Autumn Cottage Diarist

More Tombs, Antiques - and a Skateboarding Dog!

 Salvage yard, Dunster
The third day of  five in Somerset, a day upon which I met The Truly Amazing Skateboarding Dog!    I kid you not, gentle readers - There I was, quietly wandering around a salvage yard, imagining what the dear old fireplaces must have looked like in their heydays, still installed in Edwardian houses, polished up with love and care, instead of here, gently rusting away until someone came to rescue them.
Heard a barking and a rushing, and feared the worst. A German Shepherd hurtling towards me - was I in a forbidden part of the yard? Did he think I was an intruder? Then I saw why he was approaching so fast...the blessed beast was skateboarding!!!
It was obviously his toy, and the fuss and noise were merely meant to tell me to get out of the way as he stepped on one corner, did an excellent three point turn, and sped off in another direction. The things you see in a salvage yard!!!

This was a day in the medieval market town of Dunster, and yes, you have guessed it, it was raining. The most moist day of all the week, and myself considerably under the weather, so not so many photos to choose from...but here are a few images of how I spent my time.

Back to the salvage yard. O Happy Day when I have the chance to wander around a place like this. I am sure there are good homes waiting for all these items, but it is such fun to just see them in their 'raw' state and hope that they are soon taken away, cleaned up and installed somewhere to enhance a house or garden. Old stone sinks, a wrought iron fire-basket, several eel-traps, a dove-cote, coal hods, an ancient washing machine -(the barrel shaped item) and a trio of windows that would grace any renovation once they had been cleaned up and painted. All the items somewhat overpriced, I thought...but if you are looking for just exactly one of those items, who is to say what the 'right' price really is, apart from what you are prepared to pay for it?

Took refuge in Dunster church during the worst of the downpours - where I discovered this very grand Luttrell tomb -look at trouble taken to show the detailing of the woman's petticoats... 

and a 'Memento Mori' triptych, bearing all the reminders of time and mortality - the sand-timers, the skull and crossed-bones, and the cherubic little ascending souls, carved somewhat naievely into the black slate slab.

 

Lunch in the cosy old kitchens of the 15th century Lutrell Arms, just visible on the right, behind the old Yarn Market here in the centre of Dunster,

and then back to Porlock, to visit the church of St Dubricius with its distinctive truncated tower. Inside, the early 15th Century tomb of Lord Harington - who fought with Henry the Fifth in France, and his Lady, her hair coiffured in an elegant embroidered head-dress, her head upon a pillow supported by two angels.

 

It was only a short walk back from the church to the apartment, passing another 15th century building, the Ship Inn, at the bottom of the notorious 1 in 4 Porlock Hill, before I was able to get warm and dry again.

I feel I have hurried you through this blog-post in rather the same way that I hurried through the day in Dunster...but once again, wasn't it worth braving the weather for all the interesting things I managed to see?

Something Venetian - and Exquisite - for a Friday Afternoon

Editing some photographs from my last visit to Venice today, I had a sudden urge to share these three images of exquisite beauty with you. Items from the Glass Museum on Murano...examples of the stunning mastery of a craft, working with extreme fragility and yet extraordinary strength. Just enjoy...and be sure to visit the Museum if you are ever there. (Click on any of the images for a bigger, clearer view).

 

Can you see the dolphins?

More Antiquing Fun

Took myself of for my regular visit to the Antiques Arcade this afternoon - my couple of hours "treat time" each week...and struck very lucky today, discovering this beautiful Victorian embroidered needlepoint picture (measuring about 2 ft - 60 cms - square). It is in extremely good condition, with the colours still very bright - though it does need cleaning - but that can wait.

Look at how immensely skilfully the stitcher has rendered the faces...a quite amazing ability to shade so subtly with thread. (None of it is painted on - though it looks as if it would be impossible to stitch this finely...but that is exactly how it has been done!)

I won't tell you how much I paid for it - though it was a great bargain. I'll just say that you could add another "0" at the end of the price if you bought it in a London or specialist antique shop.

Any visitors to Autumn Cottage get a complimentary (i.e. Compulsory :-)) visit to the Arcade!!!

To share  in a little of the fun with you, here's another Friday giveaway in the photo below....a bag of lace scraps from the Junk Shop at the Arcade - not worth much, but one or two pretty pieces in there, and great for stitching to a small cushion (pillow) to enhance a pretty boudoir, or to use somewhere in a dolls house.

