On my way back to the ‘Big Smoke’ from filming at the West Sussex Roadshow a few weeks ago, I stopped off in Dorking, Surrey. Nestled beneath the South Downs, the town has always been known for its antiques centres and shops clustered along West Street. As I grew up nearby, it’s long been one […]
I’ve just got back from the last filming day for the Antiques Roadshow this season. It was held at the wonderful Weald & Downland open air museum, near Chichester in Sussex. Despite heavy rain predicted, the weather stayed dry, and the sun even shone at one point! Thousands made the journey to see us, and […]
After a somewhat eye-opening (and eye-watering) shopping trip to seek out a sofa bed yesterday, I needed a ‘quick fix’ of antiques. The horror of the cost (and often poor quality) of modern furniture against the antique, vintage or retro furniture I nearly always buy was just too much. Mercifully, Clapham Junction in South London […]
After returning from a great three days in York culminating in a fab retro and vintage find, it was straight into another retro event – the three-day extravaganza of Vintage London. Organised by design and fashion guru, and all-round cool guy, Wayne Hemingway, it aimed to celebrate ‘five decades of British cool’. And, boy, did […]
Last week was a busy one again – just how I like it. Wednesday saw me travel up to York to attend the Antiques Roadshow in the city’s ‘Museum & Gardens’ the next day. As ever, we were packed out, it was great fun, and some super treasures were found and filmed. The picture above […]
One of the many joys about working on the Collectables and Miscellaneous tables on the Antiques Roadshow is that you never know what the next person in the queue will have. It could, quite literally, be anything – it’s a little like Christmas! At Seaton Delaval (above) last week, I saw something that I thought […]
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll no doubt know that my partner and I are renovating a late Georgian house right now. it was quite a wreck when we bought it, and required considerable rebuilding. I won’t bore you with the details, but will simply say that a month or so ago we were […]
I’ve been a Freeman of the Guild of Arts Scholars, Dealers & Collectors for a couple of years now. A charitable organisation formed as part of the City of London’s ancient network of professional guilds and livery companies, its aim is to promote the study, curation, collection and trade in antiques, antiquities, decorative arts and […]
On Thursday I attended what must have been one of the busiest Antiques Roadshows I’ve experienced since Hopetoun House. Our location was the beautiful country house Hartland Abbey (above), near Bideford in North Devon. The abbey was built in 1157, and was the last monastery to be dissolved by Henry VIII, in 1539. Its royal […]
I’m delighted that my new Caithness Glass book has received some great reviews lately. Lesley Jackson, the eminent design historian, curator, and author, has just reviewed it for the Crafts Council‘s prestigious ‘Craft’ magazine and said ‘”Mark Hill has done the design world a valuable service in recording the history of Caithness Glass and the […]
Anyone who follows me on Twitter (@antiquemark) will know that we’re in the process of moving house right now. Exhausting and stressful at the best of times, everything is so much better if you have a good removals company. We do, and I can recommend them wholeheartedly – and that’s not something I say often. […]
One of the great delights of the recent Fat Lava exhibition in Amsterdam (a blog entry is on its way) was putting faces to names of many fellow collectors who I’ve got to know over the years via email. Once such collector is Els van Petersen. Els and I first got in contact when I […]