Glasgow 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 I'm just up the road from Glasgow,

'at the Loch Lomond Shores Farmers' Market.

'Lots of lovely eager owners have come along

'to show us their interesting items...

This is a dream, isn't it?

I love it.

'..representing Glasgow's unique antiques heritage.'

They made this glass bubble in the furnace.

'And, of course,

'they want to find out what their precious objects are worth.'

Between £1,500 and £2,000.

£500-£800.

£40-£60.

'Have a guess at what

'this fabulous Glaswegian eye-catcher could fetch.'

It's in brilliant state, and it's a gorgeous subject.

In antiques circles, if you mention Glasgow,

you tend to think of Charles Rennie Mackintosh

or the Glasgow Boys.

But, of course, there's much more here than that.

This region is home to many famous names, objects and industries,

and one in particular stands out.

I'm driving through Glasgow,

a city spawned by the River Clyde

where shipbuilding once thrived.

And what an extraordinary place it is.

Extraordinary because of its history, and its scale.

Did you know that, at its peak,

a fifth of all the world's ships were built here?

Liners like the QE2 took shape at John Brown's Yard.

Around 30,000 ships in all were built and launched

for cargo, pleasure and war,

and that meant work for tens of thousands on the river.

Just a few short miles from the industrial Clyde

lie the beautiful banks of Loch Lomond,

and that's where I'm headed, bright and early, to beat the rush.

'The farmers' market's in full swing,

'with plenty of plucky locals braving the elements.'

-I've had it for 20, 25 years, you know?

-Yes.

'Hard to imagine that in the 18th and 19th centuries,

'this area was taken up with bleaching fields and textile works.

'Our first object was produced right here in the Vale of Leven,

'quite possibly by this company.

'It's a vibrant Victorian bedspread,

'and was spotted in a Glasgow flea market by eagle-eyed Freda.'

Freda, this is a dream, isn't it?

I love it.

-You love it?

-It never fades.

This is called Turkey Redwork,

because the colour, this delicious and incredibly rich red colour.

Look at that, at the back, where it's just plain.

It's amazing, isn't it?

We're talking about something here that was probably printed

-around 1900, maybe 1880-1900.

-Yes.

The colour comes from the root of a madder

and you extract alizarin,

which is a difficult thing to extract from the root.

But, having got that, you mix it

with gum, oil, sheep's urine,

with dung, ha,

which fixes the colour.

What it is a tour de force of the printer's art,

and each one of those colours has to be inked and printed from a block.

And that block is then refreshed

and placed on a particular part of the cloth.

And then removed and re-coloured

and then placed on the same piece of cloth

to overlay that colour again.

And when you think about it,

the skills that existed in this part of the world

enabling this complicated printing process to work,

where the register has to be just so perfect

is very, very difficult.

I bought it about 20 years ago,

and it was Paddy's Market

and if I paid £2

-that would have been an expensive purchase...

-Really?

..from Paddy's Market. £2?

-Yes, about that.

-Well, I think you'd get a bit more than £2 for it today,

were you to ever want to sell it.

I think, in an appropriate auction, here in Scotland, in Glasgow,

you'd be quite likely to get, maybe, £40-£60, £50-£70,

-something like that.

-Not bad, yes.

Something to tuck you up and keep you warm in the winter.

'Next up, this delightful Scottish painting called Down By The Sea,

'which for the last 30 years,

'has provided endless pleasure to Sandy from Bearsden.'

The thing I liked about it was, when I was a wee boy,

the first summer holiday that my parents took us to

was the Ayrshire coast,

and the beach here is just like the places that we went to.

And I've a nice memory of my brothers and I playing there,

-cos my brothers are not all around now.

-Right.

-So, it's...

It means a lot.

Did you build sandcastles down there?

-We did.

-You did.

-I did.

-My brothers knocked them down.

Oh, they knocked them down.

-Yes, naughty brothers.

-So, that's what it's like.

-Yes, exactly.

And you decorated them with seaweed on the top, didn't you?

-Absolutely.

-Lovely.

So, William Miller Frazer is one of those artists

-who specialised in just this sort of scene.

-Yes, indeed.

And he loved it on the West Coast of Scotland,

-so, it is, undoubtedly, the West Coast of Scotland.

-Is it well.

