Fairs, Markets, Shops and Centres

The monthly Bath Vintage & Antiques Market at the city’s listed Victorian Green Park Station is now in its seventh year.

As well as 150 inside stands and up to a few hundred outside, plenty more is in the mix at the Antique Fairs Cornwall event over the August Bank Holiday weekend at the Wadebridge Showground in north Cornwall.

The annual two-day York Card Expo International at York Racecourse, which runs this year on Friday and Saturday, August 31-September 1, is now in its 29th year.

Alan Cartwright’s two-day antiques and vintage fair at Wetherby Racecourse in West Yorkshire has been a strong runner in his Jaguar Fairs’ portfolio since he took it over in 2001. It now attracts up to 300 exhibitors at each of the three annual events.

The idea to stage a 1940s weekend of events at Hemswell Antique Centres near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire in late July to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the RAF came from some of the dealers based there.

Described in Time Out earlier this year as a place where “high art and innovation meet”, Hackney in east London, with Shoreditch and Hoxton round the corner, has dozens of independent shops, cafes and markets.

Organisers launch new fair in Suffolk after long-standing event had to be abandoned.

France remains one of the most popular holiday destinations for UK residents. If you want to combine an antiques/vintage buying trip with a holiday in either Provence or the Haute-Savoie this month, then a visit to two of the regions’ most attractive towns might feature high on the itinerary.

Firle Place near Lewes in East Sussex is the seat of Nicholas Gage, the 8th Viscount Gage, whose family has owned the estate since the 15th century.

Every year in the seaside town of Bangor, south of Belfast, a small, local and dedicated team puts on an ambitious month-long programme of concerts, dance, arts and literary events, plus food and wine evenings.

Extra outside pitches have been hailed by the organiser of the monthly Tuesday antiques market at Sandown Park Racecourse as a reason for the relatively new event settling in well.

Marcel Epstein is an ephemera dealer and fair organiser running antiques and collectors’ fairs in north London and south Hertfordshire. His next quarterly fair is in Berkhamsted, at the sports centre in the town on Sunday, July 29, and 100 standholders are booked.

The Victorian fascination for natural history led to many a front parlour having as its centrepiece a cased display of butterflies.

The Royal Horticultural Society’s 65-acre gardens in a north Devon valley form the fragrant floral backdrop for Devon County Antiques Fairs’ quarterly two-day antiques and collectors’ events.

After a slow start to the year, the Malvern Flea and Collectors’ Fair is looking forward to a bumper summer.

A well-known antiques centre on the point of closure last year after 20 years of trading – and saved in no small part by the social media reach of ATG – will shortly celebrate its first year under new ownership.

Salvage dealers are increasingly bringing smaller decorative items to the Knebworth Park fair.

The north-south divide has thrown up some interesting trends that intrigue Arthur Swallow Fairs director Richard Burgoin.

With the Meteorological Office showing that roasting temperatures are ‘here to stay’ at the beginning of July in the UK, and people sweltering on packed beaches, cooling off in the sea is essential. And what better than in a vintage swimsuit?

Antiques street markets and fairs are a boon to local businesses, a popular and lively addition to any small well-visited town, particularly in the summer when these are buzzing with tourists.