Antiques Centres

THE organisers of The Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair have announced that they have chosen the 75th anniversary to take the event in a new direction. New disciplines brought in by a raft of new dealers will help broaden the appeal for today's collectors, says the fair's director Alison Vaissiere.

DEALERS at Antiquarius have been left looking for a new home after the final death knells were sounded for the King’s Road antiques centre last week.

One of the largest and longest-established antiques centres in the UK, Gloucester Antiques Centre, will be moving to a new dockside location after planning permission has been granted for relocation nearby.

ANY remaining hope that The Mall in Camden Passage might remain as an antiques centre has vanished after a government inspectorate ruled in favour of the landlord’s redevelopment proposals.

DEALERS at Antiquarius say they are “devastated” after learning that they could be evicted within the next few months. It emerged last week that the landlords of the West London antiques centre have signed an agreement which will see the premises on the King’s Road, Chelsea become an American fashion chain store as early as this summer.

THE future of The Mall antiques centre in Camden Passage looks set to hang in the balance until well into 2009 following the public inquiry into the landlord’s proposals to redevelop the Grade II listed building.

WORK to restore the Art Deco facade of Alfies Antique Market in London’s Marylebone has now been finished to much acclaim from the local area.

THE owners of the King’s Road antiques centre Antiquarius have had their plans to redevelop the premises rejected by the council for the second time.

HENLEY Antiques Centre may close at the end of September if the Grade II Listed building in Reading Road is sold to Henley-based property developer Nicolas Piasecki for a sum thought to be in the region of £1m.

THE embattled dealers at Antiquarius have cautiously welcomed the news that the Kensington and Chelsea council have rejected the landlords’ application to redevelop part of the antiques centre.

Talbot Walk Antique Centre of Ripley, Surrey is to relocate to Dorking where it will take over the building currently trading as Great Grooms Antique Centre at 51-52 West Street.

Burglars made off with a large cache of Doulton figures and silver in a sophisticated raid on Bagham Barn Antiques of Chilham, Kent last month.

EASTER weekend saw the opening of The Antiques Storehouse at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

A LARGE number of dealers at Antiquarius in London’s King’s Road will have to quit the premises next year following the landlord’s decision to redevelop half the property.

THE antiques and collectors fairs at Alexandra Palace will not be returning following a breaking off in negotiations between the organisers and the venue’s new owners.

TRACEY Emin, who recently launched a scathing attack on Tower Hamlets Council after it granted a licence for a controversial three-month “city beach bar” in a car park yards from her Spitalfields home, is a regular visitor to Spitalfields Antiques Market, most recently looking for a tiara to wear to charity balls.

“Dealers in fear of a turfing-out” ran the story in ATG No 1722, January 14, which told the story of the Somerton Antiques Centre, home to 27 dealers.

DAN Godfrey is opening an antiques and collectables centre at the Grade 2 Listed late-18th century watermill at Barton Le Clay, north of Luton in Bedfordshire.

ROBERT Dodd is the director and auctioneer at Greenwich Auctions Partnership, in the Old Woolwich Road, just a cough away from the River Thames.

LAST month at Hemswell Antiques Centres in Gainsborough, north of Lincoln, whose website proclaims it to be the largest antiques centre in Europe with 300 dealers in three buildings and 1000 antiques available online, ten of the centres’ customers were offered the opportunity to learn about antique furniture from an experienced dealer.