On a recent trip to my home county of Yorkshire, my wife and I spent a fairly intense four days of antiques buying. We visited two auctions, three antiques centres and an antiques fair. By the end of the trip we had a car load of new stock and had driven over 400 miles. We even managed to squeeze in seeing a puffin!
Preparation is the key
I’m not sure how the trip came about. I am from York and so I like to visit the city a couple of times a year just to make sure it’s still there. Coupled with that, I’d always wanted to get to one of Caroline Hawley’s auctions at Beverley racecourse as the catalogues always look appealing. Seeing that she had an auction lined up for the end of May, this offered a perfect combination for another of my interests. Late May into early June is peak sea bird nesting time at Bempton cliffs, most famous (but actually quite hard to see) of which are the Puffins.
Sensing the possibility of a long weekend in the area, I checked our usual source of accommodation, Premier Inn. Bargain of the weekend was for £175 we could get three nights at Hull West – just at the north end of the Humber Bridge. Actually the location isn’t as grim as it sounds. Whilst we’re thoroughly fed up with the food at the associated Brewer’s Fayre pubs (we stay at Premier Inn far too often), I recalled the hotel from a previous stay as being perfectly good.
Preparation is the key to an antiques buying trip, but no matter how good your planning is, you need to keep some flexibility. If you’re hoping to buy at auction it really is the luck of the draw as to how well you get on. To make a trip worthwhile you need a range of places to visit but preparing a potential bidding list for auctions makes life easier. This sounds easy, and to start with it is fun, but for auctions with in excess of a thousand lots it’s hard not to glaze over.
As well as Caronline Hawley’s, we realised we could also visit Richard Winterton’s auction house on the way north on Friday and collect on our way south on Monday. Richard Winterton’s business is not far off our route. Usually we can’t justify the drive on its own but since we were passing it made sense to call in as Richard (and his substantial team) run huge auctions every week.
Friday, heading north
For once we didn’t have start at the crack of dawn since we wanted to get around Birmingham after the morning chaos. With the car packed with four empty crates and a fifth full of bubble wrap (we’re always hopeful) we headed north for the ever present roadworks on the M42. With the claims made for AI you’d think that Google Maps would have already figured out I’m a Yorkshireman and as such I’d prefer to take 2 minutes longer on a 90 minute journey than pay for the M6 Toll. However Google hasn’t figured this out yet so I sorted my own on route on leaving the M42.
When you arrive at an auction house, even one that appears on television regularly, you never know what to expect. Another television antiques celebrity, Irita Marriot, is a near neighbour of Richard Winterton. Irita operates out of a warehouse the pubic can’t visit and a tiny office on a narrow market town high street, with no parking. Collection is a nightmare. Richard Winterton’s auction house couldn’t be more different. It’s a big unit on an industrial estate. You could turn up and park an HGV. Inside is a warren of rooms.
Viewing is a tad confusing whilst you work out which rooms relate to this week’s sale. Once sorted, there was so much to see it felt a bit overwhelming. This is where your hard work preparing a basic bidding list comes into its own. At least you have a set of lots to look for, although you should always try to look out for things that look better in the flesh than on a screen.
At this stage our bidding list was a bit provisional as we had no idea how much space we’d have in the car by Monday lunchtime when we expected to be back for collection. Winning 5 crates of mixed ceramics was going to be a bad idea if we’d already stuffed the car.
Beverley
And so we carried on to the East Yorkshire market town of Beverley. Beverley turned out to be a thriving and very attractive place. Apart from a brief visit a couple of years ago, when we completely missed the town square, I’d not been to Beverley for about 50 years. Unsurprisingly I hadn’t a clue what to expect. It seems to be where the posh people from Hull go to live.
Our main reason for stopping was to get a decent meal, thus avoiding the Brewer’s Fayre at the hotel. Setting Brewer’s Fayre as the baseline to beat wasn’t going to challenge Beverley’s culinary options very much and we managed a really good meal before going to the races.
