Manchester The Great Antiques Map of Britain

'Britain is stuffed with places famous for their antiques

'and each object has a story to tell.'

Hello!

'I'm Tim Wonnacott, and as the crowds gather

'for their favourite outdoor events around the country,

'I'll be pitching up with my silver trailer

'to meet the locals with their precious antiques and collectables.'

I'm feeling inspired myself. Thank you very much.

'Their stories will reveal why the places we visit

'deserve to be on the Great Antiques Map of Britain.

'Today, we're at the Dig the City Festival

'in the middle of Manchester.'

'Lots of eager owners have come along

'to show us their intriguing items...'

The absolute drama of these bright colours.

'..which represent this area's unique antiques heritage.'

This stuff is called fairground art and it is a collectible.

'Also of course, they want to find out what their precious objects might be worth.'

As much as £100-£150.

£500-£800.

£400-£600.

Between £3,000 and £5,000.

'And stand by for what has got us all rather excited.'

I should think we'd be comfortably looking at about 30,000 or more.

And I'm feeling rather starry-eyed, myself.

'Manchester's big growth spurt began in the 18th century.

'At the heart of it was cotton, not just spinning but all

'the associated industries - textile manufacture,

'engineering works to make the machines in the factories,

'and, of course, construction.

'But times changed.

'In the 20th century, Manchester could boast the first

'splitting of the atom, by Ernest Rutherford,

'and production of the first Rolls-Royce car,

'amongst many accolades.

'Today, it's a cultural hub and a fabulous place to visit.'

Do you know, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Manchester.

I lived and worked in Cheshire for the top end of 15 years,

and I know this place is just stuffed up with antiques

and collectibles - it's just a question of finding your way round.

'One of the newest initiatives here is a festival called Dig the City -

'a lively 9-day event celebrating urban gardening.

'So, I've brought the old rig along to dig - wait for it...

'for antiques.'

Well, they say you learn something every day

and I'm certainly learning something today in Manchester,

because ordinarily I would have walked past these

two Victorian chairs and never given them a second glance.

But, there again, I'd be wrong, wouldn't I, Max?

Yes, Tim, you would be wrong. I think these are very interesting chairs

because Riley, James Riley, was a manufacturer of chairs in Manchester

in about 1864, and produced patents for a method of assembling chairs

to enable them to be mass-produced and distributed widely.

The big thing about furniture manufacture in the 19th century

is the assimilation of styles, and what we now call

balloon back Victorian chairs, which are loosely this shape,

where you get a fan type shape with a curved frame, was produced from

the 1840's, all the way through until 1910, or even 1920.

Much replicated.

But what our James Riley did, which is what is so incredibly clever,

is to take the standard manufactured form

and try and make it a bit cheaper.

And the first indication that anyone would have that they're dealing

with a patented piece of furniture is if you turn this one around and

have a look at the back, there

in the splat is a branded mark and if you decipher the mumbo jumbo

of the letters and symbols, it will give you the year that that design

was registered and then it's protected.

But what he's protecting is this construction method,

where you have a bolt that goes through from the back leg

into the frame, take the other one out, like that,

and the chair simply comes apart, which is really rather clever.

And what did your collection of Riley chairs cost you,

if you don't mind my asking?

-This was five.

-OK.

I think, I can't remember this one. £12 or something like that.

Yesterday, in Levenshulme, I bought a chair for £25

and brought it back on the bus.

Well, the joy of these chairs that you can take apart is

that you can put them on the train or the bus, but I think

it's incredibly interesting. Thank you very much, Max.

Thank you.

'See? You can still scoop up a piece of Manchester's industrial

'history for a snip, and sit on it!

'You heard it here first, remember.'

The world's first football league was set

up at Manchester's Royal Hotel in 1888.

Greater Manchester now has dozens of football teams,

and one is arguably the biggest in the world - Manchester United.

Although it has a global fan base,

the local fans are perhaps the most ardent and Sean is one of them.

Well, I've collected football memorabilia for some time.

In fact, I did even when I was a boy in Ireland.

And I just decided I'd start really collecting more

from the point of view of the history of the club

and the love of the club.