Any takers? As before, tell me what you would do with the scraps, and I'll choose a recipient at the end of the weekend...

On the Boot Sale Trail again!

Royal Copenhagen pin trays

I've been to few car boot sales in the last two years - perhaps four or five - but I have recently been seduced by a new enterprise that has started on a Sunday morning at the local racecourse. I've been very restrained, but my sharpened eye has been lucky enough to find some real treasures - and here are some of the items that I acquired today.

The Royal Copenhagen pin trays are in perfect condition, and a real bargain at just one UK Pound each. They do sometimes come covered in grime though - so here are the "nuts and bolts" of my cleaning box

 
- all sorts of things here, from lemon juice and salt to silver and brass polish - cleaning is sometimes the most fun part of the whole operation - there is nothing like seeing a filthy piece of china or brass cleaned and polished to perfection!

I've given up collecting "dolls" as such, but now do keep an eye open for wooden figures, which are usually much smaller. These are eight fun little Japanese wooden dolls, accompanied by two fabric covered Kimekomi dolls - three pounds for the lot!

And just one more piece of glass for the collection - surely there is room for this?

Finally, I could not resist these items below, again for just one pound - more of a curio than anything else. A pair of Victorian children's wooden and leather clogs - how hard and narrow they are - and how little the child wearing them must have been - nothing of "the good old days" about these!

I've had a fun morning, and now have my younger son conquering the jungle of grass in the garden for me (interspersed with many cups of tea!) - so I have good company as well.

Tell me - what are you doing an this autumn Sunday?

Another "Little Something" from the Arcade

A busy week so fars, not much time to write here - so I thought you would just like to see this little curio I picked up at the Antiques Arcade last week. Encased in a turned wood scroll box, it is a paper scroll about a metre long, depicting the waterfront in Copenhagen, sometime after 1912 - which is the latest date I can see printed on it.

I think it was sold as a souvenir from the Tivoli Pleasure Gardens, since the panorama starts from there, and the place name is also printed on a very faded label on the outside of the box.

For anyone who has visited Copenhagen - do you recognise any of the buildings? For the rest of us - just enjoy!

Six Men and a Little Lady

Aren’t these little clay characters fun? I picked them up last week in Hungerford, to add to my growing collection of similar figures.

They were produced for visitors to India in the last century and before – they certainly seem to have been popular items to bring during the time of the Raj when ex-pats took “home leave” or returned to Mother England for good.

I have several sets now – these are pleasing because each one has come with a little hand-written tag attached, describing their trade or station in life. (Alec’s Granny, who had been in India in the early 1900’s, knew the names of a set of 12 when I showed them to her, with no need for recourse to any tags at all).

From the left hand side of the screen, these are: “a singer”, “a water-carrier”, “a holi man”, “a punjapi girl”, “a cooli”, “a south india man” and “a Muslim”
Click the image for a closer look, or email me if you want even higher resolution.
What is it about “little people” that fascinates so much?

A Round Pound Day

It has been a very January day - you know the sort of day I mean? It has felt as if it was not ever really going to get light, staying dark, dank, and miserable. The rain lashing down all night, so that when I drove to Hungerford this afternoon, I very nearly turned back to take the “high road” rather than the country road route, there were so many flooded sections along the lanes.

The lights of the Antiques Arcade in the little town are always welcoming though – just wandering around the stalls there, with 40's music in the background is always enough to cheer me up - and today there were also treasures to be found.

I count my purchases in pounds rather than tens or hundreds these days – a far cry from the book dealing days when there were often two “00’s” at the end of my invoice – but this is just as much fun, in fact, I often think even more so, since the hunt is more than half the pleasure – (the finding of treasure is the other half! 

This is what I found today – a little, hand-painted saucer for one pound, (could it be Pinxton? Liz will know) and a lovely little ruby glass scent bottle, which was also a pound. Unfortunately, that has a broken rim – and a stopper which has dropped inside the bottle, but for just one pound, I could not resist the example of good quality enamelling workmanship. 

