Antiques Centres

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After three lockdowns but also a successful start in 2020, in April this year Graham Hessell finally threw open the doors to his Melford Antiques, Interiors & Lifestyle Centre.

A reopened museum and a steady run of appearances on TV have boosted sales at two Cambridge centres.

Uncertainty still affects fairs but antiques centres are benefiting from extra visitors

A former Victorian picture house in the Kent town of Herne Bay which now serves as an antique furniture and collectables centre was pulled from auction last month.

Following the closure earlier this year of the Pickering Antiques Centre in North Yorkshire, which opened in 2018, manager Mark Witherington has found a new home in the town for some of the dealers.

Michael Mills and his family, the new owners of the now renamed Antiques & Retro Antiques Centre at Hemswell Cliff, launched their business on May 1.

Antiques on High Cumbrian branch now open

Spotlight on businesses in the bustling antiques havens of Suffolk and Norfolk

Tony Wittridge is so smitten with the antiques business he is opening in the grounds of Kyre Park, a large country estate at Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire, that he is planning a move to the county from Essex.

Dorking Antiques was launched last August by three dealers: Mark Holden, Eddie Hawkins and David Whalley.

After three lockdowns but also a successful auction launch last August in between closures, Graham Hessell will be throwing open the doors once again to his Melford Antiques, Interiors & Lifestyle Centre on April 12.

Vincent Page, owner of Antiques on High in Oxford and Sidmouth, has turned his sights northwards.

“Due to our digital presence with our website, social media and the live virtual shopping tours I have been conducting all over the world my skeleton team of 10 staff have been kept extremely busy.”

Adrian Gilmour, co-owner of the Hungerford Arcade, is thrilled at news that non-essential retail can reopen in April.

A jewellery dealer for 28 years, Jane Finnegan owns Durham House Antiques in Stow-on-the Wold, an antiques centre which she bought two years ago.

A summer boom sent property prices soaring by up to 20% in some rural areas of Norfolk as buyers moved out of commuter-land to what is described in estate agent-speak as ‘lifestyle-sustainable’. We talk to four antiques business in the county.

Firms in tier 1 enjoyed good trading in December but are now back in lockdown.