[Music] if I were to tell you the road show is coming to you from a palace don't think kings queens and Corgis but we are coming to you from the home of someone very important though so welcome to the road show from The Bishop's Palace in Wales in deepest Somerset [Music] Oh yay Oh yay Oh yay let it be known that today the antiqu road show is coming to The Bishop's Palace in the city of Wells God Save the Queen that was Splendid thank you very much that may not be the most modern way to spread the word but there's certainly been a great deal of anticipation here about the arrival of the Road show it's been at least 15 years since we last set foot in this beautiful Market town in the mendip Hills so where would our experts start if they were appraising England's smallest city Wells age it doesn't take a scholar to realize that the heart of this place is Medieval condition this collection of ruins in The Bishop's Palace is remarkably intact having survived Wars and rash redevelopments and Rarity well the ecclesiastical quarter particularly is [Music] [Applause] [Music] unique it's the most historic backdrop we've visited this season with a whole city of medieval ecclesiastical buildings there are a series of gateways which at one time shut off the religious quarter from the rest of the city and they've all got great [Music] names the dean's eye guides us here onto the cathedral green chain gate takes us to the oldest continually inhabited Street in Europe vica's Close worryingly For Those About to receive their valuations this is known as penniless Port let's hope it doesn't Jinx those passing through it on their way to the road Ro show where our experts are already chomping at the bit in anticipation of another great day so this is um been described by you as your African violet bow African violet bow but why my mother-in-law who owned it before me had an African Violet pot plant stood in it for nearly 20 years and the reason that she stood African Violets in it was because the flowers and the petals would cover up the topless ladies oh I see so it was bit rude it was considered as um as a bit risque yes um I've always loved this ball and and I've owned very few few pieces by this person now do you know the who the person is that I'm relating to here it's marked on the bottom and I think it's it's French isn't it it is French but I'm going to just just come here because let's get the it says there are laik France you come across all Alik in your time well I've heard you talk about it I yes you think he was a relation i g about him that many times but you you can't say enough about his work because he's very very clever um first of all he's designing this piece of glass in and around about 1925 or thereabouts um and he's just got this wonderful way with the female form um but have you noticed just look at this he gives his mermaids these sort of twin fins if you will twin can you see these twin legs you don't get that with English mermaids that's the French being different and I just love the way that these bubbles are sort of incorporated into the design and it's a design um which continues or you get six of them um This was um retailed under the name of onine and um and it uses the opalescence and that's a technique which in is basically it's very clear it's all to do with a chemical reaction in the glass the longer the glass takes the cool the more opaque um the glass is it looks almost blue doesn't it it's is it's it's it's just such a clever design no no let's look at the rim um this Rim actually at some stage has been has been ground right um because it should be just a tad higher um but having said all that um it's still a lovely thing so what's it worth what price you've got six mermaids on there if I was to tell you that it's worth somewhere in the region of about £800 good God yeah well that works out at less than £ 150 of mermaid doesn't it you could buy quite a few African Violets with that as well couldn't you as well sir could but please just give me one promise never ever put African Violets in it again I promise promise me a geographical Panorama exhibiting characteristic representations of the scenery and inhabitants of various regions London published by Harvey and Darton I can just about read their name there Grace Church Street May the 20th 1822 so this is an educational toy which represents what was happening in the world of 1822 where did you get them from well I found them at an antique fair about seven or eight years ago um I love old toys have you got a large collection no not very but I I love sort of old children's books and and I if I ever do find them I I buy them because I'm completely mad really and it takes me back to my childhood and my mother who was always giving all our toys to the scouts when we were at school yes and so ever since then I've been trying to get things back yes which I should never give Boy Scouts girls toys well it was all my soldiers all your soldiers you had soldiers I had a coronation you had a whole coronation with a with a carriage yes and she gave a whole lot away oh so ever since then I've been making up for it I see now these men here are obviously firing Point black range at the Wares slaughtering the poor things slaughtering the poor things now does that remind you of anything no any scenery that remind any picture you've ever seen before uh no well in fact it comes straight out of the Voyages of Captain Cook oh does it yes absolutely the very same view how fantastic anyway and you can stick on these Sailors here and they're um they're rather good aren't they fantastic let's go to the next one here's another one and this is of a ship in the Arctic so this would represent as indeed the war rep represents Northern climbs and then further on these wonderful dancers here Men playing their drums TomTom in a lovely tropical View and this lovely lady in her most extraordinary kralin extraordinary costume it is do you think she's picking her nose it's very likely anyway that too that too all those figures and the backgrounds comes out in in Captain Cook's Voyage to the South Seas right now did you pay an awful lot of money for these yeah well I thought it was fairly expensive at the time I paid about £150 for 150 yes and there are nine pieces here nine views nine set backgrounds and you could interp space one with the other yes with the cook connection I think that they're absolutely fantastic