The other little item is a Victorian “cranberry glass” posy vase, in perfect condition, which sat in the window of the Red Cross charity shop – until it went in my bag! Perfect condition required four of my round pounds for that – but it would be many times that price in any of the Arcade stalls, and will be a nice addition to the jewel box glass in my windows. 

The young girl below holding a dove is a piece of Royal Doulton china – her head has been off and needs re-gluing – that is why she was, yes, just one pound! 

Another bargain at the Arcade are always the old Christies & Sotheby’s Saleroom catalogues that Martin Smith the book dealer sells again for one pound each. Today I spotted a catalogue detailing the sale of the contents of a house whose name I recognised – La Vigie – which amazingly is the “Monte Carlo Daily Photo” today. I knew that the couturier Karl Lagerfeld had lived there – this catalogue was dated 2000 – he apparently lived there until 1997, but the items being sold were all his. 

This catalogue is like one of the finest coffee table books, filled with beautiful pictures of “Lits a La Polonaise”, French furniture, Venetian chandeliers, and all sorts of objets – some exquisite, some that are definitely from the back bedroom. Like all the best house sales, it it shows something like a glorified jumble sale – but oh, what jumble! I couldn’t afford any of it – but all the ideas come for free – and for a pound, you couldn’t buy the catalogue new  – even those are £15.00. I did well on my Round Pound day!

Exquisite Mystery

Sorting books this morning (the story of my life!) when I came across
this beautiful paper item, taken from a Victorian scrap album which I
own, from the 1880's. Now note that the whole image, background
included, is only 7 x 11 cms. (Roughly 2.75 x 4.5 ins.) Click on the image for a closer look - it is well worth it.

I have two questions....how on EARTH was the background cut in such a
fine filigree? Today we would say "laser cut" - but in 1880?? Perhaps
punches? I don't know. What do you think?

The second question is - what is the subject matter of the image?
Dressed in white tissue, with what looks like a prayer book in her left
hand and with an almost sword like candle in her right, in what ceremony
is the beautiful lady taking part? Corpus Christi? A Christmas
celebration? Marriage? I think not the latter - unless she is becoming a
Bride of Christ? What are your thoughts on this?

And in case you are wondering what has happened to photographs appearing
here on blog, well, they have gone to the Great Delete Bin in the Sky
for now - I left my camera out in the rain overnight after photographing
the garden a couple of weeks ago, and now I am afraid that the camera is
no longer functional. Woe is definitely me, as my camera is normally an
extension of my hand - but until Santa has been paid, no new cameras
here!

Little Acquisitions

An outing to Goring with Liz is always the occasion for a browse around the Antique Emporium there. These are the little finds that I made yesterday - two dear little 1930's dolls dressed in Bavarian costume, a china bath and sink, and the tiniest doll in my collection. You can see the scale by the fact that the fifty pence piece in the picture measures 1 inch (2.5 cm) across. (And each of the items did not cost much more than that coin).

What amazes me is the fact that someone *knitted* the little dress that the baby doll sitting in the sink is wearing! I was told by the lady in the shop that it would probably have been on the same sort of knitting pins that she used "during the War" for knitting her own stockings - "until the Yanks arrived and brought packets of silk ones with them"!

These little babies will find a home in one of my 1/16th scale houses. Time to sort out and reorganise the 23 dolls houses that I now own, when I return from you-know-where - they need a more permanent display than where most of them are stacked in an outbuilding right now.

What is everyone doing in the mini world at the moment? I am planning to bring miniature glass back from Venice - and will need a room box at least to display it all. Hmm - I feel a winter project coming on!

Another Album

Another old photograph album - another magical mystery trail to unravel.

Here are just three of the forty-four photographs in an anonymous album
that I purchased for a few pounds a week ago. More images from India -
this time in July 1915 (dated but not named) - about the same time that
my grandfather was there.

Do you wonder with me who these people are? How old they are? What it
feels like to be dressed like this in the hot Indian summer? How long
they will stay in India?  Will any of the soldiers finally end up, not
in the sweltering heat of Hyderabad in July, but in the mud, bullets and
death of the European Western Front.

The colonial India of the British Empire is still in full flourish here
- although there is a War on in Europe, here they still dance around the
maypole as if in a leafy English village - albeit at "The War Fete" as
many of the photographs are labelled.

These pictures are "on hold" until my return from Venice - but who
knows, there may be another story, and other characters to explore in
future.