Fairs, Markets, Shops and Centres

An antiques dealer for nearly 40 years and the long-time owner of Below Stairs in Hungerford, Stewart Hofgartner, pictured below, is a colourful character.

It’s been a packed year with new fairs starting up as well as relaunches.

At the height of winter across one week, IACF mounts two fairs catering for different audiences. Noelle McElhatton visited the events at Alexandra Palace and Newark to see what brings the punters out in hail, wind or rain.

“There are great fairs and brocantes in France but this is special, not least because of the venue.”

Though the organisation IACF is best known by its acronym, it’s hard to forget what the initials stand for. AA road signs guiding drivers into the Newark showground emphasise the word ‘international’ and the fair is known for its ability to attract overseas trade buyers.

Though IACF Newark markets itself firmly as a trade fair, it ensures the public has access too, in particular die-hard collectors who similar to trade buyers, know the dealers they want to visit.

“What’s the death on this snuff mull?” asks Tom Hurst, a dealer in African and Oceanic art attending Newark to buy for his online shop and in preparation for his first stand at Tribal Art London in 2019.

Doom and gloom surrounds retailing in the UK but in the trade plenty of antique centres are bucking the trend. Here we bring you a short focus on a few of them – ideal places to buy a variety of stock offered from a number of dealers in one spot.

When Natalie Smith opened the Woodbridge Antiques Centre in the pretty Suffolk town 11 years ago, she said she was given a great piece of advice: never compromise on quality and presentation.

A regular stallholder at Arthur Swallow Fairs is Liam Woodgates, director of the Hopkinson Vintage Antique and Art Centre in Nottingham, where a corner display is pictured below.

A trip to France before Christmas to buy unusual gifts is always a good plan. Here are three antiques and vintage brocantes to visit: two well-known weeklies in Paris and a biannual event in Bordeaux.

Cary Whitley has been running her biannual Love Vintage brocantes in June and December in Wanstead, east London, for eight years, with the next on Saturday, December 8.

Events at Ludlow Castle, St Stephen's Church and Hodson Hall

For its fourth year, Art Fair East comes to Norwich.

IACF is expecting a buoyant antique and collectors’ fair at Alexandra Palace on Sunday, December 2, including items sourced from shipwrecks.

News from Antiques on High, the antiques centre saved for the city of Oxford when it was bought by antique furniture dealer Vincent Page last year, alerted via a tweet about a story in ATG.

Sally Knott has been running the biannual two-day Dorset Brocante for three years at two venues: in August at Deans Court, Wimborne, and in the autumn at Larmer Tree Gardens, near Salisbury.

Two years ago we featured ex-paramedic Allun Davies and his business selling vintage luggage in the Gwent town of Pontypool.

The range of choice in antique and vintage jewellery makes for ideal one-off special presents – try the dedicated 30-dealer jewellery fair pictured below, with baubles from the Georgian period onwards.

Antiquarian and out-of-print book and ephemera collectors will be in heaven on the weekend of December 1-2 with two fairs at the Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury in Coram Street.