Grandma P's Ramblings Through Life

Today I give you a tour round Pilgrim Antiques.
An antiques centre is ever evolving, people have to move on and others fill their places. But most of us at Pilgrims feel secure and happy to make it our antiques home on  a long term basis.
As far as I can tell our shop is regarded as a friendly shop and a good place to buy interesting, decorative and useful things from times gone by.
So, come inside.




























Next Friday Sue will deal with a Christmas window. Dorking looks good before Christmas with many of the individual shops creating interesting Christmas themed window displays.

The shop is divided into four rooms.
The first room has many items in cabinets and our sales desk is there too.


On the left is Nigels's  cabinet - his passion is wine and the cabinet has many interesting wine related items.
It always looks fascinating..
On the right is Hilary's cabinet with lovely old jewellery. Her passion is 1920s and 30s early plastic and celluloid jewellery. Ask her about it......much of it is saved for specialist fairs.


















































This is a shelf in one of Clive's cabinets.
He has an abundance of cabinets with many different styles of decorative items.
This photograph shows how we try to ensure that items in cabinets are clearly marked with details and prices.
We appreciate that it can be daunting to ask about items in cabinets, with a customer maybe fearing the embarrassment of something costing more than they feel they can afford.





























Jill's passion is glass - old glass, stylish glass. She is very knowledgeable.


This is Bill's corner.
Sadly, Bill will not be selling in the shop for much longer.
Ill health has prompted his retirement.
Until Christmas everything in his section is half the marked ticket price.


























So, now we climb three steps to the second room, where Jonathan, Sue and Brian, Gill and also Clive sell.



























This is part of Jonathan's section. He sells mostly china - for the table, ornaments etc - always decorative and mostly with some age. His passion is perhaps Victorian china.































Some of Jonathan's Crown Derby - very popular.
Crown Derby have been manufacturing china with these colours for decades and still make it. Connoisseurs know which pattern belongs to which era.


We have two glass specialists and both named Gill,
Gill who sells from this section is spelled with a G not a J.
Her passion is Stuart Crystal.
But she also finds other interesting items.
I know that this week I sold an Isle of Wight glass egg for her.




















































Clive has a cabinet in the second room. He sells watches (for men and women), cigarette lighters. silver and all sorts.




























Sue's section splits into 2 sub sections. On the left hand side are all manner of interesting things, both decorative and useful.
She, and her husband, Brian, have a lot of metal ware.
On the right hand side are cabinets of jewellery; not antique jewellery but good value pieces, often in silver - probably an Indian silver. If you feel the need to treat yourself on a whim then these cabinets are the place to look.


























Here is some of Sue's copper and brass - always beautifully presented.

Now we climb 3 more steps into the third room.


Steve is particularly interested in things mechanical - phones, gramophones, telescopes etc.
All his phones are adapted for use on the current networks.
He is often called upon to mend phones that are brought into him.
























































Mick has items of china and pottery from the well known and popular 20th century studios.
The pictures shows Poole Pottery; he also has Moorcroft, Clarice Cliff etc.




Steve and Mick also sell furniture and both are skilled at restoring.
Come on boys.......where is the shabby chic?
No - this trend has not yet been adopted by anybody in Pilgrims.
Who knows? - fashions change.
But much as we all want to move with the times, we all buy the things that we love and would want to see in the shops that we visit.
So - no shabby chic!




































Jo has her section in the the third room.
She has the feminine touch. Much of her stock is connected with the home, the kitchen, the nursery and the wardrobe.
But she caters, also for the man about town. Many a young man has accompanied his good lady to Ascot wearing a top hat bought from Jo.


Jo has lots of lovely china.
Pretty tea sets are even coming back into fashion along with tiered cake plates.
She also has well prepared table cloths, pillow cases and other linens and lace.























Now up 3 more steps to the fourth room. I guess we are now getting as far as it is possible to get away from true antiques in this room.
But post war (WW2 that is) styles are very much in vogue.
The 1950s and 60s are fashionable again.




































