Followers of Fashion

I had a job to keep up with my Mr Darcy last week in Bath, finally cornering him in the Assembly Rooms. Luckily he was as keen as I was to venture downstairs to the Museum of Costume - the gorgeous exhibition of 17th century embellished and embroidered gloves piqued even his highfalutin taste.

The museum also offers a colourful look at fashionable clothes from more recent periods.

I had forgotten how cool the '80s were, if you were wealthy enough to wear Galliano.

***

Later at the American Museum at Claverton Manor, near Bath, I found a "look" that was very much to my taste.

The museum also displays the original simple cotton kerchief, spotlessly clean and ironed smooth, worn by Nancy Burns a freed slave, and depicted in a watercolour of her dated 1844.

And as we made our way home for tea we found another delightful example of humble fashions in Frome - the neat frills worn by these stone maidens, carved in the late 18th century to adorn a charity school offering training in domestic skills to poor girls. ("I'll bet they're discussing that appalling pointing," said Mr Darcy.)

***    

N.B. Both museums mentioned above now allow photography - Hooray!

So Macho!

Donington Park in Leicestershire, famous motor racing circuit and, on Monday, the venue for Arthur Swallow's re-vamped weekday antiques fair. Looks quite pretty doesn't it? My head was full of stories of gorgeous textiles fairs, as seen on the blogs I follow. Lucky Hesta & The Pugs bought a heap of wonderfully girly antiques at The Manchester Antiques And Textiles Fair. A jolly time was had by The Washerwoman and her friends at The Rag & Remnant Rummage in Somerset. But yet again, for I have never attended an antiques fair devoted only to linens, lace, frills and furbelows, here I was in the midst of grim-faced males, determined to find the biggest, the best and the most valuable object in the place. And what a place! A cold concrete and metal warehouse - a bleak drive-in market place.

I was not inspired...

                        

...nice weather,though.

Hello Simon! Hello Julie! Good to see some friendly faces.

                             
                                                                       Well, here goes...

                                                            

The truth is, if you look hard enough, pretty things can be found in the unlikeliest places. 

                                                           ***

Gee Up! Trotting Up to Middleham.

 

Many large antiques events and car boot sales are held at UK racecourses and the thrill of the chase is an expression which can apply to both horse racing and antiques-hunting. Last weekend, in a beautiful and little known corner of the country, a regular monthly event was held - the antiques fair at the Middleham Key Centre. The small village of Middleham has 15 training establishments, which probably makes it the racehorse capital of  North Yorkshire.

                     Hello, which way to the antiques Fair, please?
                                                           

                                                      

                                                      Is it this way?

                                                      Or is it that way?

Middleham has so many attractions - horses, history, antiques...

...AND a medieval castle to explore!

There may be treasure here - remember, the Middleham Jewel was discovered in the castle grounds by a metal detectorist in 1985 and sold for £2.5 million to the Yorkshire Museum.

***

Happy Days

This year is one of important anniversaries for Mr N and I - two significant birthdays, best forgotten, our 25th wedding anniversary...
                                                       

CONGRATULATIONS!

...and, last but not least, this month Mr N celebrates his 30th year in the antiques trade.The other day I came across some of the diaries he occasionally kept during those years and he has kindly consented to let me share a few  extracts:

19th June 1999(Saturday)

Went to York racecourse Car Boot Sale. As I was walking round I heard N calling "Come and look at some cups I've spotted. I don't suppose they are anything very good." I went with her and discovered they were still on the stall. At first I first thought they were a pair of 18th century Worcester cups priced at £10 for the two. They turned out to be Chaffer's Liverpool and are probably worth several hundred pounds. We were lucky to get a second chance to buy them.

When we got home N could not resist watching Prince Edward's wedding on TV. My only observation was that Miss Sophie Rhys Jones was a perfect blend of the late Princess Diana and the late Jill Dando, so recently departed, which was a little disconcerting.

