Antiques Roadshow UK Stowe House (July 03, 2020)

testing rooms school this is one of Britain's most majestic rooms but many years ago a very naughty schoolboy clambered along this ledge up over the figures here on to the next ledge and jammed a tennis ball into the frieze and then when restoration work was done the tennis ball was taken out painted over and put back and is now the world's only grade 1 listed tennis ball welcome to the Antiques Roadshow from Stowe house and Gardens in Stowe house and gardens belongs to the temple Grenville family who in the 18th century employed the best designers to create an inspiring landscape and magnificent architecture but as the family fortune waned the estate fell into disrepair and was on the verge of being demolished the house was saved in 1923 by becoming a school the majestic gardens were rescued in 1990 by the National Trust and in 1997 the Stowe house Preservation Trust was created to restore it to its former magnificence as you can see they're still hard at work today here in the elegant music room many slivers of goldleaf are being painstakingly applied to the mouldings Stowe house is the largest restoration project of its kind in the UK quite possibly in the world the house was listed as one of the most endangered sites as water seeped into the building and ceilings were close to collapse when restoration began over the North and South entrances the scaffolding became the largest freestanding structure in the world this is before and this is after [Music] when you look around the marble saloon you can see what all the fuss is about this was built in 1775 and I think it's fair to say it's probably the finest and most elegant room in the land and it has no purpose or function as a room it's just built to impress it's a majestic elliptical shape that's 56 feet up to the center or oculus up there it's based on the Pantheon in Rome and is a marvel of engineering geometry and artistry as you can see the restoration work is truly worth it these figures just appear to be bursting out of the ceiling we're delighted to be holding our show in this brand setting as guests of Stowe school and the National Trust if you'd like more information about the program and further details about some of the items featured in this episode please log on to our website at bbc.co.uk/topgear interests I think this is a road show first for me I can't remember ever having talked about Abed but you know what a good bed and it wouldn't actually look that uncomfortable in one of the rooms here it's got the right sort of presence of so is this your bed it is my bed yeah yeah a family piece yes it was inherited from great-aunt whose grandparents bought it originally in auction in 1904 in London 1904 so by that stage it had already traveled because this room bed started its life at the turn of the century in France although actually looking at it it has got quite an Italian at feel but it was a smart bed made in burr walnut here this lovely wall not an ordinary grained walnut but it was a bed with a presence now you sleep in it yes they did and you loved it I loved it why do you love it it's just such a beautiful piece but obviously it has real family is family heirloom now and so did you know did you know her yes she was my great-great aunt did great on tapenade aunty Connie and she was five foot tall so she was very small no she was very small and because the bed was so high at the time she actually has to use a step to climb up into her evil into you is 99 when she still slept to hit fantastic so she had his pair of steps to get up into the middle of this sort of architectural pediment here but if there was one element that I could chop off and take it home honestly these are they they're so tactile you know you could just slice them off at the collar put them on little prints and have them as a decorative one but not that I think in any way I'm suggesting that you should do such a baby and it's a very masculine bed so it's a bird that you would expect being a dressing room somewhere that when the husband isn't sleeping very well he can slip away and sleep comfortably on his own and do you think there was ever a pair of these we're led to believe the may have behaviors because of course these days one of a pair is everybody says where's the other of you and of course the pet must have a bearing on its its value it's fabulous quality where would you go and get another but you know if you put it in an auction it's it's pre-sale would probably be somewhere between 600 and 800 pounds not that we're going to sell it this is a piece that absolutely loses quality and the inscription does explain why the Royal South Park's agricultural Association from HRH the Prince Consort to the grower of the best root crop 1860 now who was the grower of the best root crop it's one of them of ancestors obviously and it's been passed down the family so I just think it was probably the boys and great-great-great grandfather that was actually presented with this cup it's super to have that sort of continuity and of course when you think about 1860 that is actually the year before Prince Albert died you don't see so many pieces associated with Prince Albert and say that obviously explains the quality all of this decoration is most beautifully applied to the piece and of course if we then look at the marks we've got 1860 as the London hallmark and not surprisingly the royal Goldsmith Robert Garrett but I do love this absolutely wonderful here the a of course