I think somewhere between 1500 and 2,000 oh well that was quite a nice find wasn't it good excellent thank you for bringing thank you very much we've had it in our possession for a few years um we it was a friends we always admired when we visited and we sort of said if you ever thinking about getting rid of it would you please give us first refusal and that's how it's come to belong in our house so that's it really that's it but you bought it from from him yes and do you remember how much you I don't I don't really know I wish I did it was a few years ago now in a nutshell it's what every clock collector English clock collector wants to have in their collection really it is because it's so small that's the quintessential nugget with this clock it's its size but not only that it has an ebonized fruitwood case but it's the Jos of the enameled aisle and the guilt mask around around the dial that just sets it off and on top of that we have a clock maker by the name of Charles Haley yes and here he has signed it here up in the arch Charles Haley was a not a he didn't excel in clot making in terms of that he was one of those names that stands out in lights but whatever he made he made very well and he made beautifully proportion clocks right and that's what we've got here really the other little nugget to point out is that where he's put his signature there's a little hand and a scale numbered 10 to 60 yes have you ever noticed that yes I don't exactly know what it does it does a very clever thing it regulates the pendulum oh I see so it makes the clock go faster and slower yes now on most clocks you have to turn the clock around and turn a nut at the bottom of the pendulum Bob to push it up or let it down to make it go faster or slower okay on this clock all you have to do is open the door move the hand one way or the other and 99% of Clarks don't have this facility they don't no little things little things please please collectors little things police collectors I'm afraid it's the way we are um date wise around 1800 it is a very fashionable little time piece any collector worth his salt yes will pay between five and 7,000 for it really gosh really yeah it's a super super this was part of the duette inheritance uh they discovered gold mines in Australia and uh this was a lump of gold or a lump of gold bearing quartz from that gold mine this is what it looks like when it comes out of the ground you you actually get a p pickaxe you heave your pickaxe into quarts and you just hope that there's going to be enough gold in it absolutely to to to to turn you into a rich man and did it me no unfortunately not but apparently it did them apparently mine was worth around about30 million and this was when uh back in the late 19th century around about 1880 this was George Durham dlet went out with his family he was a carpenter uhu and this was found by his son George Phillip right um as was this uh gentleman here it's uh so George Phillip is a gentleman uh George Phillip's sister married my grandfather right which is where we come into it now you said that this belonged to the same man who who took this lump out of Australia apparently so this tell me more about him um at some time during his life he went to Japan and uh he worked with the Japanese government in forming and developing the newspaper business there and this apparently was given to him as thanks from the Japanese government do you know the date uh of this piece yeah uh no but I do know it's probably around about I don't know eight again 1880 possibly 1880 well that would I don't know that would certainly tie in with a a movement we're constantly referring to on the program called japaner right up until the 1860s Japan had been isolated from Europe didn't want anything to do with anybody outside Japan and then suddenly they realize they have to modernize themselves when they come into contact with Europeans doing the sorts of things that EUR four bears were doing right and and so it was that Japanese works of art came flooding over to Europe and it caused an absolute sensation um can you tell me who who these two are we've got the Rick Shaw driver there but these are the two I'm interested in um this is George philli as far as I know and his good lady right the interesting thing is they've actually gone the whole hog they've gone native yes they have they've actually dressed up as a Japanese and a Japanese lady do you think the Japanese therefore had these camera Studios rather like you can get in Disney World they most certainly did and this Photograph takes us to this fellow here right so you're uncertain about the date well I'm going to say that from this and from the story you've told me I'm going to put him somewhere around the 1900 could even be as late as 1910 would that still make sense oh yes yeah very much so yes right well let's have let's have a close look at him we want to look at his tummy and that's the mark That's The Foundry Mark right of this big cat my goodness he's a TR wait which is why I needed a bit of help getting him here today the the man who made this took real pains to get these beautiful Stripes into the uh into the tiger look at those beautiful bronze Stripes all the way so this is a wonderful patina but the modeling is so stunning on this isn't it you can feel the muscular power of those shoulders and then the whiskers swept back I mean this is a tiger you wouldn't want to get onto the wrong side of so is the lump of rock of gold worth more than the tiger whichever I prefer him you prefer the tiger most definitely uh if you were selling him you would get somewhere between one and a half and2 and a half thousand for room to me the only value they've got is because they've come down from my ancestors and this I'd never sell them and this is when it all started it it is indeed yeah gold order of industrial heroism now I have to say this is a this is a new order to to my knowledge um tell me a bit about it well it was instituted by the daily heral in 1923 and then it finished when the Daily Herald finished in 1964 now the Daily Herald I I know a bit about the Daily Herald that that really was quite a socialist newspaper wasn't it yes and I think it the medal had the nickname of the workers VC um and not that many were awarded and quite a lot of them of course were awarded postumus but here it says it was presented as a mark of um respect and admiration to Lewis Phillips