                                                               ***


                                        24th June 1999 (Thursday)
We went to the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds to see a small exhibition of 16th century boxwood rosary beads, each the size of a satsuma, deeply and exquisitely carved with religious scenes and inscriptions.
                                       

                                                       


The method for viewing the pieces was interestingly contrived: each bead was placed inside a glass case with a hinged wooden lid and before every case was a kneeling-stool so that one had to adopt a position of prayer or devotion while admiring the skillful work of the sculptor through a magnifying glass, thus making a connection (in theory) with the original purpose of the object.
My enjoyment of the exhibition was somewhat marred by the fact that in our search for this exhibition, through the labyrinthine sculpture galleries, we came across a bronze plaque by David D'Anger which was remarkably similar to one I used to have (a profile of John Flaxman) and which Christie's had assured me was a late cast of very little value. Unfortunately we sold the thing last year. N believes that cognitive therapy might help me cope with such disappointments.
                 

                                                          
                                                            ***


                                          3rd July 1999(Saturday)
According to Nostradamus the world will end tomorrow, so this could be my last diary entry, unless of course the world ends in the evening, by which time I will have already written another.
We went to York Racecourse car boot sale in overcast, sultry weather and I bought another interesting ceramic item: an early 19th century jug commemorating William the Third and the Orange Order, a worthwhile buy, I suspect.

                                                          
In the afternoon, went for a walk with F to the Boroughbridge canal. Looked enviously at boats, then we climbed onto the lock gates at Milby. ("Mum would have a cow if she could see what we're doing" said F.)
                                         4th July 1999 (Sunday)
Slight feeling of anti-climax today as the world appears not to have come to an end, but there is still time...


                                                              ***
      
                                          6th July 1999 (Tuesday)
I was sitting outside in the garden, lateish yesterday, reading "The Loom of Youth" by Alec Waugh, when our neighbour A strolled up and we had an interesting, if brief, conversation about literature.
"I don't see the point", said A, "of reading about anything that's not real." He went on to demolish The Great Bard: "When I was at school, the English teacher told the class to interpret a passage of Shakespeare. I said 'If Shakespeare's as good as he's cracked up to be, why do we need to interpret him?'"
His teacher had no answer to that, and indeed, neither did I.

                                                            
                                                        ***


                                         5th August 1999 (Thursday)
We attended the giant antiques fair at RAF Swinderby in Lincolnshire today. A very hot day and my buying performance was abysmal - one silver-plated spoon-warmer in the form of a boat. N bought a large collection of worthwhile antiques - despite the heat she calmly battled on while I went back to the car in search of tea and shade. She has more phlegm than a consumptive Bronte sister. And that's not to mention her pith!

                                                                       
                                                             ***

Mr N and I sometimes wish we had a time machine. I suspect Mr N dreams of being 18 again, but mostly we would simply like to see how life was lived in familiar places, long ago. Despite his worries about being attacked by an angry suffragette and the likelihood of contracting TB, Mr N and I decided to wander around our local streets and imagine we'd travelled back in time...
                                  

                                                          

                                                         
                    This helpful chap pointed us in the right direction.
                                                    

                                                         
  Some parts have hardly changed at all except for the invasion of horseless  
  carriages, already under way in the early 1900s.

                                                          

                                                              
  In other parts of the town there are markedly fewer people on the streets  
  than there were a hundred years ago. Sadly no horse fairs and no markets are  
  held here now.
                                  

                                                                                     
   In the days when drovers sometimes herded 2000 cattle a day 
   through its streets, this little town had 22 inns. There is a fraction of this
   number now, but the oldest, the 13th century Black Bull Inn, still welcomes 
   weary time travellers.
                                                      

                                                            
                                                         ***

Love Feast

Yesterday, at an antiques fair in Halifax, Mr. N called me over to see his latest find. "I love it! Can I keep it?" I exclaimed when I saw the simple white pottery antique loving cup, emblazoned with a seemingly very un-Victorian inscription.

                                                     
This treasure, discovered so close to St Valentine's Day, would be the perfect addition to our modest collection of 19th century mugs, some of which are tokens of Mr. N's affection for me (I think).

                                                          
Of course a Lovefeast was not quite the wild, hippy-ish event it's name evokes. This mug was once a souvenir of a Nonconformist religious gathering where a simple meal was shared in a celebration of brotherly love. Primitive Methodists and Moravians both enjoyed this sociable act of worship. 


        Such loving cups bearing the word  "Lovefeast" are quite hard to find.

                                   "Praise The Lord" is more usual.

                                                           
     Mr N. agreed that I should keep it and I accepted with great pleasure...

                      
                            ...it's definitely NOT transferable.
                                                 
                                                     ***