for Albert under the while crown and the laurels again for the victors water peace sir valium I would suggest that today you would be very hard pushed to buy such a piece for less than about four and a half thousand pounds yes thank you very much that's an amazing figure thank you now you've brought along this little autograph album whose in it there are a lot of signatures of Victoria Cross winners now why is that whose was it yours no this belonged to my father-in-law who took my husband to Windsor one day at the castle there happened to be a garden party for the Victoria Cross winners right and he collected these on the way out so did he have the autograph album with him no he rushed along to Woolworths and he bought them well let's have a minute and the first one we turned to his reverent a/h Proctor VC now I happen to know that Proctor who wasn't a reverend at the time of the First World War right yes went out over the top of the trenches because he saw two men they were wounded he went out under heavy gunfire and he dressed their wounds took them warm clothing promised that they'd be rescued after sunset in the dark and after dark they were rescued cows and for that he was awarded the Victoria Cross but let's have a look further on and we've got one here for W B Butler West Yorkshire Regiment now he was in charge of a mortar in the trenches during the First World War and accidentally the lever of one flew off and it was in danger of exploding so quickly he took the mortar put it in front of him turned away from all the other troops that were behind him and said get out quick and they all rushed to safety and when they gone to safety he throw it over the top of the trench as explosion instantly so he saved all those lives and again for that he was awarded the Victoria Cross now how many of you got in here do you know there are 37 now that's very valuable I think this is going to be worth 1,500 to 2,000 pounds for this little book tiny little book I can't believe it my husband will be delighted now like most people of my generation I will willingly confess to being a Beatles fan I'm old enough to have grown up with them indeed I saw them in December 1963 so here we have rather unexpectedly clearly a Beatles story but it's something with the difference isn't it where does it begin begins in the cavern club back in Liverpool and an old stone called David Moore's who was 17 years old great Beatles fan heard about he went to this school went to this school and heard about the Beatles playing in his local town went to visit the cavern club I think was a lunchtime concert rather than the evening concerts and I'm thought this is a band that I'd like some of my friends to hear and he had the initiative to write to their manager Brian Epstein age 17 age 17 and invites the Beatles to come to play at Stowe and so this is the beginning of a correspondence that we've got starting in 30th of January and they're moving all the way through to Asia this this is the documentation of that that gig if you like it's one gig from inception to completion which is a very very rare collection of material it's got the contract it's got a photograph of the gig it's the whole history it isn't it is now let's get this straight I mean this is obviously a stove story where do you fit in well I'm the seventh headmaster that's right and you'll be pleased to hear I wasn't headmaster stow in 1963 when the Beatles came to play where you were boy there yeah I wasn't born in February 1960 fair enough I was a twinkle in the eye yeah okay so so but what surprises me is several things one I would never have thought what the words Stowe and beetles have any connection whatsoever yeah what was it like for them coming to play in the famous public school Straight Outta Louisville well I think for them it was a bit of a shock and Paul McCartney tells the story that when he came to stone and the boys showed him round the the first impression that he had of some of their studies was how unbelievably squalid the rooms were and they thought they were going to see this wonderful neoclassical building Palladian splendor and of course boarding schools in 1963 were rather different to boarding schools in 2012 do we know the playlist for that great night well I think it started with twist and shout and then the the set progressed through please please me the album and I think the most noteworthy song was she loves you right which received its world premiere here first played here first played better their first great number one yeah April the 4th 1968 was he where you heard it first first her dad fantastic but what I love about this is the fact that when Brian Epstein realized that he was corresponding with a 17 year old boy it would be good to have the whole contract countersigned by a housemaster because it's not legal if you're just at school yep now where does that take us with all the sculpture so the sculpture the linked with the Beatles is David Winn yes who of course is one of our finest sculptors oh did he go here as well he's an old boy yep so in all stay and he was here in the the Roxbury years yes during World War two right and he was completing a show for a gallery called tooths yeah and in the show there was a series of busts featuring famous musicians yeah so Thomas beech and the conductor who do Menuhin and and a number of other people who were celebrated at the time and he wrote to epsilon saying actually I'd like something a bit more contemporary can I do the Beatles alright