Now, Sean, what we've got in front of us is an interesting little

selection, and what I'd like to start with is the photograph.

The gentleman in the blue top was a gentleman called Albert Scanlon,

and Albert was a member of the famous Busby Babes.

What a lot of people might need reminding is that

on the 6th of February, 1958,

when that airliner containing the Manchester United team

landed in Munich, and then tried to take off twice,

and then when it did take off, there was this tragic crash,

that you would have thought would have knocked the guts

out of the team, but our Albert Scanlon,

he's on board, and he survives the crash

and he goes on to play alongside the manager Matt Busby,

who also survived.

-I mean, it's the most phenomenal tale, isn't it?

-Yeah.

But it was that connection that enabled you

to buy this very handsome silver plaque.

As a work of art, I have to say, for silversmithing,

it's most beautifully made, with this laurel border

around the outside. How did you come to acquire it?

I got a phone call, and the lady,

at this time I did not now, was a relative of Albert's.

-Oh, right.

-But she said to me she had this item of memorabilia,

and I said I was actually an acquaintance of Albert,

and I actually had a photograph of Albert in my home, with me,

in front of my memorabilia, which I would take with me.

-And that's the photograph?

-And that's the photograph.

Now, tell us about this bit of autographed memorabilia

in front of us. This is special, isn't it?

I think it's special, yes.

Lots of people will have autographs of the Busby Babes,

and lots of people, say, for example,

will have autographs of the players

who've played in the 1958 Cup Final,

which was four months after the disaster.

I think this is special because on those two sheets of autographs...

are both - together.

The team before Munich and the team after?

The team in the last line-up and the team who played in the FA Cup Final.

The truth of the matter is that football teams signing

autographs is not a rare occurrence,

and particularly not in the post-war period.

What's unusual is the circumstances of these two sets of signatures,

and the fact that they're mixed on two sheets - the originals

and the replacements - I think makes this very special, indeed.

And whilst some of these signatures from teams can be worth

a £100 here or a £100 there, I think this is a very special group,

and, as such, probably the likely auction value

would be between, say, £1,000 and £2,000.

When it comes to the silver plaque, though, it is thought that

that silver plaque would bring between £3,000 and £5,000.

Does that go into the back of the net or not?

It might be a value that may interest my grandson

maybe more than me.

'You can learn a lot about a city

'from its art galleries and collections.

'Manchester is particularly proud of its association

'with the artist Ford Madox Brown.

'And his painting, entitled Work,

'was the first Pre-Raphaelite painting to be

'bought by the Manchester Art Gallery in 1885.

'The Curator of Fine Art is Rebecca Milner.'

Well, Rebecca, it really is a beautiful painting, isn't it?

I mean, the minute detail

that he's got into every square inch

of this big picture. But it's not just a beautiful work of art, is it?

It's sending out a very real message from the moment.

Absolutely, I mean, it's an allegory of work, so you have him

representing every social class, here,

from the rich MP up there on his horse,

through to the little beggar children down here in the foreground.

So, he's setting up lots of contrast between poverty and wealth,

industry and idleness,

all these things going on in the way he's portrayed these people.

After painting this work, he was commissioned to paint

the town hall murals, and that commission came from a friend

of his, a Manchester based-artist called Frederick Shields.

'Madox Brown started painting these 12 murals in 1879,

'and took 14 years to finish them.

'Most are painted directly on to the wall, and the artist did

'plenty of research to ensure they were accurate.

'At the gallery, Rebecca's taking me behind the scenes to see how

'he prepped and practised.'

So on this rack, Tim, we've got four of the designs

by Ford Madox Brown for the town hall murals.

So, it worked in those days that you would produce a mini picture

of what you wanted to include within the murals,

and the idea of the murals were, in the new town hall, they simply

told the story of the prosperity and history of Manchester?

Yes, it was quite broad themes,

but they wanted to sort of reflect things that were

both of national significance, but also local stories from Manchester.

-Here, we've got the Flemish weavers arriving.

-Yes.

An important moment in Manchester's textile history.

Yes, so this is way back in the 14th century

and, really, sort of the origins of the Lancashire textile industry.

And what's the one, there?

