UK

PIMLICO dealer Appley Hoare unveils her new stock of antique garden items and associated antiques at her eponymous shop at 30 Pimlico Road, London SW1 on the evening of May 24; her selling Summer Garden Exhibition will continue at the gallery well into the summer.

YORKSHIRE organisers Galloway Antiques Fairs make one of their many trips to Scotland this weekend for the Blair Castle Antiques Fair at Blair Atholl, Pitlochry, Perthshire.

AFTER a five-year gap, Essex organiser Robert Bailey returns to Seaford College for his 30th Petworth Antiques, Fine Art and Investment Fair. He had many successful years at the college near Petworth in West Sussex, then he took a break due to some difficulties over the venue. Now he is back in the college’s Robertson Centre.

AFTER 25 years mounting monthly fairs at Chelsea Town Hall in the King’s Road, London SW3, Hove-based Cindy Mainwaring, of Mainwaring Antiques Fairs, is introducing a new dimension.

FROM April 20 to May 3, West Country organiser Louise Walker staged her 30th anniversary Harrogate Antique & Fine Art Fair and not only did it cement its reputation as one of the very top provincial fairs, it also gave most of the 70-odd exhibitors something to celebrate.

FROM May 22 to 29 there will be a selling exhibition of antique patchwork quilts at Pennard House, East Pennard near Shepton Mallet in Somerset.

TWO of the biggest names in British art will mastermind this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, which will run at the Academy’s galleries on London’s Piccadilly from June 8 to 16.

MOVING just South of the Border to Jack Dudgeon (10% buyer's premium) in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, and echoes of one of the key incidents of the Second World War provided keen specialist interest at their April 19 sale.

THE gang targeting antiques centres in the south-midlands appear to have struck again, this time walking away with £4000 worth of carriage clocks.

OUTSTANDING single pieces may have been fairly thin on the ground in recent months at Mallams (15% buyer's premium), but a steady take-up of lots throughout the year, coupled with an increase in the volume of consignments and number of sales, meant that the Oxfordshire group as a whole posted a 24 per cent increase in turnover for the year ending March 2004.

BILLED as a regular Victorian sale, the main attractions of Abbots Auction Rooms' (10% buyer's premium) March 29 sale were in a 129-lot specialist decorative arts section – in particular two pieces of René Lalique glass.

OFFERED at Edinburgh’s Royal College of Surgeons, a 169-lot section of Scottish provincial silver provided many of the highlights at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf’s (15% buyer's premium) March 29 sale.

RIGHT: the faience wares decorated by Louis Kramer for Burmantofts between 1887 and 1890 are among the most coveted productions of the Yorkshire factory. So there was lots of interest among academics, collectors and dealers prior to the May 8 sale at Fieldings of Stourbridge in this fully signed 18in (46cm) diameter charger.

A Prince’s Passion: The Life of the Royal Pavilion by Jessica Rutherford, published by the Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums. ISBN 0948723548 £14.99hb and available only from the Royal Pavilion shop in Brighton on 01273 292792. THIS is a delicious new history of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, a monument of staggering self-indulgence built by George IV, the first son of the 15 children born to King George III and Queen Charlotte.

IF the hallmark of the perfect evening is the correct blend of food, wine, company and entertainment, now is the time to book tickets for the the RICS Grand Summer Dinner, scheduled for June 30.

BIRMINGHAM auctioneers Biddle & Webb (15% buyer’s premium) have been holding regular decorative arts sales for some years now. Generally 20th century ceramics top the sales list and this was again the case at the April 16 sale when two 13in (33cm) examples of Drunken Bricklayer vases designed by Geoffrey Baxter for the Whitefriars pottery were major stars.

A travel sale held by Christie’s South Kensington on April 29 was a mix of books, prints and pictures and seen here are two items from a section of that sale devoted to the Alpine regions.

SOMETIMES the significance of important commemorative pieces, which must have been so obvious at the time of their manufacture, remains something of a mystery to modern day collectors.

MOST of us are familiar with the designs Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Keith Murray produced for Wedgwood, but how many have heard of Norman Makinson?

KEYS (10% buyer's premium) of Aylsham maintain the format of mammoth offerings – 1556 lots offered over two days (April 20-21) in this case – and, although only 60 per cent of them got away, there was plenty of material for budget-conscious collectors of such favourites as Royal Doulton character jugs and figures as well as Beswick Beatrix Potter and animal models.