an Epstein wrote back to say well you can but you'll have to go to Paris because the boys are recording and they're playing at the Olympia Stadium they're there for 10 days so David turned up went to the shawshank hotel modeled them modeled them with clay and the rest is history and they say the rest is history now we're looking at a lot of stuff and a lot of very important things I'm only going to give you a global value because I think breaking down to bits and pieces is unhelpful this is a great archive it's a great range of material you've got to be looking at Oh at least 50000 probably between fifty and a hundred thousand because of the intricacy the rarity and of course the sculptural quality of the things involved I don't have to tell tell our insurers that good thank you thank you do you know who she is all we know she's a dancing naked girl and we're hoping you'll be able to tell us well her name was Lady Constance Richardson and she was of nobility obviously and she was a suffragette an athlete and a ballet dancer and she was certainly dancing the time of Isadora Duncan was influenced by her and was considered quite a long guard because a title lady to be dancing in scantily dressed costume was thought slightly risky so she was quite a gala boy in town I think and obviously captured in this fantastic pose by the sculptor Paolo two-bit sky counter Tremaine sky and it's dated Paris 1935 what's the history behind it I think my stepfather in law would have bought it immediately in 1935 or 36 he was a bit of a collector of sculpture and panda paintings we're lucky enough to have inherited it in my wife and I and is it something that has pride of place at home - yes it's it certainly and where everybody can see it and gets a ring on its toe for Christmas oh cool so I'm glad she doesn't just come out for Christmas eh well I think she has lots of energy lots of exuberance you know a great history behind her and I think she was quite a naughty girl which also I like as well um and worth quite a considerable amount of money I have no idea how much he paid for it back in the 1935 but it wouldn't have been too much I'm sure I wouldn't have thought it's a today at auction I would see this as a figure between 15 and 20 thousand pounds it's very interesting [Music] you may remember that few programs ago we were asking our experts what they would most like to see on a road show and our ceramic specialist Steven Moore said he would most like to see furniture designed by the artist crisis baker very very rare now Susie you have brought along some furniture by Francis Bacon I have you did just have this what hanging around the house oh well my grandparents bought it from Francis Bacon 1930 and and do you use it yes it's used on a daily basis it's my desk tall yeah I didn't know until Stephen wished the Francis Bacon had made furniture because that's not what he's known for he is going to be thrilled to see this can we have a little sneaky do it's going to be a bit disappointing to you I think that's have you decided it is slightly underwhelming yes sir well it's 1930s modernism in a wonderful functionalism and it's it obvious a stool it's a stool yes and I sit on it you can yes please do sit on the the Francis Bacon stool it's sort of clenches the buttocks rather doesn't it have you found that one sitting more everyday now well I think we should take it to show to see them I think so come on then now I can see you've got a circus here but where's the ring I'm afraid the Rings at home because I hoped it would rain on it and it would end up a big pile of mush so I didn't bring it oh what a pity but you have got it I have got a rhenium and it hasn't rained are we lucky I absolutely love these circus animals and the clowns and they're all wearing different outfits I just love them they're wonderful and do you have you your family play yes oh I used to play with them when I was a child and yet absolutely hours on end yes absolutely I'm not surprised look they actually are animated and although they've just got legs that work this hippopotamus he's absolutely wonderful and even his head moves and his neck so I mean that is fantastic and do you know who it's by I don't know you did I know it's called Humpty Dumpty circus but that's about it is it oh right well in your family it is know under his wing yep good because it's by Albert Cherne hood all right is an American but he was a German refugee so he was in Philadelphia and he started his company in 1872 and he started making dolls and animals and these are probably early 20th century all made of wood except for this little lady here right with a biscuit okay do you know where you've got that yeah my are they belong to my godmother she was born in 1908 so I guess in which they woke up that that figures so we're talking about 1910 1915 something like that so sure not to the Americans is better than it is here right except there are a lot of collectors and I'm just going to pick one or two things that are more valuable than the others the fact that the animals have got glass eyes is important and they have and the animals that you should look out for if you can as a gorilla which I don't think you've got knew but you have got a hippopotamus and a giraffe and that's very nice and my favorite is the crocodile wonderful in good condition as well so although they've been played with and the rarest thing for the shown heart circus is the bisque headed circus performer and you got it so let's put it this way with the