Caroline Hawley
is a quiet affair compared to a race day
Three times a year Caroline Hawley takes over the main reception rooms at Beverley Racecourse for her auctions. The racecourse is just outside the town which makes getting there really easy once you’ve extricated yourself from the medieval road network of the town centre (Google Maps very much redeemed itself on this one).
Unlike Richard Winterton’s viewing, at Beverley Racecourse everything is in one large room. The venue is only rented for the weekend. When you the scale of the auction it must be a huge operation to get all the lots in for the Friday viewing and then back out by Monday lunchtime. Unsurprisingly, the auction staff are very keen on collection by mid-day Monday.
We had a good list of items we wanted to view, but the real highlight of the auction for us were the multiple lots of Orient and Flume paperweights. We’ve seen a few Orient and Flume paperweights previously but retailing at over £500 a time means they don’t come up too often. Lots of three, four or more are rarer still. In the flesh, the paperweights didn’t disappoint at all. Our only concern was how far could we bid and still make some profit and, if we ended up with eight or ten, would we want to sell them anyway?
Faced with so many desirable things, bidding lists get stretched. Then you have to worry about your budget and the potential budgets of the people you’re bidding against. It’s terribly easy to be the underbidder on everything and go home empty handed, dreaming of what might have been. At the viewing it was clear a number of people were interested in the same lots as us. You are in competition, so it’s best not to coo too much over any particular item in the hope no one else notices it. In reality, if something is worth having, it will be noticed. The stories of people getting amazing bargains at an auction are very rare indeed.
Of course the highlight of the viewing was seeing Caroline Hawley come into the room to talk to one of her staff members. From the brief view we got, I can happily report that the character you see on television is exactly the person you see in real life. Apart from not being as tall as I expected, she seemed to be as energetic, smiley and friendly as I’d hoped. In my experience, most of the television personalities in the antiques business are genuine. This is why they get asked in the first place. There are a couple I’ve met where I wonder how they got picked. I’m not naming names. We all have bad days.
Getting the pre-bids in
Back at the hotel our work wasn’t over. We still needed to sort out what we were actually going to bid. The plan for Saturday was to visit York. We knew we would be busy and distracted, so we registered our bids online. This is simple enough on either of the main Internet platforms (the-saleroom.com and easyliveauction.com). I’ve written about these before and my comments still stand. If you’re expecting to win more than £100 worth of stuff then Easylive is much the cheapest by paying the fixed £3 fee for the whole auction. I think at some stage this will go up but for now it’s the best offer you can get.
Saturday, a day trip to York
Saturday dawned bright and clear, several hours before we were getting up. Unlike antiques fairs, antiques shops open at a sensible time. Having had a leisurely breakfast we packed ourselves off to my home city of York. There were various things to get done. These included visits to two of the best antiques shops we know – York Antiques Centre and The Red House.
centres I know
If you watch Antiques Roadtrip you’ll have seen both of these shops featured from time to time. I’m not sure there are many Roadtrip style bargains to be had, but for lovers of popular antiques you can’t do better. It is to both shops’ very great credit that in a city stuffed full of tourists, the shops both aim for a good standard at sensible prices. We do the rounds of antiques shops when we travel abroad and whilst we’ve found cracking antiques shops in recent times in Budapest, Venice and Barcelona the prices were way beyond what we could get away with.
We bought well from York Antiques Centre on this visit but drew a blank at The Red House. That’s no reflection on The Red House, on previous visits we’ve been able to buy well there. The Red House didn’t look like it needed our custom but York Antiques Centre had a few empty cabinets. Dealers tend to leave during the quiet months of winter so the cabinets will fill up as summer comes around. At least the shop was busy and most importantly, so was the till.
Whilst all this was going on we were also watching two the auctions we’d viewed the previous day. When you’re doing this it’s amazing how many mobile phone dead spots you find. There’s a thing called cell density – in effect how many mobile phones are trying to connect at the same time. In tourist busy centres, it makes getting a data signal unreliable.
