Fairs, Markets, Shops and Centres

The annual 'Decorative Living Fair' will stage its 14th outing on Friday and Saturday, May 17-18, at the beautiful location of the park near Tunbridge Wells.

Queen star Brian May is also a huge Victorian photo fan.

Holly Graham holds her monthly Upmarket Fleamarket in Norwich on Saturday, May 4.

One of the largest boat jumbles in the UK is likely to attract increased numbers of boat owners, boat lovers and collectors of nauticalia on Sunday, May 12.

Organisers looking for an unusual spot at which to hold a fair might consider the setting alongside an outdoor swimming pool.

Edward Cruttenden of Sunbury Antiques is launching a biannual Sunday antiques market at Sandown Park Racecourse to run alongside the bi-monthly Tuesday market he has held there since a year ago.

A country house car boot to raise funds for a newly opened specialist equestrian centre in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, will run at the 800-acre Isle Estate at Bicton near Shrewsbury on Sunday May 12.

Launched two years ago at a Victorian mansion in Surrey by local online antiques dealer David Steel, the Tree of Ages Antiques Fair will be held on Sunday, May 12, at Robert Denholm House in Nutfield.

Arthur Swallow Fairs’ Antiques & Home show may not have the moniker ‘international’ attached but the event attracts a strong overseas group of buyers who comb the fair, clutching sheets of shipping firm stickers to identify purchases for collection.

Throughout May, Antiques On High in Oxford will have a window display to support a new book by local author and ex-dealer Sylvia Vetta.

Belinda and Tom Kilduff (pictured below) are Lincolnshire locals and Antiques & Home Show loyalists. They noted how “busy, condensed and lively” the one-day format was.

“I’ve sold Jesus Christ… could I interest you in St Patrick?” So asked Martyn Watson of Penrith, Cumbria, stalling out in the Epic Centre and keen to shift his statue of Ireland’s patron saint.

Decoratives dealer Tara Franklin has run the small and well-regarded three-day vintage and antiques fair in the village of Penshurst in Kent since 2015.

Condensing a two-day event into one and moving to a new weekday slot are no mean feats – just ask Arthur Swallow Fairs, which has just launched a new streamlined format. ATG went along to the first edition to view the results.

First organiser looks back at event’s origins as IACF celebrates event's 50th anniversary.

At the second outing of the Norfolk and Suffolk Antique Dealers Association (NASADA) antiques fair, local dealer Philip Crosthwaite, who launched the group last year, will be bringing this Victorian Noah’s Ark toy, below. With 90 original carved wooden animals, it is priced at £895.

The story of Queen Anne, who ruled from 1702 to her death in 1714, is now much more widely known after the Oscar-winning portrayal by Olivia Colman in 'The Favourite'.

A focus on two family businesses which source some of their stock from antiques and vintage fairs and markets in the UK.

In ATG No 2385 we ran a story on Rebecca Lloyd Marlow’s 12,000-strong collection of 18th to 20th century buttons which she had sourced over the past 20 years at fairs and brocantes across France. Here is a focus on two such events, one in the north and one in the south of the country where not only buttons but plenty of textiles, French furniture, ceramics and all sorts of desirables in between tempt hundreds of buyers.

A charity antiques fair in aid of a Kent hospice will run at the Skinners School in Tunbridge Wells on Sunday, April 28.