whole wing and all these we are talking about between three and four thousand pounds Wow well eyes are just that much come home very carefully is that exactly mounting just Steven do you mind if I I started just interrupt for a minute we'll get back to you now okay we have here an object brought in by Suzy hello oh my god do you know what this is yes I do but I know what I hope it is and what do you hope it is what it looks like the thing we asked for two years ago it's a Francis Bacon stool there you try I'm glad I'm sitting down yeah I respect it too much you did this on purpose didn't well what do you think Suzy tell tell Stephen about it well my grandparents brought it from Francis Bacon in 1930 he had a studio sale I think it was advertised in the studio magazine in August 1930 they loved modern furniture and they went along and bought it and it was my grandmother's dressing table stool so you're going mother your grandmother just sat on yes yes I use it as my desk stool now well it certainly stood the test of time has it comes into school once a year and girls have a look at it I mean it's something I never ever thought I'd see but I'm sorry I'm I'm glad you're so excited because when I saw it you think this is an object of great beauty it's not necessary an object of great beauty there's an object of great art historical importance could you value this yes 10 to 15,000 pounds you might want to take me to school baby I think you should be sitting down on the antics pressure we see a lot of prints but they rarely see the light of day because there were so many produced over the last five hundred years and not often do they unless they're more of a 20th century type really catch the eye of the art market and you've got a print here signed with some very celebrated initials yes of Dura yes Obrecht yes so let's start with how you actually ended up with it I inherited it from My Father he had a great eye for art works all kinds of art works and he bought it in 1971 we see so many nineteenth-century copies of our breakfast he was one of the most important figures in the history of a vast in many ways but also in the 19th century the Victorian period he was a particularly copied and we see fact similes all the time with a famous ad banged there at the bottom of the image and I can return to the moment as to whether or not this is a 19th century a copy or fake but just for a moment let's talk about obrecht dura because I mean he's one of those figures who's almost up there with with someone like Leonardo and Chris and this print here is a beautiful example of just that because you've got in that rather sort of divine face of the Virgin the look of almost of a Botticelli and then if you move your eye to the right you've got a sort of northern cuckoo clock like building and you can't get a better example of how north and south are amalgamating and the image which is a very devout religious one with the Christ child on the Virgin's lab is full of detail and dura loved all of that his pictures were very instructive what is particularly noteworthy is the monkey that's tethered at her feet the monkey represents base human qualities in the iconography of this period everything that a human shouldn't be you know naughty malevolent full of vice but the point is that it's tethered so it's a loveless and graphic example of female virtue and in this case divine female virtue being able to overcome monkeyish aspects and attributes and that's the sort of games he played so back to the artist obrecht dura and and whether or not this is a 19th century example or an original well it's very difficult sometimes to determine with prints but this to me has very specific attributes that tie it to its period and I have to say from what I can see this is an original Albrecht Durer print now it is a print it's not an oil painter now but it is nonetheless a very significant thing because of his towering role in the tying together of of different cultural currents in the early Renaissance so it comes to value yes well I have to say subject to just a few checks given that prints are a complex area and you're in particular I think this could be worth up to about twenty thousand pounds that's really good news that's really good Venus thank you very much very exciting [Applause] of all the things we've seen here today at Stowe I think this has to be the most extraordinary it is the egg of the now extinct elephant bird native of Madagascar became extinct in about the 17th century was I think the heaviest known bird which it must have been I mean how big must have been to lay this just just makes my eyes water just thinking about it anyway it's now in the science lab here at Stowe school this delighted boys and girls in the science lab ever since it was brought along from the egg and the Antiques Roadshow team until next time bye-bye each century sightseers would come to this garden in the 17th century sightseers would come to this garden alert the head gardener payment penny and then set off to explore two hundred and fifty acres of sublime views and country suffered this was one of the earliest grand estates in the land to open its gates to tourists welcome back to Stowe house and gardens in Buckinghamshire [Music] for 250 years Stowe house and gardens were known as the most majestic in Britain and the temple Grenville family who owned them were considered more powerful and wealthier than the king himself thanks to marrying a succession of very rich heiresses they were well travelled