Regional Fairs

SOON after setting up on Friday morning a few weeks ago at Shepton Mallet a flash flood swept through the Edmund Rack building leaving stallholders hastily packing up again and huddling by the entrance.

JAY Fairs’ Joy O’Meara is holding her Winter Antiques and Collectors’ Fleamarket at Didcot Civic Hall, Didcot, Oxfordshire on Sunday October 8.

A LONGSTANDING tradition going back over 30 years has resulted in an annual antiques fair in Cranleigh, Surrey supporting Leonard Cheshire, the UK’s largest charity for the disabled, which takes place this year on Saturday October 14 at Cranleigh Village Hall.

EVER since the recognition in 1855 of the potential of a 93-acre site close to the Devon town of Newton Abbot, there’s been a fine tradition of competitive horseracing.

FINCHCOCKS, a Georgian mansion near Goudhurst in Kent, now the Finchcocks Music Museum, is home to owner and pianist Richard Burnett’s collection of more than 100 historic keyboard instruments, many in full playing condition.

BEYOND France is the name of Maud Lombard’s linen company, but it is actually Hungary where Maud sources her homespun, handspun vintage linens in and around the village of Nagynyarad in the south west of the country, near the city of Pecs.

EAST Anglia's top fairs circuit, Lomax Antiques Fairs, has been sold to John Harbottle, a regular exhibitor at Lomax events.

BRUSSELS FAIR PREVIEW Over 100 dealers – half from abroad – will gather in Brussels from June 8-12.

AS Easter approaches life is picking up apace on the provincial fairs scene.

“SWINDERBY goes it alone, a week before Newark,” was the headline in the ATG’s October 23 issue last year. With dmg’s Newark ditching their Monday and Tuesday slot in favour of a Thursday to Saturday event (February 3-5) this put Swallow Fairs’ at RAF Swinderby a full week ahead with their Thursday to Sunday show on January 28-30.

“FAIRS here are not as big by any means as those in the UK. The biggest regular fairs would have between 30 and 45 dealers and even the annual equivalent of a LAPADA fair would only have about 40 dealers or so.”

Whether you are an aficionado of antiques, Contemporary art, photography, antiquarian books or all of the above, Cologne aims to cater for your needs later this month. The Rhineland city mounts a trio of fairs running concurrently at the city’s Rheinhallen from February 23-27.

GOING further afield, The South African Antique Dealers Association hold their national fair in Cape Town on February 19 and 20 with a gala opening on the evening of February 18.

AFTER 50 years at Manhattan’s Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, it is little wonder that the Winter Antiques Show is the favourite fair of many New Yorkers – and, increasingly, for many others.

CARMARTHEN’S own Towy Antiques Fairs ended the year on a high note with good sales across the board at their Christmas Carmarthen Antiques & Collectors’ Fair, held at the local showground on December 11 and 12.

CONSOLIDATING his comeback, Reg Cooper, who now operates as Caminade Antiques Fairs, encountered a bit of old-fashioned fair wars skulduggery at his second Oxfordshire Antiques Fair, held from December 10 to 12 at Heythrop Park.

UNTIL this Sunday (October 17), the second Art Deco Fair to be organised by Woburn Abbey Antiques Centre runs in the Russell, Howland and Bedford Rooms of the North Court of Woburn Abbey.

DEALER and, more recently, fair organiser, Jan Hicks moves to the grounds of Loseley Park, a 16th century house near Guildford, Surrey, for her third Antiques & Audacity fair from May 12 to 15 next year.

IT looks very much like the end of the road for one of our long-running provincial fixtures, the Surrey Antiques Fair, the 36th annual staging of which was held from October 2 to 5 last year.

VETERAN organiser Fred Hynds of Wakefield Ceramics Fairs holds a ceramics event at Burford School, Burford, Oxfordshire this weekend on October 2 and 3.