-But what this man did was to have a bright and jolly palette...

-Yes.

..which is what we've got here.

And the medium is oil on canvas.

Frazer painted a few watercolours,

but, principally, he's a man that favours

this very lose, sort of impressionistic style.

And it had a number one advantage to him

in that painting with thin oils, which is what he's done,

enabled him to work very quickly.

And you can see that, in part, if you look behind,

because you can see the expanse of canvas

and then, in front, the light actually coming through it.

So, there's not a lot of...working up of layers of oil

to create an effect.

His effect is essentially very, very quick

and it's on the surface.

And, by jingo, it worked,

because this man exhibited for 78 consecutive years

at the Royal Scottish Academy.

Of course, Sandy, this is a very commercial picture.

On its most superficial level,

it's a picture that pleases the eye

which is always a good feature.

There are lots of people who would love to have this

hanging on their wall, because it is such an attractive subject.

'So, how much would you pay for such a charming painting?

'Find out my valuation later on.'

'Glasgow is full of impressive architecture,

'with buildings recalling its importance

'as a centre for trade and industry.

'This handsome structure is

'the Kelvingrove Art Gallery And Museum,

'which showcases the local manufacture of glass.

'Within the collection is some Clutha Glass,

'invented by James Couper and Sons in the Victorian age.

'Alison Brown, Curator of Decorative Arts, is a modern-day expert.'

-Tell me, Clutha is the name of the type of glass they produced...

-Yes.

This art glass, but where does that name come from?

Well, some say it's the Scots Gaelic for the River Clyde,

but, actually, its origins go back to the second century AD,

and it seems to stem from the word clota, which means fast flowing,

which actually seems a very apt name to apply for molten glass.

And it appears in a Roman map of that time for clota, for the Clyde.

'Coupers' smart move was to commission

'the well-travelled, industrial design guru,

'Dr Christopher Dresser.'

He's bringing with him to this glass

a sense of the sort of Central American designs,

as well as looking to Roman origins.

You're looking to some of the shapes that he employs,

-you're looking more to sort of Peruvian and Japanese.

-Yeah.

And he was, basically, aiming to create simple, simple wares,

simply-designed wares,

that hasn't got too much imposed on them.

So, with the glass, it's allowing the qualities of the glass

to be expressive.

For the worker to, basically, make something very quickly,

in a few seconds, to shape it in a few seconds,

rather than it to become a laboured piece

that's in the factory using sort of more mechanical processes.

So, he's celebrating the craftsmanship of the glass blower.

'Some designers preferred symmetry...

'but not Dresser.'

So, Alison, what is special about this dish?

Well, this is a lovely example of early Clutha glass,

and you can see with the way that

the shape has a gorgeous flow about it.

So, there's a whole idea of Clutha and molten,

you can see this is worked by the glass-maker's hand.

It's very simple.

You've got this rather large dramatic brown swirl in the centre,

which, in a way, emphasises the actual spinning process

of creating the glass in itself.

You've got the little characteristic opal white streaks

running through the glass. And here, in this one,

you've got quite chunky silver metallic inclusions.

This is part of the range that Dresser designed for Liberty's

and registered on the 6th June in 1888.

There seems to be a very faint acid-etched mark here.

Well, this is the mark for Liberty and basically it says

Clutha, Designed, CD Registered

and it has the little lotus flower in the middle.

So, Registered CD means registered Christopher Dresser,

-so this is a genuine Dresser-designed piece.

-Yes.

Very few were marked.

'So, Dressers' marks and designs may not always be clearly identifiable,'

'but there are telltale clues.

'David's the owner of this piece.

'He has a thing about glass.'

I do collect glass.

I love the form and the manufacturing process

and beauty of glass.

And that's one of my best pieces.

Well, David, this is a most peculiar-looking glass pot.

This piece of glass displays all those characteristics.

It is incredibly thinly blown

and it's lightweight

as a result of there being very little metal or glass in it.

And it does display, in spades,

the bubbled and extraordinary nature of this overheated glass.

They made this glass bubble in the furnace,

so that when it was taken out and it solidified,

those air bubbles are all within it.

And everything else that we saw in the Kelvingrove Collections

are displayed, in that piece, in spades.

I absolutely adore it.

'But how much might you have to pay for such a beautiful piece?

'I will reveal all later.'