and crammed their home with the finest treasures and mementos from around the world in the 1840s catastrophic deaths reduced Stowe to a state of penury and almost all its magnificent furnishings fixtures and fittings were auctioned off in 1997 the Stowe house restoration trust was formed to restore the house and to find out where the contents have gone [Music] so what did happen to the lost treasures of stone the major options of 1848 and 1921 with the grandest ever seen the original catalogues give details of every object wall fitting fireplace and garden ornament for sale and they make fascinating reading everything had to go Chippendale furniture priceless tapestries the state bed and these are the ladies and gentlemen of the auction house you've got rid of it all my goodness they must have been kept busy but I'm told the two of these copper urns have been found and they are returning to stone today the house is home to students of Stowe school who have kindly opened the doors to our visitors I wonder if any of them have brought other lost treasures from the estate if you'd like more information about the program and further details about some of the items featured in this episode please log on to our website at bbc.co.uk/topgear and more information about the specialists and their interests do you know this is one of the best rattles I've seen in a long while what we need to check there is does it work now we've got a good volunteer here let's try the whistle puff brilliant that's working what about the bells thank you okay and then the coral that was of course intended for teething yes they've got the full bite jolly hard to make an impression in coral it is a very hard material the decoration actually is lovely little bit of neoclassicism which of course does blend with the building we're in oh and this is the sort of establishment where this would have been in use is there's a family one yes it is it's been in my mother's family for 350 weeks a bit longer than that because we've actually got initials there hm yes I know that that is my great-grandmother Hilda Marie and I I believe it belonged to her yes now it probably belonged to her but it wasn't made for her she was she'll say in the 1890s okay 1885 I think yes bill action this was made about a hundred years earlier than that really does this is why it's so remarkable the way it's survived so well because mostly when you find a rattle like this you find the ends being crash where certain individuals bite yes yeah they're supposed to fight that end but they tend to buy that end but the whistle are working beautifully there and then the bells more often than not those missing you know what's happened of course you get to sleep last night what we've got very nicely here as well we've still got the suspensory rig right which of course makes this a health visitors nightmare imagine a ribbon round the child's neck not what you want and I say lovely that everything is actually entitled we've got the exact date there 1793 and then the makers mark there of Peter and and Bateman right they there's a huge disparity of prices with with rattles because most are in a very poor condition for very obvious reasons this one this one is in such good condition this is what every collector of rattles actually wants so at auction thousand fifteen hundred pounds okay we thought about fifty pounds seriously oh really big think fifty paise okay right we're keeping that out of your hands [Music] what I love about doing the roadshow is it doesn't matter how many times I do it there's always something that arrives that surprises and absolutely enchants me and this is it and it's not obvious by looking at it exactly what it is I know what it is do you know what it is I know what kids I know what it is because my father told me and there was one here framed which I knew about and he was often telling me that was done by and one of two sisters and she was 20 when she did this and in 1738 now he told me that it was a pocket you're absolutely right your father was completely right in his instructions these are ladies pockets and they were worn with the ribbons and as you say they were tied around the waist under the petticoats but just to confuse us in the 18th century when these were sewn a petticoat was also the name for the outer layer of the dress so your skirt was also known as a petticoat and you've got to remember they were tight wasted yes and full at the side and then as you say you had these little slits and the pockets would be underneath now I've always thought that this was for money but you could put a key in there your fan whatever you wanted about your person you just popped it in your pockets these are made of linen they are beautifully sewn and in the 1730's this would have been a well-known image a sort of Chinese VARs of flowers full of these what would have been very exotic flowers like the tulip and the sort of stylized carnation they're sewn in colored walls in chain stitch it just very loosely sewn so she might have drawn out the outline but she's just really gone in the shape of the purse and a pair is very very unusual these days beautiful absolutely my sort of thing and you know they're quite rare these days I haven't seen a pair for a long long time when I first started working I saw a pair but I haven't seen them since to put into an auction a specialist textile auction I would say they would put an estimate of somewhere between a thousand and fifteen hundred pounds when you see a work