It wasn’t going very well for us at the auctions as we did a good job of pushing the another bidder to their winning total. At last there was a definite air punch moment when we won a trio of Orient of Flume paperweights at Caroline Hawley’s. At Richard Winterton’s, most of our bids were exceeded before the auctioneer got into his stride. It happens, and so long as you know you bid what you think you could afford there’s nothing you can do (however painful it might be). There’s no point bidding higher just to win something. In fact our only win was for a personal item that wasn’t for resale. That on its own made the detour worthwhile.
By Saturday evening we knew we were picking up from Caroline Hawley’s so it was time to put in bids for Sunday’s lots. After being outbid on several bulky lots at Richard Winterton’s we knew we had space in the car. That meant we could chase a couple of bigger lots at Beverley. Our nightmare had been that we ended up with more than a car full which would have meant a return trip later in the week to collect.
I finished Saturday evening by browsing the very excellent antiques-atlas website to see if there were any local antiques fairs on Sunday. To my delight I found one listed for Driffield showground. It sounded a reasonable fair and, better still, it was about half way between us and the Puffins. Even a rubbish antiques fair that’s on your way somewhere is worth a visit because there’s (almost) always something to spend money on.
Sunday, Driffield and Puffins!
Sunday morning and with another Brewer’s Fayre breakfast sitting rather uncomfortably under my belt, we set off for Driffield Show Ground in hope rather than expectation. The fair costs £2.00 to get in and consists of about 50 stalls split across two halls. It turned out to be a cracking do. At 09:30 when we arrived the footfall was already better than any equivalently sized fair we’ve been to and one of the traders reckoned it didn’t really warm up until about 11:00. By that stage people must have been shoulder to shoulder in front of the stalls.
we were very jealous
The fair was an absolute delight for us. We bought well, had a good chat to a number of traders and came away wishing we lived nearer or that some of our local fairs could achieve the same level of interest. Of course the presence of Carline Hawley’s auction 10 miles down the road may have helped but whatever the reason everyone seemed to be having a good day.
I can’t say that going to Bempton Cliffs was the main event of the weekend for me but it’s always a big draw when I’m in the area. I know this has nothing to do with antiques but if you’ve never seen the seabird colony at Bempton then you should try to make a visit. From mid-May to the end of June the place is alive with birds nesting on the highest cliffs in England. People wax lyrical about the White Cliffs of Dover but actually they pale compared to what you get in Yorkshire (but then I would say that).
it’s quite unusual to get such a good view at Bempton. There are so many
visitors these days the puffins rarely land this high on the cliffs.
I have been a member of the RSPB since I was 18 and expect to be so on my dying day. They do brilliant work and I couldn’t imagine not supporting them. However, if you visit Bempton, you do not have to pay to visit. The RSPB signpost you through there visitor centre to take money off you. All you’re paying for is to walk the 10m through their visitor centre. There’s a perfectly good public right of way past the back of the building that requires no charge.
After a fine lunch at the cafe at the top of Flamborough Head we spent a couple of hours buying plants from Reighton Nursery. We hadn’t planned a visit but knowing we probably weren’t fulling the car to bursting with crates of stuff from auctions we could let ourselves buy a few plants. Reighton Nursery has been a part of our lives for 25 years and is still the cheapest place we know for plants that keep a huge stock. Whilst we were at the nursery we did get a couple of good wins at Caroline Hawley’s auction which meant we couldn’t go too mad on the plant buying front.
We’d planned to collect from Beverley Racecourse either on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning. As it turned out, we got a call from the team at Caroline Hawley’s auction asking if we were collecting the stuff ourselves as they noticed our address wasn’t local. It’s that level of detail that really impresses us. Of course it’s in their interest to know, but being contacted mid-auction to ask us was very useful. We booked in to collect at the end of Sunday afternoon.
Leaving Reighton Nursery we told Google once again to give us the best route to Beverley Racecourse. Google Maps clearly decided to have a bit of a laugh and sent us down North Burton Lane, possibly the least used road in East Yorkshire. If we’d been in a Reliant Robin it would have been a challenge as the middle of the road for about two miles was a rough, grassy strip. I think the last vehicle to use it was probably the Google StreetView car. Thankfully, no traffic came the other way. Eventually we got back to a road wide enough to have been resurfaced in the last 50 years with the racecourse not far beyond.