yes my father presumably this is the this is the medal theal let me put my glasses on and have a look at that and a very fine piece of design that is isn't it yes picture of uh Christ on the shoulders of St Christopher I have to ask what was the act of heroism he saved a man's life underground in britania cery in the rumney valley and um uh there a letter there from the man whose life he saved but my father I was only 13 when my father died and and he never ever spoke about it and my mother kept all this but didn't say an awful lot about it and I would really like somebody out there to be able to tell me exactly what the act of heroism was all I know is he saved a man's life underground and there the mystery I don't know anymore and this is a letter from the person he said from dick Sheard can I read it yes certainly dear friend words cannot express my thanks towards you for saving my life I have thought of you continually uh since I have been here my God I shudder to think what would have happened if you had not been there well I don't want to think of any more about it do you know Lou Lou is was your your father um do you know Lou I have been through the torment of hell with pain but I'm glad to say I'm quite relieved today I have a terrible gash along my arm from elbow to armpit and my body is black with bruises my goodness but he does he ends it um I can't write much more now I feel a bit tired give my kind regards to Wolf and Collins and the boys the boys and that's from dick from Richard yes what an extraordinary momento to have yes very moving actually absolutely moving and what where does the biscuit Barrel fit into when they had the presentation ceremony and the industrial editor of the Daily Herald came and presented the certificate and the medal yes um dick Shepard presented my father with this biscuit Barrel as a token of gratitude yes but if you think this is 1933 and a man who worked underground wouldn't be earning very much I should imagine I mean this is epns I know but I would imagine possibly uh the cery itself or something like that put some money towards it I I wouldn't have thought he could personally ever afforded to buy something I would I would agree with that this is a very stylish never ever been used my mother's always kept the medal in the B um as far as the monetary value is concerned £1 or so but that is not the issue the issue is that individual Act of Bravery the extraordinary heartfelt letter from the person that your dad saved and the mystery about actuallya what it was yeah good luck yeah thank you very much thank you do you know in a sense youve fulfilled one of my great dreams because as a railway Enthusiast what I long to see on the road show are name plates and of course no one ever brings them in because a they're very heavy yes and B everybody like you who is I assume a railway Enthusiast knows exactly what they are when did you buy it is the key question I was in the Army we were serving in Malaya and my father wrote to me and said that an uncle who I knew um who worked for Great Western Railway and then western region had access to some Great Western Rail engine name plates this was in 19645 in due course he contacted me and said you've got Shakeen Hurst Hall and it's cost you 25 quid right and um it was a lovely thing to have it a momento if you like of steam locomotives this comes from a Great Western Railway Hall class locomotive built in 1929 scrapped in 1963 and I think there were 330s locomotives in the class and all named Halls of Great Britain they were all over the place and do you have it on the wall yes indeed it's mounted on the mountain boats and things on the wall at the end of our Hall opposite the front door so you're allowed to do that um yes she'd been great my darling wife been a great supporter she who must be aeed has approved very supportive no no difficulty encouraged me and it's a little Railway Enclave in little gwr corner absolutely yes very good now here we have it so you've got a photograph of it at least yes and this is swi is outside Swindon Works supposedly um after it just being built right so it's new at that point new new at that point the key thing is of course ex locomotive condition no repainting and you haven't done any of that now I'm going to turn this game the other way around what do you think is worth um well at a specialist or a specialist railwayana um or auction on a good day 6 to 8,000 I should say I'm amazed no oh my God heart attack no I agree with you entirely but I think the world record for a name plate is something like £54,000 I didn't know that which is an A4 Pacific right um agly but I don't think we'll ever get those sums again no I think you know those were the headyy days when there were still plenty of people with money who wanted these things I think I would say you if you've got your if you're going to sell your whole class name plate think about doing it pretty soon if you're thinking if you're thinking about investment yes but if you're just loving it doesn't matter at all yes I love it but it's a it's one of these curious markets which is all going to change over the next few years when we are gone who's going to worry about it yeah that's right I think I think that's just right but at the same time I wish I had it thank you thank you very much indeed it belongs to my mother-in-law and she says it would belong to her great grandmother has come down through the family um she can't be here today because she's on holiday but she wants me to find out from you whether it's worth keeping as a brooch or whether she should split it up for the grandchildren as rings and what do you think about that I'm horrified so am I no it'd be like bulldozing a beautiful house to get the bricks out no it' be really really the most terrible thing um because it is beautifully phrased and beautifully designed and and it's a miracle of craftsmanship actually beautiful and and and where the fresh air is is part of its charm I mean the diamonds are hugely important but also the fact that it is open work seems to make it very delicate and light it's almost like a snowflake isn't it yes it is yeah beautiful and it's gold fronted with platinum in what we call meal grass settings which means a thousand grains and you can see this funny serrated look to the diamonds there because this is made in 1900 and it was a time when versatility in jewelry was never greater and that