like this which is done in enamel you get the just a sense just a taste of what pictures painted at this period which is about 1820 would look like if they hadn't faded because enamel has a marvelous way of retaining the intensity of the colors and you have a work by the greatest anomalous of them all Henri bone how did Henry bone come into your life I was given it ten years ago on the death of my father and he was given it about 40 years ago by an elderly family friend because my father used to do a lot of work for him in the garden and DIY because he was he was elderly unable to do anything that's rather rather touching fees for looking after the garden the subject is Mary Queen of Scots is inaudible yes now of course she died a number of centuries before but Henry bone made a speciality in going around finding ancient Elizabethan and Tudor portraits and then capturing them in this exquisite process first painting them copying them and then turning them into a novel he became then the the great anomalus of the day I mean he became enamored list to George the third so thus you know having royal patronage like that the man had done extraordinarily well so how do you respond to it I just think it's beautiful the lace work is just so delicate so just I love it yes and I do notice the color of those Peaks we how rarely do we see cheeks with the pink suffusing with the white so said graphically is that and because it's it's faded in so many instances but not of course an enamel so what you've got here is in art world terms something very good you've got an extremely beautiful image of a very important emotive sitter Mary Queen of Scots done okay a few hundred years later by a very significant portrait painter and an analyst Henry bode by appointment to the king it's therefore worth approximately twelve thousand pounds I think collectors in Germany and France might disagree but I'm from Worcester and I'm biased so I think the Stowe service is the finest porcelain dinner service ever made and I mean let's look at it how did you come to have two plates well I was at school for four years and I've collected one of the two bits up to do with stove I've got a few guys for the gardener's and things like that and I always wanted one of the plates I always wanted that one there so you're not a boy from the school yes yes and a friend of mine was a antique dealer and he found out for me that there was a plate I could buy so I purchased it when was that 1987 so it's 25 years ago right well I mean when the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham when he inherited his title from his father in 1813 he inherited absolutely enormous wealth and he was determined to make his own impression by addition to the building here by filling it with treasures and he wanted a dinner service that really suited his place and he went to Wooster he went to the firm a flight bar and bar and commissioned this set that was in 1814 we will look at one this is just one plate from what would have been a couple of hundred pieces and every plate was decorated with his full coat of arms there it is I mean the so many different titles had all come down to him with their income and estates and so how many quarters can you get in one coat of arms they were all there as well as the wonderful lion and horse supporters and they were used really imagine entertaining its down when you were here at Stowe I don't think us off porcelain quite like this when you it's going no fascinating to see two different designs what did this one hasn't got the full coat of arms it's just the well just just the crests yes that's the one I don't understand I've never seen reference to it what you've got there is one of the samples because when you Commission a set to be made I mean it's a very long process first of all the factory would give you as specimen samples of different designs they would be submitted to the the new Marcus he would then choose the patterns he wants and then the sets would be ordered and this is one of the specimens that he rejected he didn't that's go for the Chris it wasn't it wasn't upfront enough like the other one wasn't enough this has the whole works doesn't it yeah yeah absolutely everything squeezed in there and how much he paid one day I paid a thousand pounds for the one nearest you and 1250 for this one today so service plate nearly ten thousand pounds yes and the sample plate specimen is perhaps another 7,000 so that's seventeen thousand together yes I must think about insurance so Jackie Stewart lovely to see you here on the Antiques Roadshow where it's Stowe and of course not far from Stowe is a very significant place for you just over the hedge really is Silverstone and in fact store corners at the end of hangar straight so I'm really next door to where a little bit of work quite a lot of work I'm here with three times world drivers champion is that right and of course everyone knows if you're racing in Britain around the world we are see to bring along two of your favourite cups of which you have many now this one is for the British Grand Prix but it has nothing to do with Silverstone is it well no I I think I'm the only person who's ever won a British Grand Prix in two distant Forks of course I won the British Grand Prix driving racing cars a couple of times but this year is the British Grand Prix of shooting because before I was ever a racing driver my grandfather was a gamekeeper I was brought up with a gun and a fishing rod in my hand they won the British