South-west England

A complete set of plans showing what was once the world’s largest industrial complex and the British state’s single biggest investment has sold in Cornwall. Thomas Milton’s plans of the Royal Dockyards sold to an online buyer for £10,000 (plus 18% buyer’s premium) at David Lay's latest sale in Penzance.

In this group of predominantly Victorian ceramics beloware two 18th century pieces: a typical polychrome delft plate of modest value and a far more commercial early English toby jug.

Better by a distance than nine similar items, a mid-17th century wainscot chair offered by Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne demonstrated the yawning price gap between the acceptable and the desirable in the early oak market.

Former farmer Ralph Retallack is now an antiques dealer in Falmouth with his partner Nicola Fuller. They are launching an antiques and decorative fair near St Ives this September and are looking to attract more quality exhibitors including architectural salvage dealers.

This still-life painting by Joan Gillchrest (1918-2008), offered for £1995, is part of an online exhibition staged by Devon dealership British Ceramics and Paintings.

Landscape painter Sidney Richard Percy (1821-86) is described in Christopher Wood’s Dictionary of Victorian Painters as “a prolific and variable painter, and his prices vary accordingly”.

Coming up on August Bank Holiday Monday (August 26) is an annual event which brings thousands of eager buyers to the grounds of a stately home in Wiltshire.

ATG explores Tetbury’s Long Street to discover dealers evolving to lure casual buyers as well as connoisseurs

A 19th century plaster bust of Napoleon was among sales at the recent Cotswold Decorative Antiques & Art Fair, which takes place in Westonbirt School near Tetbury three times a year.

The dealers of Tetbury who trade with the Continent are determined to work through whatever turbulence Brexit may bring. A no-deal departure, likely to result in tariffs and customs checks, would present problems for import and export of stock.

The personal enthusiasm of John Braund of Turpin’s Antiques, who died in January aged 90, was early oak and associated metalware.

Somerset auction shows how bidders are very sensitive to how works are estimated.

One notable consequence of the growing prevalence of charity shops on the high street is that auctioneers are receiving more and more items that these organisations want to check in case they are valuable.

Aldridges of Bath smashed its house record last week with the sale of a Yongzheng mark and period bowl for £220,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium). It had come for sale following a routine house call.

A copy of 'The Island of Adventure' offered in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of June 19-20 sold for £360 – just £10 short of the auction record set for a copy it had offered back in 2006.

The market for European ‘decorative arts’ – the wealth of late 19th and early 20th century ceramics, metalwork and design – has been in a constant state of flux since it first entered mainstream collecting in the late 1960s. As tastes evolve, so does pricing.