you when given a tiny Jewel like this it might be almost the Jewel of the lifetime for somebody they could wear it in their hair they can wear it as a pendant they can wear it as a brooch and does she wear it she's never worn it she keeps it in a drawer yes and the only time my husband's grandmother wore it that she can remember was at our wedding oh well it's not getting enough airing is it I don't know what we're going to do about that that's rather a sort of family problem isn't it I think I won't enter cuz it sounds dangerous well anyway what will happen when she comes back from holiday we'll both be in trouble won't we you will be anyway I will probably Escape anyway it's all your fault yes do go ahead and um no it's brilliant and and um and we might pull her back from from from this madness by telling her that um if she wanted to buy it again it would cost £2 and a half th000 really she might like it a bit more now I think she will I think that'll attune her sensibilities as they say do I always love these traveling communion sets in fact I actually call them the the vica's emergency response kit well in one sense yes that's true although there are people who are housebound to one would take communion on a regular basis right and I've used this for that years Wonder so you're actually using it yourself yes yes I'm PR so Wonder a yeah now underneath here we've got an interesting inscription where are we presented to the Reverend Edward Jones We've got a date of 1848 who's the Reverend Jones well the Reverend Edward Jones was my great great uncle and it was left my aunt who when I went into the ministry which was in 1970 um she then gave it to me and I've used it since then Wonder well I think that that is wonderful because these pieces they they have been consecrated and it is so right that they be used that's right the date the period of it of course is very much the mid 19th century and it's rather lovely if you look at this when you look at the shaping we've got Gothic Revival there yes and just have a look at that window that we've got over there behind there yes you see it's exactly the same shape it is yes it is and that's where these designs were coming from yes and that's that little flag of course is where you put the wine and did you realize the maker Mark that we've got there this was actually made by Angels no where were they were they Liverpool as well no they were a London firm oh and um The Firm all of angels which I think is wonderful for a communion lovely yes it is isn't it it's beautifully made though isn't it really oh it is wonderful and it's it's of course the fact it's in its original case has helped it to survive but um get down to the awful question of value yes a set like this I would expect to be selling around 400 500 and you'd need to ensure it obviously from more like 750 that sort of level to make sure you're properly covered yes but thank you so much for bringing you in thank you very much well here we are in these wonderful historic surroundings and it's lovely to see an equally fantastic piece of uh historic Furniture um I understand it hasn't come too far in fact it's almost still at home isn't it well it is almost at home we don't actually eat out in the garden but um we have it in our kitchen um in a medieval house and it's used every day for everything really it's our storage unit well it that immediately brings to mind an actual fact that although this is a an old piece of furniture it's actually come back to life you're using it now in the same way that it was first used back in about 1630 1640 its description would be a Charles of first period Court cupboard in Oak cuz the main body of the whole piece of furniture running through and all the way through the the doors and the drawers is Oak including the turnings and all the paneling and then you look closely and we've got the Dutch influence at that time which is bringing in some Pine uh timber here in the inlay work and then we've got the bone and mother of pearl being used as as detail and that's very much sort of reminiscent of of of the of the style that came over that period I mentioned Court cupboard most people think the court cupboard is a piece of furniture made for the court it it it wasn't it was made to go in exactly the same surroundings it is with you today court is a is a modern and I say modern sort of Modern English uh derivation of short which is Old English when this was made they were talking about a short cupboard as opposed to a tall cupboard and so that's why it's this height and cup board you have your board which is the table in the middle of your kitchen just as they did then and the board you took the cup cups from the cupboard and put them on the board and that's where that comes from because in fact our ceilings are quite High exactly as I mean your medieval seedings are going to be much higher than those that would have been seen in houses of this period but still they're a lot higher than we have today and we mentioned this these wonderful details in here these are absolutely Charming these figures that come through looking here this is we got new bits of Timber there's certain this is probably Victorian timber brought in here and these handles been replaced at some point mhm so in about sort of 1850 something like that it had its second age life and then I would when did you when did you buy it we bought it about 20 years ago okay um from a West country dealer um and it has been in use every day and all day I mean it's it's got corn flakes in that end and jam and chutneys in this end you bought it a little while ago what what sort of money did you pay for it well I fell in love with it and I thought this is just mad and wonderful um and so I did pay it somewhere into the late at the upper upper hundreds the market has changed over 20 years and you can actually see in certain categories that in that 20 years the price have stayed about the same but if as to say that if you were to try and buy this again today and it you you would struggle to to find such a piece in actual fact um you would have to be paying in the region of two to 2 and a half thousand that's well a dear old friend absolutely and it is so Charming to think that after all those years it has enjoying the same life that it was it was designed and made for in the first place thank you very much thank you very much I've always wanted to see a picture by this