'Kelvingrove houses not only beautiful Scottish glass,

'and one of Europe's great art collections,

'but the extraordinary building is also celebrated on souvenirs,

'like this commemorative plate,

'brought to us by Gordon.'

We do enjoy having a few collectables

and we go to antique fairs

and we have things we've,

over the years, from family.

The International Empire Exhibition in 1901

was supposed to commemorate

50 years since the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.

If you visit an exhibition, you want to take home a souvenir

and Bell's Glasgow Pottery twigged that

and produced a whole lot of commemorative things like this dish.

-Yes.

-Now, if we turn it over,

we can see on the back stamp you've got an impressed bell...

-Yes.

-..which is nice.

And then a transfer printed back stamp for Bell's Pottery,

which went from about 1840, 1841

till about 1929.

And, principally, they produced wares, like this,

in earthenware that were transfer printed,

just like what was being produced in Stoke on Trent.

So, a very, very competitive marketplace.

What I like about it is it's cheaply produced,

-but look how clear that transfer print is.

-Yes.

-It's brilliant, isn't it?

-It's done in Italian...

-Spanish, Spanish...

-Yes.

-..architecture

But it seemed to be, come over as the impression of being

more Oriental in appearance.

When you go to Kelvingrove today,

and you look at those towers and minarets,

there is something about the Orient and Spain.

-Yes.

-It's an odd mixture.

But here, we've got the pavilions of the exhibition,

-through which 11 million people went in barely six months.

-Yes.

-I mean, it's unbelievable, isn't it?

-It is, it's astounding.

This is a good-sized dish,

and I guess, if you were to want to sell this in Glasgow today,

you could get the top end of £50 for it.

I think this is the most appropriate thing

that we could possibly wish to find in the Glasgow region.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you, pleasure.

'This is Glasgow Cathedral,

'otherwise known as St Mungo's.

'He's the city's very own patron saint.

'It dates back to the 12th century,

'but in 1910, the medieval choir roof underwent major restoration.

'On the outside, copper replaced lead.

'On the inside, a team of master craftsmen

'recreated the carvings of the original designs.

'I asked Adrian Cox, archaeologist for Historic Scotland,

'to show me their handiwork close-up.'

Now, Adrian, these bosses are extraordinary, aren't they?

They're wonderful.

Deep relief carvings and, probably, in the old oak,

because we know they re-used as much of the original oak

as they possibly could.

So, we have a barrel vault

that was effectively completely removed and restored around 1910.

Yes. There was a survey beforehand.

The chap in charge was the Principal Architect of Scotland,

a man called William Oldrieve.

He did a complete survey of the roof timbers in 1909.

Decided, really, the best thing to do was a complete restoration job.

The roof had become unstable, was decaying,

so he really started from scratch

but using the evidence from the timbers that he'd found.

So, the skill-base of the carvers in 1910

capable of reproducing something that is medieval is extraordinary.

Yeah, this work is a real testament to the skill of

-the carvers and carpenters in the Edwardian period.

-Yeah.

-Cos if you look at that boss, this is made of old oak...

-Yeah.

-..potentially...

-Yes.

-..but definitely a hardwood.

-Yes.

That craftsman has taken a tool

and he's created the undercutting.

That's the cutting underneath the solid

-so that you get some texture, light and shade.

-That's right.

You get a bit of detail here

which is the spine of this organic growth

that's tightly drawn together.

I mean, it's an extraordinary thing.

And apart from all the carved bosses,

there are 27 figural studies in wood up here too, aren't there?

And the one that we can see easily here is the nativity.

The nativity, that's right.

That's really the first of the sequence of the life of Christ.

It goes all the way to the far east end,

where there's the crucifixion and, eventually, the ascension.

I mean, if you went and looked at, I don't know,

-important German Rhinish carvings...

-Yes.

..from the 13th or 14th centuries,

they would just like these.

They would. Yes, it's, you know, it's incredible work, isn't it?

To copy the medieval style, the gothic...

-I know.

-..and to do it so well.

They took pride in their work, didn't they?

'John Vickery was one of the highly-skilled carpenters

'who worked on Glasgow Cathedral's roof.

'His tool box has been inherited by his grandsons,

'and Andrew has brought it in to be valued.'

Do you use any of these chisels yourself?