So, this is a picture of John Kay.

This study is not finished, but he's been bundled out

because he's the inventor of the fly shuttle, and, you see the workers

in the window, here, who are not very happy at this mechanisation of the

weaving, because they're all afraid they're going to lose their jobs.

So it's kind of got a bit of a dual message, this work.

On the one hand, I think Brown's sympathies

are with the workers losing their jobs, but he's also celebrating

the invention of something which obviously takes the textile trade...

-Into another place. Into the modern world, effectively.

-Yes, yeah.

And incredibly important for Manchester's prosperity.

'In another mural,

'Madox Brown captured the Victorian passion for stargazing.

'In 1903, The Manchester Astronomical Society

'was established, and still meets weekly

'in the Godlee Observatory.

'Kevin has brought along a precious treasure belonging to the Society.'

It was found in the Godlee Observatory, literally, in a cupboard.

We don't know exactly where the atlas came from,

but we do know that it was in our collection back in the early 1930s.

Now, Kevin, this looks like a remarkably interesting engraving.

In 1675, Greenwich Observatory had been founded

with a pure task of plotting the positions of all the stars

in the sky, to allow navigation to be simplified.

And John Flamsteed, who was the Astronomer Royal,

compiled a great catalogue of stars.

In 1745, Bevis, John Bevis, who was an amateur astronomer,

came along and decided to publish a better star atlas

than Flamsteed had done 30 years earlier.

So, this is the atlas that we see before us now,

but, unfortunately, because the publisher, John Neal,

went bankrupt, it was never completed.

So, what we've got here is something that has been said is a ghost book.

So, when we found one in Manchester in 1997,

we simply didn't know what it was.

Well, this brilliant.

It has got some absolutely stunning charts within it,

and it's interesting, when you get to the zodiac,

which is this plate, I think, isn't it?

Well, there are 51 star charts covering the whole of the sky,

but the main 12 actually depict the constellations that we're all

familiar with from our horoscopes.

Those are the constellation figures of the zodiac.

-It's a road map to the sky.

-It is, yes.

-Brilliant.

'It's an absolutely fascinating work, but what is it worth?

'All will be revealed later.

'It could, of course, all be written in the stars.'

'In 1819, developers began the transformation of a large

'patch of land in central Manchester,

'into what became an early theme park called Belle Vue.

'Derek has brought along a piece of history from one of the rides.'

The effigy on the side of the cab was like a dragon's head,

carved in timber, and I have one of those left.

Now, Derek, tell me about the history of Belle Vue in Manchester.

It was magical. If you wanted a good day out,

then you went to Belle Vue,

and, like Blackpool, you look out for, you know,

the first sighting was the tower.

Well, at Belle Vue, it was the Bobs, the huge roller-coaster ride.

But they had a slightly lesser ride called The Scenic Railway,

and that's where this came from.

Well, luckily enough, you've armed me with a photograph...

-I have, indeed.

-..of the scenic railway,

so basically we're talking about a ride...

-A roller-coaster ride, yeah.

-..that took you up and down slopes.

It was made to look like a mountain range, hence "Scenic Railway".

And how long did the Scenic Railway ride last?

-About 50 years.

-Oh, did it?

-I think it was constructed

around the late '20s, '28, something

like that, I think it was. It had had its day by about 1980,

so about the 50-year mark.

And what was your association with Belle Vue?

Did you just love it as a kid, or did you work there or what?

Oh, yeah, I was taken there as a child and loved it,

-but then I got to work there.

-Did you?

-Along with my father.

Now, where did you get this from, Derek?

Well, believe it or not, it was going to be burnt, so I asked

the chap in charge if I could have it, and he said, "By all means".

Well, that was very sharp of you, because this stuff is called

fairground art and it is a collectible.

'But how much would a collector pay for it? Find out later.'

'Right in front of our pitch at the flower festival

'is the city's historic theatre. But...'

Before it was the theatre, it was just The Royal Exchange,

and that's the old trading board where the cotton was traded,

and cotton is what this city was built upon.

'Of course, in the Georgian era, Manchester was part of Lancashire,

'And the whole county was bound up in Britain's cotton revolution.

