Oxfordshire

THAMES Valley Police urgently want to trace the man pictured right, in connection with a serious offence in Oxfordshire.

HOME Counties organisers Jill Napper and Joy O’Meara, who operate as Jay Fairs, have just acquired the long-established Benson Antiques & Collectors Fair, held in the Parish Hall at Benson, Oxfordshire. They will run the fair from September 19 and on the third Sunday of each month thereafter. It will be AA signposted.

MEANWHILE, that well-known and popular organiser Reg Cooper, who knows as much about the vicissitudes of the business as most, is returning confidently to the fray with a new venture.

FAIRS organiser Jackie Raleigh of Newbury, Berkshire has sold her company Silhouette Fairs to Andy and Sheila Briggs of Oxfordshire-based Fat Cat Fairs.

MANY were as intrigued as myself at Caroline Penman’s Tythe Barn Experience which took place from May 21 to 23.

VETERAN fair organiser Reg Cooper is back – official. In early 2002 he sold his Cooper Antiques Fair circuit to Sue Ede, and for a while he remained at those fairs, helping out and exhibiting. But he has been gone for a while and recently rumours abounded that he was planning a comeback.

FOLLOWING the supremely successful launch of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, earlier this year, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs might have been tempting fate with another launch so soon after. Certainly her first Oxford County Antiques Fair, at beautiful Eynsham Hall, near Woodstock from May 7 to 9, was not an event to remember.

VAST, and certainly imposing, it will be impossible to miss the centrepiece of a selling exhibition The Cabinet & Other Notables which will be held at The Country Seat, near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire from May 21 to June 11.

DESPITE the myriad complaints that there are too many fairs, still they keep coming, and here is another. From May 7 to 9 Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs launches her Oxford County Antiques Fair at Eynsham Hall, an 18th century Grade 11 listed manor house in 30 acres of parkland near Woodstock.

POLICE are warning the trade to be on the alert after a gang stole £8000 worth of jewellery from Banbury Antique Centre on April 19.

FOR more than 20 years Hallidays have been holding selling exhibitions at their picturesque Oxfordshire showrooms at The Old College, Dorchester-on-Thames. Over the years to broaden the appeal they have invited guest specialist dealers to participate in the shows.

WHEN valuing a piece of furniture in the clutter of a client’s poorly lit home, quality can be difficult to gauge. Like most auction house specialists, James Lees, at Banbury-based Holloways (15% buyer’s premium) admits there have been times he has subsequently doubted his initial appraisals.

ON Thursday March 18 thieves broke into the Oxfordshire home of ex-jockey and racehorse trainer Stan Mellor and stole silver and works of art.

THIS Oxfordshire outing at Holloways on 27 January not only boasted a bountiful supply of silver-mounted coconuts but included a great deal of other decorative entries and quality furniture consigned by the same local private vendor. Among these pieces was the sale highlight – a pair of Victorian ‘golden oak’ inverted breakfront library bookcases, well carved with lion’s masks and cartouche-moulded cornices.

Clock dealers spot under-catalogued rarities as regulators continue to set the pace in an otherwise stagnant market: ONE of the few elements of the clock trade to see significant forward strides in recent years is the regulator – the name given to those technically interesting and accurate timekeepers used to set the time of the watches and domestic clocks of Regency and Victorian Britain.

CHIPPING Norton, Oxfordshire dealers Jane and Keith Riley, who trade as Key Antiques at 11 Horsefair, go back to their roots for their contribution to the Cotswolds Antique Dealers’ Association’s series of selling exhibitions.

Sotheby’s will sell the contents of Fawley House, Fawley, near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire on October 14-15. Their vendor, David McAlpine of the construction dynasty, has collected for 30 years.

WITNEY specialist in fine period furniture David Harvey, head of W.R.Harvey & Co, was recently re-elected for a second term as mayor of the Oxfordshire town (having had one year out of office) but is not cutting down on his busy trading schedule, starting with manning his customary stand at the 97th Chelsea Antiques Fair from September 17 to 22.

A rare Joseph Wright of Derby mezzotint valued at £9500 was stolen from prints and maps dealer Sanders of Oxford on June 3. At around 4.00pm two white men entered the shop. Both were in their late 40s, one 5ft 7in high of stocky build with short, dark grey hair, the other slightly taller with balding, brown, short hair.

HOLLOWAYS of Banbury are set to re-open their doors after a £100,000 refurbishment. The project, which started in January and was due for completion as the Antiques Trade Gazette went to press, focused on improving facilities for both viewings and the sales themselves.