North-west England

A prayer book once owned by a priest who helped Charles II hide after defeat at the Battle of Worcester, and later heard his death-bed confession, has sold at auction to a national heritage organisation.

Textile Society’s annual fair is part of a drive to help fund ways of bringing in fresh talent to the field.

Shown here is what would be an arachnophobe’s nightmare: one of the 29 hand-coloured engraved plates that illustrate a copy of John Blackwell’s 'History of Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland'.

The Adam Partridge (25% buyer’s premium) sale in Macclesfield on March 2 included a tazza from an important historical Sèvres service.

The potter George Cartlidge, who worked for Sherwin & Cotton in Hanley for close to 30 years, is best known as the designer of Arts & Crafts Morris Ware.

This pair of English Regency bronze candlesticks in Egyptian revival taste sold for £1800 at Laidlaw (20% buyer’s premium).

While they may not appear such comfortable bedfellows today, the novel weapons of mass destruction created during the First World War were deemed a perfectly suitable subject for novelty trinkets of the day.

The slide rule shown here belonged to Dhunjeebhoy Rustomjee, who came from a fine line of Indian master ship builders in ancestry.

Lot sold for multiple-estimate sum in Cumbrian sale relates to a notorious election in Northumberland

The Chester Decorative, Antiques & Art Fair is an important moment in the calendar for collectors in north Wales and the north-west of England where there are few major collector events to choose from.

An inscription bearing Winston Churchill’s signature and dated 1948 found in a single volume of his famous history of the Second World War that came to auction in Cumbria was believed to be authentic.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Demonstrating how the internet has transformed the market for potential sleepers, three portraits that drew strong interest recently at different auctions in the UK and Europe all sold to online buyers.

Macclesfield and Liverpool auction house Adam Partridge has expanded its operation into the south-east and south-west of England with the purchase of two existing salerooms.

“All things considered, it’s been a pretty good year and we have high hopes of 2023 being a cracker”, enthused Richard Burgoin, director of Arthur Swallow Fairs as he looked back at its fairs and markets in 2022.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Such was the renown of toy collector the late Jack Tempest that when his collection came up for auction many of the bidders who flocked to the sale on November 10 recognised a lot of the items on offer.

Over the course of 35 years Andy Houldsworth amassed one of the largest collections of Action Man and similar action figures in the UK.

Dealer Damon Revans-Turner of RTS Antiques in Liverpool has put a name and story to a rare Staffordshire figure that has hitherto evaded attribution.

When coming across a female artist who was once quite recognised but now is rather little known, buyers today automatically ask the question: ‘Is she undervalued?’