'At Helmshore, two original textile mills have been restored,

'And Philip Butler is Curator of Industry and Technology.'

The story of Lancashire cotton is one of innovation

and entrepreneurial spirit that we'd never seen the likes of before.

The industry went very much from a handmade cotton industry

to a highly mechanised factory system in little over 150 years.

Weaving was innovated by the Flying Shuttle,

developed by John Kay in 1733,

and that, in turn, required additional yarn

to keep pace with the weavers who'd increased their productivity three and fourfold.

Developments in spinning came with James Hargreaves' Spinning Jenny,

and Richard Arkwright and the water frame in the 1760s,

and Samuel Crompton bringing these elements of these two inventions

together in the 1770's to create the Spinning Mule.

'Lancashire's cotton industry peaked just before the First World War.

'Now, stand by for some staggering stats -

'620,000 people were employed

'in over 4,000 mills

'and produced a stupendous 4.5 million miles

'of woven cotton cloth a year.

'That's mind boggling.'

All goods were traded through Manchester,

and what we need to remember is that the Lancashire cotton industry,

was a global market,

but it was catered for initially just by our county of Lancashire,

and this obviously made Manchester very rich.

Lancashire cotton industry boasted that it could close Britain

before breakfast and then spend the rest of the day closing the world.

'Philip is a passionate specialist in antique textiles from the area.'

Wow!

Look at that!

The absolute drama of these lovely geometric and bright colours.

I mean, this is just, Philip,

a revelation of what you would think would be

brand-new, modern, contemporary designs on fabric,

but they're not, are they?

No, everything you see in this book dates from 1845, Autumn season,

or, as we see here, Spring 1846.

We have this impression that the early Victorian period was sedate.

It was anything but.

These very loud patterns were highly fashionable.

We see them in fashion plates of the period.

Now, the great factor in Manchester is their inventiveness

when it comes to textile production,

and this material is something called a delaine, isn't it?

Yes, delaine was the English shortening of "mousseline de laine",

which was a luxury fabric invented in France.

The French version is all wool, but when it came to Manchester,

it was realised that they could make the warps in cotton

and use wool just for the weft, where it would show more.

And after this mechanical process perfected in Manchester,

the price per length of material presumably came down dramatically.

Certainly these would have been cheaper than the French delaines,

they would have competed very well in the marketplace and it would have

opened the market to the middle classes.

And for people to buy more dresses.

Exactly. Now, Philip, you've bought two of these volumes

from the collection at auction in 1998.

Do you mind my asking you how much you paid?

I offered £750 and that offer was accepted.

So what are they worth now? Find out later.

Next, we have a fascinating collection of letters

relating to Winston Churchill, brought along by Diane.

Now, Diane, who is Mr Murphy?

He's my uncle, my dad's brother.

He was his dispatch rider during the war.

-Was he?

-Personal dispatch rider, yeah.

So Winston Churchill had his own dispatch riders

and Douglas Murphy was one of those with the top secret messages?

-Yes. Yeah.

-Well, isn't that fascinating.

Yes, he's had an interesting life.

Anyway he's clearly keen on Winston Churchill

because these three letters all relate to correspondence

between Dougie and Winston Churchill and his family.

Here we've got a letter dated 1970 from Winston Churchill's widow,

Clementine Churchill. And here in '63 and '62 we have

letters from the private secretary, and the interesting thing

is that those three letters are, of course, absolutely genuine.

And if you use the magnifying glass and look at the form of the ink,

you can see that it's real ink

written in a script onto the paper.

And one of the giveaways between a genuine autograph letter

and something that's a facsimile is the fact that the letter is

-written and addressed to the addressee.

-Right.

These two letters have a facsimile signature system,

so sadly they're not the real thing.

Right.

If they'd been real, they'd be worth a few hundred pounds. £800 - £1,200,

-£1,000 - £1,500 but as facsimiles maybe £20 or £30 each.

-Yeah.

But I have to say, I rather like these letters, which are genuine.

I would estimate at auction the two letters from the secretaries

-could be worth between £50 and £80 each.

-Yeah.

And I think the letter from Clementine could

make as much as £100 to £150 - were you to want to sell them.