Grand Prix of shooting way back in 1960 and I think again at 62 for clay pigeon shooting it was called Olympic trap and we've just seen the Olympics and I missed being in the Olympic team I was in the British team four-man team but the Olympics is only a two-man team so I missed that I was the reserve biggest disappointment of my life but this trophy here is the German Grand Prix which was run in the old days it was the Nurburgring 187 corners per lap 14.7 miles around and it was in the fog and the rain and I want it by four minutes a little over four minutes well that's my genetic distance to win but that was very variable trophies at least in my life and I was reading tell me if this is right that when you set off for the German Grand Prix and you would look at your driveway and think will I see that again I mean oh it's a fantastically dangerous business it's true because in those days unfortunately Helen and I had my wife and I lost most of her friends were killed driving racing cash if you raced for five years in Formula One there was a two out of three chance you were going to die and the Nurburgring because there was a hundred and eighty seven corners every lap it was certainly the most lethal racetrack in the world more people died here than any other race track so it was a great challenge it was totally unsafe at the time and in fact when I started to change the safety in motorsport we had to cancel the German Grand Prix because you involved in an accident and it took such a long time to get you out of the car yeah because the facilities were so poor in those days medical facilities marshaling was never what it is today Britain leads that today but in those days it was very thin on the ground so this is the cut from the Nurburgring from the Nurburgring it was a little more gold at the time but my wife's polished it a little too well oh no we take a very strict view about that on the roadshow you know people come and I say we give it a great scaring with a brillo pad she's kept it nicely but it was a little poor girl I have to it's lovely to see the cuffs on this lovely to me thank thank you well you've got a very very careful family because you've got the box which is wonderful it's so unusual to have the box and the toy and um did you play with it yes a little bit but mother asked us to very my sister and I to be very careful with it so it didn't get played oh so it was your mother's and before that her mother's her mother's it's regeneration regeneration well you kept it so beautifully and it's actually one of my favorite date toys because it's by Ernst Paul Lehmann of Germany they started in 1881 in Brandenburg and this is one of the earliest because of this extraordinary ratchet right he if you like which is one of the earliest keys because afterwards they'd have an ordinary key that you and I will randomize but what I love more than anything is it was obviously made for the English market because it says here the promenade is mr. and mrs. Smith in Hyde Park it could also be stowed yes definitely and this is one of the great toys for collectors of gently early Tinsley toy right and I I can see this making somewhere between 600 and 800 pounds absolutely fabulous thank you lovely so with this wonderful ratchet should we get it doing oh yes success when you come across a portrait like this and you have standing next to the portrait the subject the person who was painted I love playing the game of trying to work out what the artist has tried to draw out of the subject now you were painted by someone call mr. Dunlop and when was that I should think it was about 1965 and how did this event to take place because Don lope is an interesting artist he's a royal academician a prominent landscape painter not really a portrait painter so in conversation and my husband invited him down lovely so because of an encounter in the Royal Academy the artist has brought home and this is the result do you think he's done justice to your mother I think he has done a very good likeness although mother has always been very modest and she wasn't really keen to have her portrait painted at the time and she always said that it was a Monday and it was a wash day and she wasn't dressed suitably to have a portrait painted but I think it looks very well well he's caught you Oh natural lovely recollections because you're dealing with someone who actually didn't really do portraits and you have a lovely landscape example by Dunlop who incidentally has a first name even though not many people know that what is his first name well Ronald but he signs himself Dunlop and in the many books here it because he was a writer as well as an artist and often his first name doesn't emerge so you have to sort of guess but he he's always enters Christmas cards not Christmas they will be a sketch that he'd done and always sign it ro done so you never knew his first name she was always mr. Dunlop to you well let's unwrap a little bit about the story of mr. Dudley because he was born in Ireland an irish painter in a great tradition of landscape painting that existed in ireland in the 19th century he was born in the late 1800s and having written a lot of books having become quite prominent as an artist he then developed a technique which i think is very characteristic of a certain type of painter who is good at nature and this is a painting of nature do we know where it is yes at our farm and they are our hair difference I used to show them and I was one three first in one day at the