An exhibitor at the Henley Décor Fair in May, Darren Peskett of Worthing dealership Reginald Ballum, is pictured atop a vintage motorbike model.
But post-pandemic restrictions at last, 2022 has shown once again how the trade not only always rises to any challenge but takes on new ones
Here are just a few highlights of a refreshingly upbeat year in the fairs, markets, shops and centres scene.
Fairs thrive
A fair did so well at the launch and two subsequent events that the organisers have made it a regular occurrence. Grandma’s Attic Fairs started a fair in Woking in February with a strong Art Deco/Nouveau element. Queues formed ahead of opening and the final impressive exhibitor count was 150 at that first staging, which was repeated in April and October to strong showings each time.
Word spread so well about the Enys House Antiques & Decorative Fair - with “the help of ATG of course,” says coorganiser Ralph Retallack - that the event, held at Penryn, near Falmouth in Cornwall, became a biannual event this year.
Love Fairs’ organiser Donny Mann was so thrilled about his first antiques festival on The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells in July that he promptly announced a second date in September. It is a canny location, as the antiques shops in the Pantiles Arcade nearby include one owned by Eric Knowles.
Home to the bishops of Worcester for more than a thousand years is Hartlebury Castle, the historic setting for Antiques at Bantock, aka Victoria and Paul Rowson, whose prayers were answered by the success of their first fair at the atmospheric castle on May 15.
Tara Franklin called her garden centre venture The Potting Shed Brocante and here she is lugging an urn into a marquee at the King John’s Nursery in the Kent village of Etchingham at the brocante in September.
Sundays at Kempton became a new annual fixture for Edward Cruttenden of Sunbury Antiques, who held an outdoor market at Kempton Park Racecourse on July 3 with a 2023 date announced for Sunday, June 4.
Jonathan Nixon, co-organiser of the midweek monthly Wembley Antiques Market, turned his attentions west to Gloucestershire where in July he took over the monthly Cheltenham Antiques Market.
Nixon then became the new owner of the long-running Bath Vintage and Antiques Market, known as the Bath VA, in September.
Kate Button of Black Dog Events continues a six-year upward trend with her Suffolk fairs, launching two new events at the Suffolk Showground, Antiques in the Park in September and Antiques and Artisans in October.
Dealer Josephine Roberts is still smiling while in the grip of the steel arms of a vintage French hairdryer at IACF Ardingly earlier this year.
“Swallow swoops on Cotswolds” was the ATG’s headline to the announcement from Arthur Swallow Fairs that it is adding the privately owned venue of Bathurst Park, Cirencester, in the antiques-rich Cotswolds to their two decorative homes and salvage shows next year. The three-day fair will run from June 9-11.
Centres on the up
In February Adrian Gilmour, owner of the Hungerford Arcade in Berkshire, acquired the Lamb Arcade in the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford which has been renamed the Wallingford Arcade.
Robert Miller, managing director of Hemswell Antique Centres, in exuberant form as the centres celebrated the now late queen’s jubilee in June.
The distinctive green colours of the Antiques on High brand continue to criss-cross the country. Vincent Page and his wife Lesley have taken on Taunton antiques market, run in the town for 30 years. This adds to AOH’s centres in Bowness-on- Windermere and Sidmouth as well as Oxford. It is also opening in Harrogate next year.
Kate Lee and husband Steven opened Antiques at Four, a centre down the road from their antiques shop Blyburgate Antiques in the Suffolk town of Beccles, where Lee also organises the biannual open air vintage markets.
