Fairs, Markets, Shops and Centres

Former railway tunnel and air raid shelter in Ramsgate provides novel venue for Sunday fair...

About 500,000 people a year visit Snape Maltings, on the banks of the River Alde, to take in the exhibitions, galleries, independent shops and riverside walks as well as the Aldeburgh Festival and the Snape Proms.

Graham Beech will be one of the new standholders among the 220 exhibitors at the three-day Bowman Antiques Fairs event at the Stafford County Showground from March 23-25.

Helen Bowman and Ben Wray of Bowman Antiques Fairs say they are delighted that their sister event, the Yorkshire Flea run at Skipton Auction Mart, is growing in popularity.

Meet David, a young collector pictured below with his mother Inna at a recent Charing Cross Collectors Market. David, who is nine, is shown holding his purchase, a George II silver shilling which he will be adding to his budding numismatics collection.

It all started in 1972 when Bob Evans Fairs launched a small and pioneering antiques fair in Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, followed by 70 more up and down the country.

Ephemera Society member Robertino Poposki has been awarded the silver prize in the ephemera class at the Spring Stampex 2018, organised by the Association of British Philatelic Societies.

Stephen Walters is a maritime expert who has acted as a consultant to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich – the largest task being to design and part-curate the William Bligh bicentenary exhibition in 1989.

“Mid-century is pretty unstoppable as the ‘new antique’ with exhibitions on Fifties and Sixties designers like Charles and Ray Eames and Harry Bertoia now regular events,” says Lucy Ryder Richardson, founder with Petra Curtis of the Midcentury Modern Shows.

He’s 30 now but a love for antiques all started for decoratives and jewellery dealer William Driver when he was eight. His interest began with collecting Wade Whimsies, progressing to Clarice Cliff and other pieces as he trawled antiques fairs and markets.

Gene Hoyle, of Lancashire-based family firm Hoyles Promotions, which has been running busy weekly Sunday fleamarkets and car boots across north-west England for 40 years, is adding a “suitcase rummage” to his fleamarkets at Clitheroe Auction Mart in the Lancashire town.

J’y Reste (I am there) is a clay sculpture evoking a symbolic birth created by Brigitte Moity in her studio at Savigny-sur-Orge, a suburb of Paris.

Tour & Taxis in Brussels is a vast swathe of Victorian industrial warehouses on the city’s canal. The complex includes the former train station and its spacious central hall, a long-disused international postal and customs office with links to the German Thurn and Taxis family.

The Palladian home of the Earls of Pembroke will host the 41st staging of venerable vetted antiques fair on March 2-4.

A dazzling red and black herringbone-patterned Conklin Nozac cushion point pen and pencil set dating from 1932 and with an ability to write 7000 words before running out, is for sale at the Eastern Pen Show on March 4.

The annual celebration of Mother’s Day falls this year on Sunday, March 11. Perfume bottles dating from the Victorian era, in a variety of materials and range of prices are a one-of-a-kind gift option.

Particularly appropriately named for Mother’s Day is Love Fairs, whose upcoming fair at Brighton Racecourse runs on Sunday, March 11.

Antiques dealer and fair organiser Marcus Potts is an Art Deco and early 20th century ceramics man, but he is an absolute mine of information on vintage toys.

The Specialist Glass Fair, founded in 1991 by Patricia Hier and run for 16 years by Paul Bishop, will be held on Sunday, February 25.

Kate and Mike Button of Black Dog Antiques in the market town of Halesworth in Suffolk, also run the monthly Halesworth Brocante which they launched two years ago in the town’s Old Print Works.