After her untimely death on January 9, 2020, her personal kitchen and dairy collection of over 300 items was donated to the Jacobean Kiplin Hall and Gardens near Catterick in North Yorkshire, according to her wishes.
However, the other items from her vast collection of stock will now come for sale at The Canterbury Auction Galleries on April 12-13.
Marchant first became a dealer in 1980, having worked at an antiques shop, Chattels, in Camden Passage, north London. Specialising in kitchen objects, she was a regular at the weekly Covent Garden market and the summer Olympia fair.
Items from her collection were sometimes hired out and used on television. Comedian Victoria Wood used them on the set of her soap opera parody, Acorn Antiques, during the mid-80s.
Examples from Victorian and earlier kitchens, dairies, and grocers’ and butchers’ shops will now be offered in 624 lots carrying an overall estimate of £100,000.
The late dealer Annie Marchant.
Marchant was the only child of Betty and John Marchant who farmed in Wingham and Ash, Kent. When her father died in 1985 and her mother two years later, she moved back to the family home, Wenderton, a large farmhouse that was perfect for showcasing her large collection.
The kitchen there was transformed back to the Victorian era with scrubbed pine tables and chairs.
A corner of Annie’s kitchen at Wenderton showing some of the objects in the auction.
Her will included many substantial bequests to charities, cousins and friends but with no immediate family, she left instructions that her collection be donated to a museum together with a substantial financial sum to ensure its safekeeping. Kiplin Hall was the successful applicant. The Canterbury Auction Galleries sale is by instruction from her executor.
