UK

A SUBSTANTIAL, and previously unpublished, collection of letters written by various members of the Bloomsbury Group to Helen Anrep (1885-1965) is to be sold by the East Sussex auctioneers Gorringes in Lewes on September 3, along with a collection of artworks by members of the group consigned from the same estate.

BBC Homes & Antiques magazine is launching a Save Our Antiques Shops campaign in its November issue, promoting the advantages of shopping for antiques and supporting businesses which add to the character of Britain's high streets.

Furniture Futures is the first in a new series of biennial design symposia at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

A STOLEN chequebook has been used to purchase items from at least two antiques shops in Ludlow, Shropshire.

THIS portable regulator signed Thwaites and Reed, London sold for £16,500 (plus 19.5 per cent buyer's premium) at Lawrences of Crewkerne, Somerset on July 10.

KENDAL Auction Rooms, who have operated in Cumbria since 1818, are to rebrand as Eighteen Eighteen Auctioneers.

FOR an item almost destined for a landfill site, this delapidated red leather chesterfield, found in the outhouse of a Northamptonshire rectory, wouldn’t be the first thing you would expect to generate international bidding.

MATTHEW Barton, who has over 20 years experience in the auction business, will hold his first sale under his own banner on November 25 in West Kensington.

THE former premises of Wolverhampton auctioneer Walker Barnett & Hill have reopened again under new management.

THE massive antiques and collectors’ fair held six times a year at RAF Swinderby since 1995 is to move to the Lincoln Showground for all future events.

DAVID Lester’s Florida company International Fine Art Expositions have announced that Freya Simms, who recently stepped down after four years as show director of Olympia’s antique fairs, is joining them as director of sales and marketing at Expoships and IFAE.

HAUGHTON Fairs are to move their venerable International Ceramics Fair & Seminar from its long-time home at the Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly to the Mall Galleries on Carlton House Terrace, SW1.

Scrimshaw, or carved bone and ivory, is very collectable, but the signature and scenes on this 7in (18cm) long whale’s tooth put it in a special league.

Dreweatts have stepped up their competition for London business by appointing James James-Crook as Director of Business Development, with immediate effect.

This 113/4in (29cm) high slate sculpture titled Maquette for Large Sculpture: Four-Square (Four-Circle) was the first that Penzance auctioneer David Lay had offered for sale.

PARTRIDGE Fine Art, the landmark Bond Street dealership in business for more than 100 years, went into administration this week.

FLORIDA fairs impresario David Lester and his wife Lee Ann have taken control of the summer Olympia fair. They have already rebranded it the London International Fine Art Fair.

THE organisers of the TEFAF Maastricht fair are inviting dealers to apply for stands in a new specialist works-on-paper section at next year’s event.

A MULTITUDE of intriguing items sprung up at Dreweatts' 250-year Anniversary sale at Donnington Priory on July 14-15.

THIS intricate piece of turning and carving is by Binh Pho, widely regarded as the finest woodturner working in the world today. It will be just one of a number of lots created by the cream of the woodturning world being offered at a charity auction on August 7.