man I knew he existed GF Harris it's a fairly ordinary Winter's landscape with a man returning home but I happen to know who his grandson is and so do you yes and I see you brought a letter with you and there's our clue do you know who it is yet it's Ralph Harris you wrote to him actually my mother wrote to him yeah and he says yes it was my my um grandfather and his grandfather actually owed my grandparents some money when they lived in Cardiff before they were moving to Australia and they couldn't pay so they offered us four oil paintings one of my grandparents each of them and two other oil paintings as well fantastic and how nice for Rolf to sort of recognize that it's quite interesting because you know the old artistic genes how they go through the family to him and of course he's now a very yes well established artist in fact darl rol's Works worth a lot more than his grandfather's but uh that little drawing on there I suppose that might be worth a couple hundred pounds um the picture uh by uh GF Harris who's a typical Victorian artist is worth probably £3 to 500 that's all and if it was by ro be worth 5,000 plus yes but I still enjoy it and a good painter well if we were doing the Antiques Road show 100 or 150 years ago this would have been a star item well it it wouldn't because it would still have been buried in the ground what I mean is an object like this would have been regarded as a very significant antique an Antiquity what's your story well I found it uh it was found on my farm in South oxw a about 35 years ago and it was just on the surface of the ground and it was being plowed being plowed been plowed for hundreds of years yes um but it still somehow escaped destruction and what have you found out about it since then well a friend of mine uh did a paper on it probably the Flint came from Scandinavia yes um it could be 100 25 million years old the Flint not not the ax head no no and the ax head itself could be up to 30,000 old right okay well first of all we we've established that this is the oldest object that will have been brought in today because it's going to be difficult for the paintings Department to beat something that's 125 million years old second we've established that it was worked by a man and it would have been a man uh some sometime according to your friend up to maybe 30,000 years ago yeah this this little object would have been one of the most um crucial things for a gentleman to have in his Cabinet of Curiosities uh up until the late 19th century I mean if we'd been doing a road show in the late 19th century people would be standing with stuffed animals uh objects of Natural History um lumps of meteorite and prehistoric tools because these were considered very very collectible they were highly after now you think it's Scandinavian Flint so so he imagines yeah okay well I'm I'm going to say yes I've just come back from Copenhagen my old haunt in the Galleries at the National Museum and I've seen cabinets full of these the fact is there was a roaring trade from Scandinavia in the new stone age that's to say what we call the Neolithic um sending objects like this from Scandinavia all over the place notably to to to Britain what they have done is they have created a very very substantial tool which may either have been used as an axe or uh a shape that is also used as a blade oh for on a fler having the ground yes and uh and I suspect that's what this was because you find them in very Sometimes They Come really really long lens very very skillful Flint napping and then as the working end of this tool gets roughened by being plowed um they they they they nap it further so they get shorter and shorter and shorter but that is still a serious working length that's interesting so not 30,000 years old I would say that that was probably napped sometime around 4 5,000 years BC yeah so it's still the oldest object that we're going to be showing on the Antiques Road Show and it's lovely to remind people that the objects we show on TV made themselves one day be out of date as collect who knows these might come back in at the moment you can buy one of these for a relatively small amount of money very little yes um it costs you nothing no it cost me nothing but but it's not for sale it's not for sale well um on today's market you could buy something like this for maybe £200 more than I thought I I would have thought 100 to 150 but come back in a 100 years time who knows then I should be almost as old as a flint man we've managed to prize away our Bookman Clyde farahan not just from his queue but also from poking around the cathedral and Clive you brought along two objects which are treasured by you which you would rescue from the Flames if you had to now tell me about this one first of all because it it looks like you've taken it off the cathedral roof are you accusing me of having me knocked it off well I hope you haven't tell me certainly not there's been a l restoration at Wells but uh this is certainly not part of it this I found in an antique shop in bath and it is the pediment of either some sort of spire or of a monument um and it is perpendicular Gothic and I'm very keen on Gothic architecture I love churches I love Cathedrals and this is the late flowering of Gothic in the between 1450 and 1550 so it's a just a wonderful peace and I know you were a school boy or a choir boy weren't you at Westminster a a chister so this brings back memories of that I imagine as well does I suppose it does as I say I've always loved looking at churches and I remember when I was courting my wife I used to take her out for tea on Saturdays but first we had to go and visit one of the famous Somerset churches very sexy such a romantic and tell me about your other object a book which makes more sense in a way well yes I suppose I had to bring in a book but I didn't want to bring in you know just a fantastic book I wanted to bring a book um that meant something to me and also to my days at the choir school and this is the first edition of the Memoirs of field Marshall Montgomery and here's a picture of him on the back and a picture of his signature Montgomery of alaban FM and why does this bring back memories for you of your days of Cara then well when I was working in London as managing director of a Bookshop somebody came in with this letter and it is a Monty letter uh from the field Marshal the vi count Montgomery of alaban there we are this