Probably won't, I don't think. Keep them in the family probably but...

-Exactly right, and that's a lovely thing to be able to pass on, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Pilkington's Pottery was produced locally between the 1890s

and the 1950s.

Today, it's a popular local collectible and Harper is a fan.

There's a large variety in the type of pots that Pilkington's made.

The range of works was so great that I'm still finding new pots

that I never knew existed.

Well, of course, it is a most interesting factory,

in the history of Manchester,

and, of course, the high quality of these things is amazing, isn't it?

Yes, I mean, it combines both chemistry of the era, getting

these spectacular glazes, together with fine art by artists,

who designed the shapes, designs, colours, everything else.

-Yes.

-So it's a marriage of the two.

Now, sometimes these are called bubble glaze,

and you've got, basically, a clay pot and you're covering

it in a glaze that you're firing in a kiln with a reduction process

so that you can get the temperature up and then get the temperature

down, and the changes in temperature does something to the glaze,

which gives it this very special iridescent quality.

I think it is absolutely gorgeous.

I love that kind of completely haphazard splodginess of it,

and the fact that it is an experimental glaze. Once they got

the mixture right and they'd seen it on a pot like this then they'd try

and replicate it on later pots and you'd then maybe produce a range.

Yeah.

During the same period, they're producing wares like this

which are modelled specifically in relief, in this case,

with dragons and when it comes to an impressed mark

they don't come any crisper than that one, do they?

-It's about the best I've ever seen.

-Exactly.

And the most desirable, for a lot of collectors, is the lustreware

-where you get this iridescent surface, isn't it?

-Yes.

And in this instance we've got a vase that's covered in a trellis,

and the trellis is in one colour of lustre that sits on top

of another lustrous colour, the pale blue underneath.

What is truly gorgeous, and you don't twig it, really,

until you actually handle the thing,

this is almost like a hare's foot glaze on a piece of

Chinese porcelain where you get this very fine streaking on it, and then,

because of the iridescent nature of it all, the light is refracted

in a different way.

It's an incredibly chic and subtle colour scheme, isn't it?

Yes, I mean, one little twitch of the brush

-and it would have been ruined.

-Exactly.

And it just goes to show the range of wares made by this

extraordinary Manchester factory.

None of our owners want to sell,

but what if they did want to cash in their treasures?

First, the Pilkington pottery.

When it comes to values, I guess that the big dragon vase might be

worth as much as maybe £500 to £800, something like that.

My big tip is for experimental glazes because these little

pots don't make a tremendous amount of money at auction.

You can buy an experimental glaze for £150 to £200,

and they have to go up in value.

These chaps, maybe between £450 and £600.

Get one that's got fish on it,

bit of seaweed and a few fish drifting around

and even a little pot like that will make £600 to £900.

Derek's piece of Belle Vue fairground art is valuable

salvage, rescued from a bonfire.

I reckon that this, with its connections,

particularly for Manchester and Belle Vue,

could bring as much as £400 to £600.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Well, that's superb.

-It's good, isn't it?

-That's very good.

-Particularly as you got it for nowt!

-Well, yeah, that does help.

I reckon Philip's marvellous Manchester textiles catalogues

have doubled in value since he bought them,

so in a specialist sale, they might reach £1,500 to £1,800.

Finally, the extraordinary star atlas.

We asked Robert Hall for his expert opinion.

Now, Robert, I know you're familiar with this book,

could you hazard an estimate?

Well, the last one we had made about £25,000 then but that was

a good eight years ago or more, so I think now...

and particularly because this one would be a very exciting copy

to come on the market, I should think

we'd be comfortably looking at about £30,000 or more or even

25 to 35. I think certainly somewhere in that ballpark.

Well, that's extremely kind of you and thank you very much.

I'm feeling rather starry-eyed myself.

That's interesting, isn't it?

Absolutely fantastic, but we're not going to sell it. It belongs

to Manchester Astronomical Society and to the people of Manchester.

Thank you very much, though, for bringing it along

and educating us some.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

What a great range of objects we've seen today here in Manchester,

and in such beautiful floral and fragrant surroundings,

you could say blooming marvellous.