This is Paula's section. I am Paula.. I think I found a passion for this era because way back then I was both naive and poor and missed out on the trends of that time when I lived through it. It is true nostalgia.
These pictures have appeared on my facebook page today and already I have received a comment "My Dad used to have one of those"
I would be a rich dealer if I had a pound for every time I heard such a remark somewhere in the shop.
My section is subdivided into kitchen, feminine type bits and pieces, toys, then my favourite bright and gaudy 1950s/50s style pottery and glass, a sort of boy's toys section and as many books as I have room for.
I stick mainly to local history books, transport and cookery.

































In the other half of the 4th room Terry and her daughter, Emma display their wares.
Like my section, theirs is a miscellany of 20th century items.




















































Now we are right at the back of the shop looking between my section and Terry's section down through the rooms towards the shop door.

Pilgrim's Antiques is a special sort of shop.
You will find different people caring for it each day of the week.
And we do care for it!
We each have a reasonable amount of expertise in those aspects of the trade that are our passions.
It must be a passion.......we do it because we love it and couldn't imagine not doing it.
It is the hunting out of things that we love to share with others that keeps us all going.
I doubt that many of us make very much money when all is said and done. The good months keep us feeling ever optimistic!

Pop in some time.....and say you have seen the shop on the internet.
At one time I did a shop blog every couple of weeks with topical themes.
Maybe after Christmas I might have the time to do that again.

The evening has slipped away.
Just a bit too much TV watching maybe......but I am sure I needed a relaxing evening.
I tend to allow the programmes to roll from one to the next on a Monday evening.
University Challenge at 8 o'clock allows me to feel just a bit clever. But more than that it fills me with nostalgia.
Bill and I got a television early in 1967. One of the very first programmes we watched on it was University Challenge......it can't have been the first because UC was on, at that time, at Sunday lunchtime.
The theme music is the same. I can hear it, shut my eyes and be transported back to the flat we were living in.
And it still jolts me when the announcer says "And asking the questions" - followed by the wrong name.
It should be Bamber Gascoigne. It was way back then.
I am sure Bill called him Bamber Gasket, long before Private Eye ever did.
Bamber is 78 years old now.
Then, later, as we had a cuppa and the most delicious chocolate tartlet I was watching The Choir.
There's another one who has aged - my idols should stay the same!
Gareth Malone is only 38, but looks like a mature man now, rather than the over grown school boy who first organised TV choirs.

The day was busy for me.....well this morning was. I had to find a way of displaying 2 boxes full of recent purchases and a rocking horse. All was completed and almost nothing had to come back home with us.
I took lots of pictures of both my section and a  series of a "tour round the shop".
I will deal with them in the morning.
There were customers too. Mondays are busier than some of the other weekdays.
Today we have sold things ranging from a small old pistol to a celluloid 1930's hair decoration.
Bill has taken more money than me this week. I had a poor week really and he has all his things at half the marked ticket price.

It has been a weekend for working hard at my hobbies.
Bill came with me to Ford. I just wanted to get him out somewhere and offered a later entertaining trip out.
But Ford it was and I was glad to be there. I found lots more good things to sell.



































This was actually a vase that I bought on Thursday. It's big!
Here it is again, priced up and surrounded by many more things that are ready to take to the shop tomorrow.
























I spent the hours before Bill got up this morning sorting that lot out.

Bill left me alone for a good while at Ford. It was cold - and worse the hernia he has is causing a lot of bother.
Bill is not buying things anymore for selling.
Bill was just looking forward to his breakfast. It was another sociable time with people we have got to know.
I think we should find a "local" like that in our own town.

I did really wish that I had been in Newcastle yesterday for an evening at the theatre. Our grandaughter, E, was Prospero in an abridged version of The Tempest. She has always been introverted and somewhat shy - but no need to fear; the performance was excellent.

This afternoon we were timekeeping for the first sportshall athetics league match of the winter season.
We arrived to find a hall crammed with young athletes and parents - more than we have seen before.

