dated um 8 1253 well I was at the choir school a little later than that but not so much later than that and he's writing to somebody who sells television sets my dear quo he always dropped his eyes I want to give a television to the boys of Westminster abiqua school and I take great interest in the school and give them a tea and conjurers every Christmas could the E let me have a shop soiled or second hand set on which I would not have to pay Purchase Tax or would they let me have a new set at cost price I can't afford to pay more than about 50 which was a lot of money in those days but that's absolutely wonderful because we used to have this television set oh you you so when you at the school the television set was there there and this television set we were allowed 2 hours a week to watch the television set so we'd all Pile in at 5:00 on a Saturday afternoon after even song and we'd wait for quarter of an hour while the valves swmed up and the pre prevex used to turn it off at 6:00 absolutely just like that and the same on Sunday so we got 34 of an hour each day and was it any good as a tell him once it had warmed up it was Dreadful it had a sort of a green picture you know one of those sort of dreadful green pictures anyway the Headmaster many years later uh towards the end of my career at the choir School purchased just a television set with they which they used to put on top of the old television because it was one of those big um wooden things and we used to watch it and we get our full hour of television and when Monty turned up to give us a KRA and a party at Christmas or whatever we used to have put television away and put his in Pride of place as if that was the one you always watched of course what a great story thank you so much this looks like a very humble staff ater plate and in effect that's his exactly what it is but there's a little carou on the front of it with a little explanation which says British Antarctic expedition teranova now for me instantly that says one thing and that's Scott of the Antarctic so the teranova was an important ship it basically would have supplied them uh dropped off everything that they needed in order to to obviously get on with the Expedition if we turn it over there's an inscription on the back of it as well which is typed and stuck on at a later date and what it says is Captain RF Scott landed from his ship teranova and reached South Pole 18th of Jan 1912 but had been forestalled by adanson this plate was carried to pole and found in tent with Scott Wilson and Bowers who had died the 29th of March Evans and Captain o having died previously Williamson of relief party gave this to barant now in reading that I am just kind of completely stupified and incredulous about this object that did Captain Scott hold this plate I I mean it opens up an incredible kind of sense of emotion um we all know the story of Scott um about how he struggled to get to the pole and amonson beat him there um and how they died can I I need to know from you what you know about it and how you acquired it well the only thing I know it was given to me mother about well nearly 60 years ago right some people used to work for mhm and uh we got in uh the daughter's boyfriend got in touch with the museum up in Cambridge and they give us the information on Williamson right okay Williamson who was in the relief party or heading the relief party found Scott uh in the tent and I think what is also safe to say is that the things that were taken away that came out of the tent are fairly really well known and documented in fact and as far as I know there is no mention of Ceramics coming out of the tent what is strange for me is that to think that actually Scott actually may have handled this plate perhaps on the teranova it was put in front of it how do you priz something that's that special that emotive and almost you know associated with something so important in in British history well I don't know where to go on the value so I'm just going to take an an absolute punt on this I'm going to have to put 5 to 7,000 on because to me it is a really important object amazing thank you very much for bringing this along thank you two very different objects a Huntley and Palmer's biscuit tin Lovely isn't it with a fabulous collection of buttons I presume that all goes down to the bottom and a bronze now I'm very lucky to have these two very different things to be talking about but I'm hoping that there is a link between the two okay please tell me her they are her collection she being my mother and if anybody remembers the suffragette doll on the road show well I certainly do because I filmed it what what is the link with the suffragette doll the suffragette was her adoptive mother but her adopted mother then if I remember about the suffragette doll was incarcerated oh yes so what happened to ma while her adopted mother was put away in in clink um as far as I remember from the Tails toe um there were a sister who looked after them so your mom here yeah um she was from a good family and so presumably they could afford to have a well-known sculptor um recreate her in bronze do we know there we are that's what we found in mon Mama's papers well he looks just as a sculptor should look doesn't he he he's like a he's like a sort of um caricature of a sculptor with his great bristling mustach and wearing his floppy bow tie and so on um is the's a date on the back too and there's a date on the back which says August the 15th 1912 mom was 12 she was 12 and oh very nicely on the back here we have very nicely written Paul R Montford and I think that is Raphael isn't it Paul Rafael Montford um he studied at the Lambeth school and also at the Royal Academy Schools and he was um he was recognized he wasn't in the first flight of sculpters but he uh was working up until 1938 but his latter career was in Australia and in fact he died in Australia really um and there are a number of monuments in Australia by Montford so here we have Mom aged 12 and when did Mom start collecting the buttons she inherited them from her mother's companion who was a great friend of the family afterwards and a huge mixture of styles and dates and so on I'm just going to pick out a few of these um I mean we've got sort of s style porcelain buttons here um some Ruskin buttons um this this one actually is stamped Raskin not all of them are not all of them are um then those we can date very