinkeisen

and, on the label, it says "ICI".

Very strange idea...

for a chemicals company to have a label on the back of a painting.

Now, the reason for that is because during the war -

don't forget, these were the darkest days of the war, 1942 -

ICI, in order to encourage the Home Front,

commissioned a series of paintings from different artists,

but particularly from Doris Zinkeisen, who painted this,

of women working on the Home Front. This is called The Kitchen Front.

It's on the label. So, it's a wartime propaganda poster, really.

It was made as a poster, and this is the original painting.

Because you didn't know who it was by when you brought it in,

you hadn't looked at the label, had you?

I'd seen the ICI part and I wondered what the connection was with ICI.

-That's always interested me.

-That's the connection.

So, you didn't know who she was, Doris Zinkeiser?

She was one of two sisters. Doris and Anna.

They lived together, shared a studio,

and they both painted quite similarly.

But Doris, in my opinion, is the better painter.

In those days, you might have said

that she was "only" a poster artist,

but then her society portraits and, also,

she worked for the London Theatre doing set design and costume design.

Raised her up to a much higher level than just that.

In latter years, we have come

to really appreciate those very things you like about it -

its simplicity and the stylised forms.

-Yes.

-And it's modernity, for 1942.

So, you didn't know who it was by,

you didn't know what it was really about, you didn't know its date -

why did you buy it at all?

I bought it at an auction, and I bought it simply because I liked it,

and I still do. I bought it about 20 years ago

and I just love the simplicity.

I like the lines of it and the naivety, really.

It's got a wonderful light to it, and an innocence as well.

-Yeah, very stylised.

-Very stylised.

-I like it.

-It is, I think, a really sunny, lovely picture.

Now, what did you pay for it in that auction 20 years ago?

It was a few hundred.

I honestly can't remember, but it was a few hundred.

That's all right. Well, you know,

her fashionable portraits from the '20s and '30s,

which are often of very glamorous society women,

are quite valuable things.

In fact, they are very valuable things.

This is much more interesting than them, to me,

because it's a wartime thing and it means something.

She's trying to put a message across.

But, nonetheless, I can't put it at the 20-30,000 that they are.

I'm going to put £2-3,00 on this one.

Oh, wow. Thank you.

Yeah. I honestly didn't expect that, no.

Regular viewers of the Roadshow may remember me at Walmer Castle

last year when I found the most fantastic collection

of Martin Brothers pottery. And here we are,

before Arley Hall and you've turned up with this monumental piece

of Martin Brothers for me. But how's it come in to your possession?

Well, my grandfather had a collection of Martinware,

which has just always been in the family.

And he lived in Battersea,

and I think he probably collected it around

about the time it was made and produced.

So, we're talking about the beginning of the 20th century, are we?

-Yes.

-So was he a man of means?

I wouldn't like to say. He died before I was born,

but I think he must have had some money

to be able to buy such things.

Well, it would suggest, at that time, if he was a businessman,

if he was a professional man,

he would have probably been going up to Holborn,

to the premises where they used to retail the wares.

But look at it, What a fantastic piece of work for them.

Beautifully pottered. This is all characteristic.

You know, the carving, the scrolls, the faces, these grotesques...

We do have one slight issue, do we not?

We certainly do. Yes. Yes.

Let's just have a quick look round the other side,

and what was once a fairly stunning and spectacular, perfect vase

is now a rather stunning and spectacular...damaged vase.

What happened here?

The Martinware pottery was packed up during the war,

and they had a cellar,

and I was told that it was damaged by a bomb.

Was this the only one that met with damage?

That's the only one that was damaged.

Well, out of a collection,

to have only one and the rest survive is no bad thing.

But it is a shame, and obviously, it IS going to impact on it.

Had the Luftwaffe not dropped a bomb so perfectly placed

to take away the foot on your vase,

you would have been looking in its perfect order

somewhere in the region of £8,000-10,000.

Oh, good heavens.

Oh, wow! That is just amazing.

But what did they cost you?

Where is that value now?

Well, it's not so bad.

Because Martin Brothers collectors are tolerant and I still think,

despite all of this, despite that loss, despite that damage,

it's worth about £3,000 in today's market.

