Wiltshire

Two stately home car boots held for charity take place this month and next including the ‘biggie’ at Wilton House, near Salisbury.

Before hitting stratospheric heights, US grunge rockers Nirvana were playing on a European tour in late 1991 in front of crowd of 700 at one point.

Now famous for a career of filling stadiums as one of the biggest and most successful bands in the world, Pink Floyd played more humble venues back in the day.

A postcard letter written by a survivor of the Titanic disaster sold for £230,000 (£300,000 with premium included) at Henry Aldridge & Son last month – a record for a letter related to the disaster.

As the Depression took hold, the clamour for luxury goods in tropical hardwoods, silver and shagreen was replaced by a demand for less expensive consumer goods that combined the modern aesthetic with new materials and industrial production.

In 1953, the same year as the successful Mount Everest expedition were equipped with Rolex wristwatches, Rolex released the Oyster Perpetual Explorer.

Two Cartier brooches commissioned by Sir Stephen Courtauld for his wife have gone on display at Eltham Palace, eight months after they were sold at auction by Dreweatts in Newbury.

Mikaela and Roger Boon’s well-supported biannual vintage fair in the village of Wilton, near Salisbury, has its first outing of the year on Saturday, March 1, in the Michael Herbert Hall.

The highlight of an extensive selection of Barbie dolls offered at Wessex Auction Rooms (19% buyer’s premium) proved to be, as predicted, an example of the very earliest produced.

Lanchester Road in County Durham is a route leading eventually into the village of that name, surrounded by fields but essentially unremarkable.

The latest sale of Petroliana at Richard Edmonds Auctions (12/20% buyer’s premium) in Chippenham included a super-rare English oil can.

The Long Gallery at Messums West – established as Messums Wiltshire in 2016 by Johnny Messum – originally functioned as an equine stable.