I don't, but my cousin Alec, who has them now, he has used some.

-Has he?

-Uh-huh, he has.

-Well, there we are.

I mean, it's an amazing selection, I have to say.

Some 60 chisels, which are of a great variety.

Beautifully crafted with hardwood handles,

and they all vary tremendously,

because each of these shapes,

when it comes to the cutting edge, are different.

Enabling your grandfather to give, for example,

the carving in that cathedral roof all that variety.

It's amazing really.

'For a specialist's opinion on the Victorian tool box,

'we're hooking up with

'Leicestershire auctioneer Ian Stanley

'to show him some of the contents.'

I found this little plane.

-The thumb piece is in rosewood, it's beautifully crafted.

-Yes.

Would that be a candidate for one of your auctions?

It would be. I would imagine it's worth £40-£60

or something in that area.

Very good. And then, what do you make of that, Ian?

That's a good..

a good smoothing plane, steel smoothing plane.

Again, probably with rosewood infill and brass lever,

it's worth 50, 60, maybe £70.

-Gosh.

-The kit as a whole is...

..should be kept as a kit.

In our catalogue we would put an estimate of £400-£600 on it.

£400-£600.

-Thank you.

-Thank you, thank you very much.

Well, that's marvellous, isn't it? Is that a surprise to you?

Very surprised because we had never thought about value

and...they were just Grandfather's tools.

'Awfully friendly around here

'and more than willing to show off

'their personal treasures and heirlooms,

'whatever the weather.

'Here's Kate with her favourite figurine.'

My great-grandmother was a Newhaven fishwife

-and they came from Newhaven.

-She never was?

-She did, yes.

Must have been a hard life but...

And so this is a family piece.

So, from my great-grandmother to my grandmother, to my aunt, to me.

-Gosh, so very precious then, actually.

-Yes.

It depicts a lady carrying her catch.

There they are, the fish in this hod on her back

as she goes off to market.

And if we turn it upside down,

it says, sure enough, Newhaven Fishwife.

So, correct me if I'm wrong,

but Newhaven is the fishing port just outside Edinburgh.

Correct.

And this Newhaven fishwife has landed the catch that morning,

her husband has,

and she's off to market, a mile and a half into Edinburgh,

-to sell her fresh fish.

-Yes.

Well, the fact that it's got the back stamp on it for Royal Doulton

tells us the factory.

And, actually, it's quite a rare Royal Doulton figure.

It was modelled by a man called Fenton,

and he did it in 1930,

-and then it went out in production from 1931-1936.

-Oh.

So a relatively short period of time.

And this comes from Doulton's 1930s range of street sellers.

Sometimes you get figures that have balloons,

they have a model of...of a potter.

-I didn't know that.

-They have a model of various people

going about their trade in the streets.

And, if we look underneath,

you can see it says, "Potted by Doulton & Co,"

which is rather a nice script signature,

as well as the green back stamp.

As well as this number, which is the HN number,

which is the code number.

-Have you ever had it looked at, do you know what it's worth?

-No.

You don't?

'It's a delightful little piece,

'so what would a collector pay for it?

'All will be revealed in a wee while.'

While the men were labouring in the shipyards,

Singer opened their new sewing machine plant in Clydebank,

offering plentiful jobs to women in the late 1800s.

Workers came by train from Glasgow

to make industrial and domestic machines for the masses.

This lot look sharp.

This is the Needle Department in 1912, ha.

By the 1960s, 16,000 people were employed.

The Clydebank Museum has all the models,

including this rare Singer Number 1,

complete with its original packing case.

Then there's the curious looking Number 35,

which was used to stitch pieces of carpet together.

'But I'm rather fond of the type John's brought in for valuation.'

It's all concealed very neatly inside this treadle base.

It's technically an incredible gadget, isn't it?

It is indeed, yes.

I mean, millions of these were made.

In fact, this model, the 15K,

was in production for over a hundred years.

And, apparently, from the serial number,

you can decode the Scottish ones,

so that we know that this was made in that Clydebank factory...

-..which his amazing, isn't it?

-It is indeed.

And in 1913, they made 1.3 million of these machines in Scotland.

-Fantastic.

-Quite something, isn't it?

It was a huge factory.

-I've never been there.

-No...

-Passed it many times.