My goodness. But all the damage?

-With all the damage.

-That's just amazing.

Whenever I think of images of Victorian streets, shops,

I think of very visual and colourful enamel signs like this.

So where did you get this sign?

This sign was bought while on holiday in Cornwall with my parents,

-when I was a child.

-You bought a few, did you, as a family?

Yes, it's been in a collection over the years.

-Right.

-There was about four that we bought while we were on holiday.

Has the collection grown?

Yeah. There's about 35, 40 that we've got now.

Fantastic. And of course they were originally made for use outside.

And I think we can see that there's rusting,

there's wear where somebody has obviously hammered them

onto a wall, and, I mean, they do fake them now.

So, as far as an old one's concerned,

you should be looking for this dark rust staining

and lots of wear and tear.

What caught my eye with this one is, obviously,

the central beautiful Greek maiden.

And, of course, she's chiselling the title of the sign -

"There's No Tea like Phillips's" -

with a mallet, but what the enamel designers have done,

they've taken an image, really, from a Victorian painting.

These do evoke a past age like nothing else.

Their heyday was 1870 through to the 1950s,

and, of course, with modern advertising,

the life of these very expensive signs was soon over.

The market for these has really grown.

This is a very good example. Super state.

I would suspect at auction it's going to make around £2,500.

Really?

Thank you.

Now, you know, for those people who watch this programme regularly,

and I am told that there ARE people

-who watch this programme fairly regularly...

-Yes.

..they will know that when they look at a brooch like that,

that it's Art Deco.

Which would mean it was probably made in the 1920s or '30s.

Now, have you had this brooch in your family since the 1920s or '30s?

No, I've had it since the '50s.

I inherited it from my mother-in-law.

-Right.

-And she bought it from Robb's the jewellers in Pitlochry.

-Right.

-And Mr Robb told her...

that the emeralds with the diamonds round it

was originally drop earrings for the Seventh Duchess of Atholl.

And that, of course, is a tremendous provenance

-and pedigree, because that's Blair Castle...

-Blair Castle.

..in Perthshire, which is located

what, seven, eight miles away from Pitlochry?

-Yes.

-For the benefit of everybody watching,

let me show you, YOU know this, but in classic Deco fashion,

it's not just one component, it's two,

and if you turn it over, there are a pair of clips at the back.

So, what you do, you pull back the prong fitting like that...

you pull out the clip like that...

..and then you can wear one...

-As a clip.

-..as a clip on each side of your little jacket.

-I've worn it once like that.

-Have you?

If I just put that back into place again, and close it up,

let's talk about what it's set in.

-White metal. Platinum.

-Yes.

-You know that.

-Yes.

Look at those stones! What fantastic colour they are.

-What you know about those?

-I know they're emeralds.

-They are.

-But I don't know much more.

-All right, well, shall I tell you something about them?

-Yes.

The best ones in the world come from Colombia.

-Yes.

-They are of that genre.

-Yes.

-They are set in borders of diamonds

in pear-shaped frames and larger diamonds

going round the outside.

Each of the stones weighs over - in my assessment - two carats.

So there's probably two carats, two carats...four carats.

-Might be a bit more than that, but I'm being a bit careful here.

-Yes.

And the diamond frames.

-Oh, that's good.

-Everybody likes things like this.

And everybody likes a bit of colour like that,

because they are really, really super-duper,

top-of-the-range stones.

What do I think they're worth?

Well, I think your brooch

is probably worth something in the region...

of £40,000 today.

That's nice.

What are you going to do with it, now?

I'm going to do exactly what I've done with it the past few years.

Keep it, wear it when I go to something nice,

and eventually, my daughter behind me will inherit it.

It really is a truly splendid Deco brooch,

of high quality,

-it's a classy piece and I congratulate you.

-Thank you.

What a gorgeous brooch.

I wouldn't mind being that daughter who is going to inherit it.

Walking around with a £40,000 brooch? Lucky girl!

Our day here is drawing to a close. Our crowds are leaving.

We've been very glad to have them. And from the whole Roadshow team

here at Arley Hall, until next time, bye-bye.