happily to the end of the um last century perhaps into the beginning of the 20th century these are Liberty buttons little silver liberty buttons with a piece of turquoise in each Center embroidered buttons enameled shell a fabulous mixture and even coming through here to um early specs and Plastics now we need to talk about value really well it's a bit difficult isn't it it's actually it's not as difficult as You' might imagine the buttons are more of a problem because of course this is just the tip of the iceberg with the buttons you have got dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens so All That I Can Say with the buttons is that they are worth varied amounts of money of course from about 50p each up to probably 8 10 20 each depending depending on what they are however what I will say about this fabulous bronze if she ever did come up for sale she would be hugely uh fought over um I would say that uh the auction value today would be perhaps £25,000 I think she's absolutely glorious and uh I'm very pleased that she's come here through you to tell her story yeah I'm always fascinated by inscriptions on pieces and what have we got here presented to Thomas gripper asquire by 258 of his fellow townsmen and that was in December 1830 so who was Thomas gripper well he was my great great-grandfather sometimes I get mixed up thinking he was my great-grandfather because they had the same name he was in fact the great great so what was he actually given uh this forant 1830 well he was a quite an important person in the town he was the chief magistrate and he put a lot of work into getting the independent representation I getting them an MP right and um other J usual waffle in those days about Good Works Etc yes it say what a splendid fellow he was splend fellow yes basically it was forgetting an MP for the town of Hartford of Harrier right and what is fantastic here though is what you bought along with it yes we have this scroll or a piece of parchment which used to be poply rolled up and was much now faded which lists the 258 people who subscribed to buy this and they were only allowed to pay 5 Shillings each in order that no nobody should feel that they couldn't afford to do it and um you opt out isn't that therefore they got as much money as they could at five bash that that is tremendous if he made Tim Bob we' had a bigger sver this is true and five Shillings was actually a fair old amount of money anyway was say normally that's what you get but you don't get that I don't ever remember seeing one like that before so let's have a look and see what's going on at the back here now the marks there's quite a Maker's Mark to find Paul store one of the most famous one of the most important of all the makers ever in this country but then we've got here the date letter for 1799 to 1800 mhm there is something seriously wrong and what is seriously wrong is that you would never find anything of this design in 1799 1800 what's happened I suspect they've taken it may have been a tray it may have been a large Sala could even have been a meat dish that had been made by po store and hallmarked everything correctly at that time they've reshaped The Edge they've added all this decoration they've added all this chasing they've added these handles and they've added these feet and didn't send it back to the assay office now that's where it gets naughty because as it is it actually technically I would suggest has no value other than scrap what really needs to happen is that it needs to be sent to the Antiques plate committee uh in Goldsmith Hall in the city of London and then have it bought within the law and this with additions marks on it assuming they agree with what I've suggested then it would acquire a value as well I would suggest you'd be looking in excess of 2 ,000 how much would it cost to have it re stamped to send to goldsmith hall there's no charge I mean not postage or going on the train to take it in because the company very rightly work on the principle they do not wish to discourage people from having pieces bought within yeah I see that would have be much better in fact if they paid two Bob each and kept the poor store tray that would indeed have been much better you are absolutely spot on in that respect and it would be worth significantly more if that had been the case at first sight this is a pretty gloomy object it's not clear what it is it's had a very hard life and you may well wonder why are we bothering with something like this but the secret of course is all inside and if we open it spectacular things are revealed now what do you think it is well it was in my wife's side of the family it's been there for many years and it was believably uh Napoleon onic prisoner of war who made it and I'm not at all sure whether this is right or not well I think you've hit it absolutely right what we're looking at is straw work all this decoration is done with very carefully cut and stained pieces of colored straw it was made in 1810 185 you know a lot of them were Sailors and the land battles weren't relevant it was people captured off those ships at Trafalgar or where wherever and that's why they had those sort of Maritime skills and that patience that came from hours and hours and hours of sitting on decks with not much to do and not much to do convert it into this and having made pieces like this they would then have regular stands in the local Marketplace and the money they could earn from selling their craftsmanship improved their lives you know they could buy extra food they could buy clothes they could lead a normal existence while remaining confined within the prison area and I love this because for the first time I've seen something that is absolutely pristine not in Condition it's a it's a wreck in many ways but everything is just spectacular in terms of the color this this zigzag pattern is how we were meant to see it and if you take out the drawers you know you get wonderful green and white stripes inside so seeing this when you opened it I just thought my God what a wonderful vision of how it was so what's it worth well what do you think oh1 I don't know okay here you are no it's hard to price because it is in one way so spectacular in another way it's a wreck but to see one like this as they should be I'm going to say £3,000 really wow butra find me another ah yes you know that has this lovely color spectacular thank you well this