Collection at Caroline Hawley’s auction was quick and easy. So much so that it was only afterwards I realised we’d walked out and missed the change of watching Caroline in action. I was gutted. We knew Caroline was on the rostrum when we were there, as the auction was being relayed into the collection area. It didn’t occur to me to go and watch. I suppose I have an excuse to make a return visit.
Monday, home via Heanor and Richard Winterton
By the third morning in a Premier Inn I’m starting to think that the “Continental Breakfast” option might not have been a bad pick. Actually I think the term is insulting to our continental neighbours. Almost any of the breakfasts I’ve had on the continent have been more appealing than a Brewer’s Fayre cooked effort.
As ever though, as a Yorkshireman who’s prepaid for something, I made my best effort at getting my money’s worth. It would help if there was more than one coffee machine and that the toasters could toast the bread in something less than 10 minutes. I recognise that there’s a clear conflict between the idea of keeping customers and hot surfaces apart and the function of a toaster, but I’m sure something better could be arranged.
My tip for getting toast with a minimum of standing around is to put your toast on when you get up to collect your cooked breakfast. Then queue for coffee and when dispensed take your coffee and choice of butter etc back to your table. Then get your hot food and when that’s all done your toast will be just about off cold. I have thought about starting my toast before my cereal but I suspect if someone else saw some decently cooked toast they’d steal it.
We’re probably not the strangest customers that Premier Inn get but the sight of us carrying 5 crates of stuff to the car in the morning probably raised eyebrows. I’ve dealt with enough of the public now to learn if someone is weird but looks like they are leaving, you don’t interrupt them. So with the car loaded and us stuffed with luke warm toast, off we went, heading for Heanor Antiques Centre.
For 30 years I’d passed the “Hucknall and Heanor” signs on the M1 at junction 27 on my way to and from York. I always liked the names and they way they rolled off the tongue. I’ve still never been to Hucknall but Heanor Antiques Centre is becomes a welcome, occasional detour.
Heanor Antiques Centre is one of the most chaotic antiques centre you’ll ever come across. It’s certainly the dustiest. It’s also big, five floors big, and for us a brilliant hunting ground. We love it, and the cafe is very decent too. The only downside is that it’s quite a tortuous route from the Junction 27 on the M1, even when Google Maps is behaving itself. Having gone old school and looked at a map, I think the answer is to do it from Junction 26 regardless of your direction of travel.
We arrived just after opening which is often a good time to be at an antiques centre. There’s space to park (Heanor has a nice little car park) and there are usually a few of the traders milling about. If you’re lucky, you get to listen in on the gossip. This is invariably traders complaining they aren’t selling enough but it’s still good to earwig.
Even with an eye on the clock, we still took us three hours to get round the centre. In reality we could make a day of it but we had to be getting on to Richard Winterton’s for collection. As we knew we only had a small amount to collect, so at Heanor if it fitted in the car, we could buy it. We filled a crate with mostly small items of ceramics. I’d like to think we broke the house record for the highest number of items purchased for the smallest amount of money spent. Our catalogue tells me we bought 38 items for a magnificent £150. The Yorkshireman in me swells with pride.
Refreshed with a pot of tea and a tea cake (only a cheese scone beats a tea cake at such moments) off we went again for the short trip to Richard Winterton’s auction.
This time of course we were old hands an knew where to park and which was the customer entrance. Collection was quick and simple and then we were done. The only disappointment was that the great man wasn’t around so I need another visit to tick him off in my Eye-spy Book of Minor Celebrity Auctioneers.
Home, at last
The final leg of the drive through the never ending road works on the M42 probably didn’t take longer than we expected but at the end of four days of travel it felt that way. Once home, there was a day of cleaning the stuff we’d bought and then cataloguing, pricing and labelling everything. This is the side of the business that is often overlooked. It takes long time and a lot of effort.
It’s a good thing we’re only doing this for a hobby!
