Antiques Roadshow with Chris Yeo - November Meeting 2021

Chris began by telling us the story of a neighbour Miss Woods, who noticed him looking at a pair of china gundogs (setters) on her sideboard when he had visited with his grandmother.  She gave him the gundogs and they are still a treasured possession – and so began a love of antiques.  He has always had a love of the grand stately homes such as Dunster Castle and Longleat (a particular favourite), for their design and architecture as well as their social history (especially the kitchens). He is so taken with Longleat House that at an auction of furniture and bric a brac found in the attics, he ended up paying over £300 for a riveted and chipped wash stand set which was originally marked down as £30 because it has a coronet monogram of the Marquis of Bath on the front.

Encouraged by his family, he spent his teens going around the many antiques fairs and auctions that were more common at the time, enjoying picking things up and getting a feel for objects.  He even found a forgery of Whitefriar’s glass. At age 14 he began buying and selling from the Cheddar Antiques Market along with others at Brighton, Woking and Bath – there used to be 6 but now there is only one small market left – now antiques have moved online.  It is now more specialists or E-Bay‘ers.

After University he did Marketing for a few years but started looking again at antiques especially Whitefriars Glass – because he liked it! He went back to do an Antiques course and sold his glass collection at a profit.

He began working in Bristol in Dreweatts Auction House, then in the 1980’s became self-employed.  He has since become curator of the Ken Stradling Collection in Bristol and now works with the Clevedon Salesrooms. Since 2015 he can often be found on the Antiques Roadshow. This opportunity came after doing some work on the radio.  There were before Covid, around 40 specialists on the Roadshow and big crowds of the public who would queue for hours to get on the telly but now everything has been pared back.

The Clevedon Showrooms reopened in July this year for viewings, valuations and auctions. He suggested that if you wanted to start collecting items, to go for quality and good names such as Chippendale, William Morris which tend to hold their value as the antiques market is very much based on what is fashionable at the time. But buy things because you like them!  A few of the members brought in some of their own pieces which Chris described, and in some cases gave a rough estimate of price. It was a very interesting look at Chris’s life and the whims of the Antiques market and how it has changed over the years.