Homes & Antiques

Welcome to the August issue of H&A ! This month we turn our attention to life outdoors: Luke Honey uncovers the curious history of croquet (p27); Rhiannon Batten joins the Georgians on a stroll through the pleasure gardens of the past (p38); Poppy Benner shares a brief history of the maze (p43) and Jenny Oldaker explores garden statuary (p107). Antiques for conservatories can be found on page 99, and, for our edit of the season’s best bistro sets, turn to page 101. Heading further afield, this month’s houses take us around the globe, from tiny Port Dover, in Canada, to vibrant Tangier in Morocco, via the Scottish Borders and northern France. As ever, each house is a wonderful demonstration of its owners’ love of antiques and the stories they hold. In…

THE ANTIQUE Floral Mugs The golden days of August draw us outdoors for pottering, reading and refreshments, surrounded by flowers, fruit and foliage. We can continue this abundant theme inside with antique mugs decorated with sprigs of flowers, swags of leaves and fruit. ‘The tradition of flower painting is seen on the very earliest creamware and Delftware – many of these flowers were loosely painted and not readily identifiable, and influenced by the fashion for still-life oil and watercolour paintings of flowers,’ explains Caroline Dennard, ceramics specialist at Halls in Shropshire. ‘In the mid to late 18th century, Chinese-inspired peonies and chrysanthemums tended to dominate, along with cornflowers, roses and French-style ‘Chantilly sprigs’, but these were supplanted by British wildflowers in the early 19th century as decorators drew on the illustrated plates…

“I joined the Holburne at a very difficult time (a week before the first national lockdown), so I have been here for about two years, working remotely for a significant part of this time. I completed a BA in Art History at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, followed by two MAs, one in Management of Cultural Heritage in Florence, and another in Curatorial Studies at the Courtauld in London. In the last decade I have worked in five countries and across several museum departments, from conservation science to education and curatorial. Before joining the Holburne I was a curator at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, in Norwich. This role comes with multiple challenges. We are a very small team looking after thousands of objects while programming three…

True classic Set to become heirlooms of the future, The Cornish Bed Company’s impressive range of traditional metal beds, such as this Somerset Four Poster in Plaster Pink, are hand-cast at its foundry in Par. Each bed is made to order and comes with a unique serial number and certificate of authenticity. From £2,310 for a small double. cornishbeds.co.uk PENELOPE’S HOMEWARE Those who adore Penelope Chilvers’ shoes and boots will be delighted that the designer has launched a homeware collection. The Penelope Rose tablecloths (£99 each) and napkin sets (£29), feature a wild and natural design of rambling roses and come in a Mediterranean blue or fuchsia pink. penelopechilvers.com MORRIS IN LIGHTS Collaborations are always wonderful and the latest from Pooky is right up our street. What could be better for maximalist mavens than a…

The colourful, expressive studio glass of Sam Herman (1936–2020) is critically important to the story of 20th-century decorative arts. Present at the genesis of the studio glass movement in the US in the 1960s, and later at the Royal College of Art, Sam taught many of the UK’s best-known studio glass artists. In 1971, he was given a retrospective exhibition at the V&A, making him the first living contemporary glass artist to exhibit there. Over 30 exhibitions followed and he founded the Jam Factory glass studio in South Australia in 1974. Over the past few years, some pieces that used to fetch a few hundred pounds have leapt up into the low thousands, with room to rise but still affordable. Recent sales include a blue and silver chloride bottle vase…

I worked in the jewellery department at Sotheby’s in the late 1980s and early 90s after working in a jewellery shop in Bond Street. I totally adore beautiful objects. I married a Norfolk farmer in 1993 and we had four children. When my youngest was one and a half, I was very bored at not making my own money. We had by this time moved into Bayfield Hall in Norfolk, which is a wonderful house. I was changing and decorating it slowly and began to source pieces for myself. I then started looking for things for friends and it spiralled. My mother-in-law once had an antiques shop in the beautiful brick and flint stables, but it had closed down in the late 1990s before we moved in. At first it was home…