UK

BONHAMS have taken part of the ground floor of Royal Victoria House in the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, as their new operational base in Kent and Sussex.

What a difference a year makes.

ANY perception that the demand for top English delftwares had softened seems to have been scotched by the huge competition for this 17th century London-made mug.

BILLED as “the greatest collection of Modern British Art ever to come to the market”, the sale of the Evill-Frost collection at Sotheby’s in London did not disappoint.

HASLEMERE in Surrey has fallen victim to a gang targeting silver for melt, two weeks after thieves stole a rhino head from the town’s museum.

WHEN a grand, photographically illustrated record of the Great Exhibition of 1851 was planned by the Royal Commissioners and Executive Committee, they nonetheless kept a tight grip on the exhibition purse strings.

JONATHAN Arnold has been awarded an MBE for services to English furniture makers in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

DEALERS at Grays antiques centre have been told that disruption from the next phase of the Crossrail project at Bond Street will last three months longer than previously thought.

THE latest round of Russian art sales in London put in a consistent performance as auctioneers’ totals again benefited from a series of £1m-plus prices. Demand, however, remained selective with selling rates noticeably patchy.

THE Guildford Riverside Saleroom is to reopen under the banner of Wellers Fine Art Auctions after a seven-year absence. The firm, who had a presence in the town until ten years ago, will also continue to operate from Chertsey.

THIS bronze Zinfandel by equestrian sculptor Adrian Jones (1845-1938) was stolen earlier this month from a private house in Surrey.

The OED lists ‘sphairistike’ as the name under which a certain Englishman, Major Walter Wingfield patented the equipment and rules for a new outdoor racquet and ball game in 1874.

DEALERS at Grays antiques centre in central London are fearing further damage to business as the massive Crossrail project at Bond Street enters a new stage this summer.

ANOTHER major price for L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) came courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull's latest evening sale in Edinburgh, as The Hawker's Cart sold at £550,000 to a private buyer south of the border.

A VERY large, hand-drawn plan of the Titanic, used in the official inquiry after it sank in 1912, has sold for £220,000 at Wiltshire auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son.

Supporters of the Save The Portobello Market Campaign called for a referendum on a directly elected mayor for Kensington and Chelsea.

A THEFT of a rhino head from a museum in Surrey is thought to have been motivated by the hugely valuable trade in rhino horn.

ED Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, has appointed London art dealer Lowell Libson as a member of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest.

IT is symptomatic of the changes in the Poole pottery market that the joint top selling lot in a large specialist sale last month was a 1960s rimmed dish.