Group rebrand under Dreweatt Neate name

They have also announced that their Tavistock saleroom, formerly Robin A. Fenner, will now merge with the Honiton office and all future sales in the West Country will be held in Honiton.

Rebranding means that while the Fine Art Auction Group continue as a holding company for the UK’s largest firm of regional auctioneers, the names of Bristol Auction Rooms, Bracketts Fine Art Auctioneers, Edgar Horn’s, and Honiton Galleries will disappear from the auction scene to become Dreweatt Neate salerooms.

Customers of all salerooms will soon be contacted to be appraised of the changes, and new signs will appear above the door at each set of rooms by the end of April. The group have also launched a new website; www.dnfa.com, currently covering only the Donnington Priory salerooms, but shortly to be rolled out for all other saleroom locations.

Group chief executive Mike Thoms explained his thinking behind the widely-anticipated move to the Antiques Trade Gazette: “The national and international reputation of Dreweatt Neate is one of [our] undeniable strengths. Renaming… is part of our strategy to compete in the UK regional market on a more co-ordinated basis, which allows us to offer all of the advantages of a network of salerooms without diluting our local strengths. Personnel continuity will ensure that the renaming is a seamless process.”

Some of the rooms that now come under the new banner have been a feature of the regional market for many years. Bracketts, now Dreweatt Neate Tunbridge Wells, have been holding fine art auctions in the Pantiles since 1886, Edgar Horn’s have been part of the Eastbourne landscape for over 75 years, while Bristol Auction Rooms have been a leading name in the Bristol area since assuming their current format 14 years ago.

“We will be sorry to say goodbye to some of the old saleroom names,” said Mr Thoms. “However, we believe that the Dreweatt Neate name above the door, as an internationally recognised name, will further strengthen our business.”