And I guess, if you're a woman

with very little in the way of economic advantage,

but you're an average seamstress,

owning one of these machines, you could earn money.

So, at the time, this is better than a computer.

And do you know what this thing is likely to be worth?

No idea at all.

It's a very difficult thing to value, John,

and I would guess, in this kind of condition,

if you put it in an auction, and you were really, really lucky,

and the wind was right under your tail

you might get £50 for it.

-I was thinking ten.

-Ten?

Ah, well, you're better off than that.

But what's great about it is, it's an iconic object,

it's Scottish made,

it came from the factory just down the road.

And I think it tells the most amazing story,

-so thanks for bringing it in.

-My pleasure.

'And now, to this wonderful painting

'which puts Glasgow firmly on the antiques map.

'It's owned by Barbara who absolutely loves it...

'And who wouldn't?'

My father bought it at least 70 years ago.

Of all my possessions, that would be the last thing to go.

What do you love most about it?

I think it's the exquisite little faces...

the flowers,

and I just think they're delightful.

This painting's by Edward Hornel

who's one of those famous Glasgow Boys.

The artists who were in a sort of loose association

at the end of the 19th, early part of the 20th century

-who were Scotland's answer to the impressionists really.

-They were.

And that is one of the glorious features of this painting,

is Hornel's deft use of very thick impasto paint.

And then getting that delicacy of little faces.

Exactly. So, we have, effectively and crudely, great gobs of paint

which are, you feel, quite violently applied to the canvass.

-But the overall effect is soft and enchanting.

-Yes.

And his balance of colour, the interplay of light,

these children messing about

like children love to mess about, don't they?

-A little group here, look...

-Yes.

-..in a huddle.

She's telling her a bit of a secret.

-This one looks a bit wilful.

-Yes.

She's going off on a mission alone.

-And this girl's playing possum, she's pretending to be dead...

-Yes.

-..but perhaps her sister is having a laugh about.

-She is, she is.

And the other great thing about it is the scale and shape.

Because it's a broad landscape like this,

-it's a lovely furnishing picture.

-Yes.

And, looking at the back, I can see all the original patination,

-it's a bit dusty.

-Yes, very.

It's in brilliant state and it's a gorgeous subject.

Have you got any idea what you think it might be worth?

I'm not going to sell it,

so I don't know what today's value would be.

'But if any of our owners did want to sell,

'what could they hope for?

'First, David's glorious piece of Clutha glass.'

You bought it ten years ago.

Can you remember what you paid?

It was about £500, which was quite a lot of money at the time.

Well, I can reassure you, you made a sound investment ten years ago

in investing your £500,

because I think today, in the right sale,

you'd be likely to get between £1,500 and £2,000 for it.

-Oh, excellent.

-So, as they say, bravo.

-Thank you, that's very nice news. Thank you.

-Pleasure.

'Sandy's Frazer picture has a lot going for it.'

This would have an auction value

of between, probably, £1,500-£2,000.

And I think, if you were insuring it,

you should insure it for, I don't know, £3,000, something like that.

That's grand.

'Actually, I said three grand!

'Now, Kate's Newhaven fishwife is rare

'but let down by a tiny bit of damage.'

If you'd come to me five or eight years ago,

I would say to you this is worth £1,500 in perfect condition,

which is a lot of money for a Doulton figure, let me tell you.

But because of the hairline crack and the decline in value,

you might only, today, get, perhaps, £500-£800...

-but it's still a lovely thing to inherit.

-Yes.

-And you're going to cherish it.

-I am.

Who are you going to pass it on to?

-To my daughter, to my oldest daughter, yes.

-Lovely.

Lucky old daughter.

-Well, that would buy a lot of fish.

-Well, it would, wouldn't it?

She's not in the fish business herself, is she?

Not yet. THEY LAUGH

'And what about Barbara's treat of a Glasgow Boys painting?

'Where would you put its value?'

For my eye, because it's fresh to the market,

and it's a gorgeous shape and a gorgeous colour

and a gorgeous subject,

I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get, maybe £18,000-£22,000,

would be my estimate.

And, for us, visiting Glasgow on the Great Antiques Map of Britain,

it's a great thing to see right here today,

-and thank you very much.

-Oh, you're welcome.

Well, I have had the most cracking time here in Scotland.

Ha! Onwards and upwards!