brooch was given to me by an elderly lady in 1967 I understand it's a black opal um I don't know it origin she was from Belgium um I used to wear it in my early 20s did you on my lapel curious enough it's not an opal it's in its entirety but here little fragments of of opal have been set into what's called shellac which is an organic sort of fixative really and and um but are slivers of opal and they have all the same properties which is to refract the light and break it up into a rainbow really and so it has all the charm of oil on water or something like that or indeed a rainbow and we can say with absolute certainty that it's it's over 100 years old it's probably about 120 years old um and and and I suppose there is a double meaning here one of them is obvious that the snake is sort of guarding the precious stones he's guardian of the treasure which I quite like but actually it's probably more complex than that because the snake in antiquity was a symbol of of Eternity it's called the oroborus the eternally renewing Circle snake swallowing his tail which he effectively does here okay and it's always been a symbol of eternal love and so I love this thing and how much do you love it well I keep it because my daughter actually it's her um birthstone and I hope that one day she might enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed it yes lovely story and when that's what jewelry is all about and um I think probably well £800 today something like that oh she might enjoy it more now I don't know I love it I don't care I think it's fantastic of course very few people will need introduction to this artist Heath Robinson William Heath Robinson and he's given his name to a dictionary description for a contraction or mad model you know all those amazing sort of Contraptions of beating the hun I just love those things but um this is a little known side of him really isn't it this is his pure illustration work we've got one here for boy stealing eggs you know I don't really like it very much do you mind me saying that no no no you're welcome his head's a bit large yeah a bit different to his um Bays up the ger isn't it yes absolutely a bit different yeah um but I love this one this pen and ink drawing here that is absolutely enchanting what a pretty girl yeah and there's a beehive and goodness knows what those bees are doing but she's holding some flowers um I think that's a really pretty and slightly mad drawing lovely very decorative and that line of his is so so delic it's he you know when I see something like this from Heath Robinson I think he's almost as good as Aubry Beardsley who was actually fairly close contemporary would you believe it yeah uh how did you get them um many years ago but in the 60s I was invited to modernize an old property for a very prominent artist his family and his wife and um they moved on they parted and the wife with her new partner and family moved to a dilapitated property on a wealthy estate and they were finally had hard times to make this property work and I was the builder for them the Day of Reckoning comes when money is needed to pay the bills and I off offered these in part payment and took them gratefully many years ago did you like them then I like them then I always admired them I think this is why they were offered to me oh I see you particularly like these yes I did they were wonderful which is your favorite cuz there are two here well it must have been it's mine too yeah I think that is absolute Heavenly he's got his full name on it as well I know the others are just initials that does help in a sense uh it's obviously an illustration for something but I couldn't think in my own mind quite for what uh he did did illustrate a few of kiplings poems and I suppose it might be for one of those um at any rate it looks to me relatively early in in Heath Robinson's career uh I don't know about late 1890s perhaps 1900 yes like that but it is so delicate I mean look at the the musculature and the the shading under her armpit and on her skin it's it's uh it's absolutely ravishing and I think the hands are really sensitive done the arms and the hands yes what a beautiful beautiful picture achingly romantic a rather strange face on this one I explain that well she's a perky little number as well I mean you know quite often they do relate to texts and you need the text to go with it I like her sort of rather frazzled hair um she looks like a sort of nibbled end of a pencil or something doesn't you I love that cloak as well drawn tight around her in a slightly red Indian way I mean there's such there's such cleverness here in visual terms I love the way it's made into this shape with the with the bush behind and everything is quite sculptural about it do do you mind me being cheeky and asking how much the Builder's bill was um well I think that's between me and her is it well fair enough that's me knock back and you're quite right yes um yeah no it was substantial but um I was happy and we walked away friends at the end of the day good well should we start say with this one one I don't like that's right although you know that's still going to be wanted by a collector I would have thought uh up to ,000 really yeah so it's only a black and white thing but um it might be a little difficult to sell he's not the most commercial image not for sale no of course not none of them are but for insurance you might need to and then this which I think is just uh Delight absolutely delightful um2 to 3,000 really yes I know it's only a little is this um then we've got these two well um with added color and very delicate color too as we've said um this one probably £4 or 5,000 yeah and then uh this one I think was my my my favorite and uh I'd be very surprised if it's worth less than than £6,000 thank you very much well it adds up doesn't it you know got more than 10,000 here uh maybe my wife will let me display them in the front room now do you know that while the roach show has been just through that Archway there in The Bishop's Palace Gardens the palace croquet club's been using the lawn here it was invited to use the lawn by the bishop 30 years ago with the Proviso that they all wear white just cuz it looks so lovely and there are two different types of cro Golf and Association do you see it's amazing the things you pick up on the road show we've had a wonderful day here in Wells hope you've enjoyed it too [Music] bye-bye the
