Latest News Articles by Joan Porter
Chance discovery at auction inspires Suffolk dealer to launch a book of historic views
12 June 2017A Suffolk antiques dealer who bought a cache of 19th and 20th century photographs and postcards of his home town at auction has used them to good effect by publishing a pictorial record in a book.
It’s teatime at Two C’s
12 June 2017Fully booked with 90 standholders at the luxury Chateau Impney Hotel at Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire is Two C’s Antiques Fairs’ summer fair on Saturday and Sunday, June 17-18.
Harleston market takes to the road for the fourth time
12 June 2017The prolific 18th century writer Daniel Defoe, of Robinson Crusoe fame, wrote poetically of the River Waveney which forms the 50-mile boundary of the Waveney Valley between Norfolk and Suffolk.
End-of-the-revived-pier show roars into Hastings
12 June 2017Six years after the Victorian Hastings Pier was gutted by fire, it reopened last year after a £14m redevelopment. The funding included £11m from the Heritage Lottery Fund as well as monies raised locally and regionally.
Handmade ceramics charging into Nottinghamshire event
12 June 2017Figurative sculptor Christy Keeney from Donegal, Ireland, has been an exhibitor at the Earth and Fire International Ceramic Fair in Nottinghamshire for 16 of the 22 annual events held so far.
Three country house car boot sales coming up
05 June 2017The country house car boot season, mostly held to raise funds for charities, is dominated by the mammoth annual fixture held in the grounds of Wilton House, near Salisbury, the seat of the Earls of Pembroke.
Latest annual Salvo fair in Oxfordshire exhibits a homing instinct
05 June 2017It’s a full-on ‘green’ home theme for this year’s annual architectural salvage fest at the Fawley Hill Estate near Henley-on-Thames.
Go to church and go shopping in France
05 June 2017The 18th century Église St Sulpice in Paris’ 6th arrondissement is one of the city’s most ornate churches, full of architectural and ornamental masterpieces.
New events with eastern promise
30 May 2017The fairs scene is largely thriving, as evidenced by the number of new event launches reported in Antiques Trade Gazette. This week brings news of two more, both in the east of England.
Serve up teapots and tankards in York
30 May 2017An early rare Lowestoft teapot and cover and a pair of 19th century glass marriage tankards from York are just two of the highlights at the third annual York Antiques, Decoratives & Fine Arts Fair.
Leaving it late is just what fair organiser Adams wants
30 May 2017Matthew Adams has announced that he has been able to fit in an extra date in June for his monthly Sunday antiques fairs held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London’s SW1.
On the hunt at Bexhill fair
30 May 2017A stand-out 1930s Art Deco onyx table lamp from Belgium is one of the highlights of Style 1900’s 20th Century Decorative Arts Fair. It will be held at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on- Sea in East Sussex on Saturday and Sunday, June 17-18.
The force is strong with new eclectic antiques fair
22 May 2017If you don’t know which epic film opens with the phrase ‘A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….’ then you may just be living on a different planet.
Silver swan talk glides into West Dean’s art festival
22 May 2017An 18th century silver mechanical lifesize musical swan that catches a fish out of a crystal stream entranced Mark Twain when he saw it an exhibition in Paris in 1867.
Bavarian’s views of Dickensian London from Ephemera Society dealer
22 May 2017A sketchbook by the Bavarian artist Georg Johann Scharf (1788-1860) was discovered recently by ephemera dealer Valerie Jackson-Harris at the Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park.
Oxford antiques centre goes very, very green
22 May 2017Last October we reported that Oxford’s Antiques on High’s owner, antiquarian book dealer Tony Sloggett, wanted to retire and find a new owner for the antiques centre which has traded in the city for 20 years. The situation remains unchanged, however, and it is business as usual at the centre for now.
Stonor House boosts the car booters
22 May 2017Built from the 13th century onwards and the ancestral home and seat of the Stonor family for more than eight centuries, Stonor House near Henley-on-Thames is the backdrop for the biannual country house boot held in the parklands of the estate.
Capture your Kodak moments at annual London photography fair
15 May 2017Just as CDs and then downloads led to warnings of the demise of vinyl, the vintage camera collecting field was also predicted to be affected with the advancement of digital cameras. But both collecting fields are far from dead.
The Mammoth: world’s biggest camera features in 'The Ingenious Victorians'
15 May 2017One of the cameras mentioned in John Wade’s fascinating new book 'The Ingenious Victorians' is the Mammoth.
Rome around to Sunday antiques fairs
15 May 2017The ancient Romans believed that no matter what happened in the world or how many empires came and collapsed, Rome would live forever. Hence its description by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC as the Eternal City.