Fairs and Markets

Travel broadens the mind, they say. Busy dealer John Read Smith believes it.

Written in 1960, Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls broke the silence on sex in a socially repressive Ireland, seen through the lives of Kate and Baba, two young Irish country girls yearning for love who move from rural Ireland to Dublin to find it.

‘Come one, come all to 'Masterpiece', buying ground for the best and rest.’ Such, in essence, is the rallying cry of Harry Apter, co-founder of the premier London fair, which has its eighth run from June 29-July 5.

Stock-buying trips prove successful for one American as she heads back to Blighty once more...

The city of Council Bluffs is the seat of Pottawattamie County in IOWA and takes its name from the Potawatomi Native American tribe.

John Slade of Take Five Fairs has regretfully had to cancel all his future Tolworth A3 antiques and collectables fairs held at the Tolworth Recreation Centre, near Kingston in Surrey.

The Charing Cross Collectors’ Market, at the bottom of Villiers Street, near Charing Cross Station, has to be one of the longest running niche fairs in London.

Every year in July the railings on tree-lined Josephine Avenue in Brixton become a vibrant space; an open-air gallery exhibiting more than 1000 pieces of work from over 200 artists, printmakers and photographers.

A quintessential English village is how Buriton, near Petersfield in east Hampshire might be described. It nestles at the foot of the South Downs and boasts two pubs, a church, a large village pond with ducks and a village hall.

BADA has just unveiled plans for a smaller fair, BADA Collection at the Lanesborough, to launch in October (ATG No 2295). So here we ask: do smaller, more select fairs make better business sense?

Fully 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.

The 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.

Sue Norman is a practised hand at The Art & Antiques Fair Olympia (June 26-July 2). As an exhibitor at this west London event for 36 uninterrupted years, she knows the show well, is familiar with the crowd it attracts and approaches it strategically.

Norwich dealer James Brett vowed to continue dealing when he sold 300 pieces of stock at a Sworders sale in 2010. He has been good to his word and this year returns to Olympia for the first time in seven years. ATG spoke to Brett about his business and the wider market.