Royal so he not only recorded your face he recorded your cows what a man so the value of these paintings well the portrait of you now it's a lovely painting but I think you have to ask yourself who would actually buy a painting by an artist who's known for his fan scapes of albeit a beautiful lady but not one necessarily that is associated with the artist and what the artist does it's just a jolly nice painting and dare I say it worth a few hundred pounds I adore your landscape I would value this had arrived about 3,000 plaques thank you very much now this message terrifies me it says notice Lois barrier a resident of Aaron which is I think is in Northwest France is charged with having released a pigeon with a message for England he is therefore sentenced to death for espionage and was shot that was during the Second World War yes that is a frightening thing to release a pigeon and to be shot for it indeed but why was that because the pigeons were carrying messages from the French Resistance back to the UK during the war and the Germans actually employed snipers along the French coast to shoot racing pigeons to stop them carrying the messages back to the UK to back to England what's your interest in racing my interest is is on the general manager of the Royal pigeon racing Association and I look at these medals every day in my office and I think we brought them today because they need to be seen rather than me look at them everybody else needs to see them now these are examples like the dickin medal don't they they are indeed yep and there were 32 awarded to racing pigeons homing pigeons during the Second World War and that's 32 of a total of just over 60 so these are animal Victoria Crosses that's right yeah tell me what some of these pigeons - this one for example what did this pigeon do what's his name first of all um this one is a rare one this one's actually known by his number which is NPS national pigeon service 42 and he came back three times bringing messages back and he was serving with a special air service three times he went across to the continent yep and they were parachuted in the pigeons were actually tied into a small bundle so they couldn't obviously fly away and they were dropped out of an aircraft over to the resistance fighters or the frontline troops and so on so they could use them again let's look at this one tell me about this one Beachcomber in in 42 he he actually sent the first message back to the back to the UK from the Canadian troops in Dieppe this was - yep this is the 1942 th range they have a terrible raid the Terrapin where a failed disk yes exactly and this will actually brought the message back home yeah that's a very famous moment indeed yes indeed in the Second World War what about the owners if the owners know at the time what these pigeons were doing no they were actually inscripted there are a quarter of a million pigeons in them in the National pigeon service and every reconnaissance aircraft every bomber that left near the shores of the UK had two racing pigeons here we've got some photographs indeed of aircrew with little boxes here yes presumably with pigeons a pigeon yeah and there's a colored photograph here again with the two boxes and indeed and if the if the aircraft was shot down and the radio was lost the pigeons would be released with the coordinates they fly back and basically the aircrew would be picked up they say thousands of lives just in the first and second they were very brave little animals they were indeed yes and you've just I mean not only the three you've booked two more those of other things as well we have and what you've seen today is only a fraction of what we've never yes and we're beginning to we're beginning to collate it all an archive it properly because it's a fabulous story and it needs to be told you love your pigeons I guess we do indeed yes do you think the owners of these lovely pigeons indeed they must have did they ever see them again quite a few of them yes yeah yeah obviously many were lost in service and never returned but all these pigeons you know that the owners actually went and had the medals medals awarded officially sir what about the value do you have them in short the whole group is insured at the moment for nine thousand pounds for the whole lot for insurance purposes this collection of five [ __ ] medals plus all the ephemera that you've got should be insured for 180 to 200 thousand pounds Wow Wow our members will be pleased really absolutely we just love to know where the other ones were well thank you very much you remember how I told you at the beginning of the program that so many of the precious objects that were once in Stowe house were sold at least massive auctions that took place in in the 1800s in the 1900s everything went and we were hoping that some of those treasures might just make their way back to Stowe here today with some of our visitors well quite a few things have including this lovely silver basket that once graced a table here at Stowe and in fact the owners have very kindly offered to donate it back to Stowe house so it will take its rightful place up those steps inside wonderful between the program from the Antiques Roadshow team here at Stowe until next time bye bye [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Jame Andy

Views: 118,032

Rating: 4.7679391 out of 5

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Id: OsLEg4z1XUg

Length: 56min 39sec (3399 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 03 2020