That's one end of the hall before the events began - lots of movement as youngsters warm up.
We had enough timekeepers. Very pleased to have Gerry at my side.
There were so many races - the normal programme plus 15 non scoring races.
The end of the meeting was very rushed - we are supposed to completely vacate the building by 5 o'clock; that's all the people and all the equipment. We were still running relays at ten to five!
It was fun.
Good to be amongst the friendly athletics crowd again.

We had walked through Jesmond Dene and Armstrong Park. We continued onwards to Jesmond Vale.
The Ouseburn continued to flow through woodland between the steep sides of the valley.
By this stage the landscape was not managed to create anything formal.
We were in a more industrial land, which had once been home to thousands.
Jesmond Vale is  a lost village, demolished in the 1960s in favour of clean tower blocks.

This looks quaint and picturesque to our eyes, but I have read that conditions were unhealthy.












Vale House.




















Our walk took us down a wide track. This had once been the main route for land traffic by the Ouseburn out to the River Tyne.

We were ambling down when a man came and almost demanded that we come and learn some local history.
Fascinating.
The Ouseburn was once a vital waterway for carrying goods.
The boats took coal down river and maybe then took it down south. They returned with flint - maybe from our own Sussex hills.
The flint was crushed and used in the pottery industry.
There have been many renowned pottery factories in the area. The Maling family made their pottery on the banks of The Ouseburn.
Crushing flint must be hard. An old water mill was used for the job to grind the flints into a powder.
Until a certain George Stephenson (he of The Rocket locomotive) came to Jesmond Vale and installed a steam engine into the mill.
The flint mill has long gone. But you can see how the banks of the river were reinforced to act as a docking point for boats.

























































Our teacher was as fascinating as the history.
He was amateur historian, artist, wood worker and all round interesting man.
He had a house, with his good wife, above the river.
Down below he had his "shed"
























Wow!
I can't help wondering if maybe this den was converted from old cottages.


These are flint mill cottages.




































The Angel of the North.























A man's den is  private, or so I believed.
But we were invited in.
























He said it has been his shed for 8 years now......it began on Hallowee'n 2008, when it was used for a spooky rave up. The next day they returned to finish the beer and thus a home from home was formed.
He has Sky TV and a music centre and it's warm and cosy.
I don't know his name - but I thank him for giving us one of those special times that cannot be planned for.
We told him of our lunch plans.
"Oh, you ought to go to The Blue Bell for lunch"  was his reaction.
And we did.
We retraced our steps through the bare land where the flint mill had been.....yes there were traces of it, but I couldn't be sure about any of it.
























This was our view as we approached the back way.
There had been 3 pubs in the lost village of Jesmond Vale and only The Blue Bell remains.
The proprietors pride themselves on their food - everything fresh and home cooked.
Nothing for main meals is bought in frozen and heated it up. It is all cooked in their kitchens from scratch.
And they give people so much!
We would never have found this pub on our own and probably wouldn't have thought of using it.






































And the fajitas, with spicy meat and beans was mine with loads of salad and dressings.

We had quite a climb after eating that lot. Slowly does it!


The Ouseburn disappeared through a culvert, but we had to climb up and over.












We were heading for The Biscuit Factory. No, we were not already hungry - our diet would art and culture.

Sheffield Park Gardens are deservedly renowned for their autumn displays.
The estate has been in existence since the time of The Domesday Book.
In 1786 the estate was sold to Baron Sheffield.
The deer park was then landscaped by Capability Brown and subsequently others. The most recent head gardener is the cousin of a friend.
The Earls of Sheffield had a cricket field laid and some first class matches were played there, including the first match between England and Australia on 12th May 1888. Australia won by an innings and 6 runs.
The old pavilion has gone now.












After a while cricket was no longer played and the field was left to return to woodland.
The Great Storm of 1987 felled many of the trees and it was mused that cricket could be played again.
In 2009 the site was ready for matches and a team known as The Armadilloes has it as its home ground.

But on a sunny November day it was autumn colours we had come to see.
A potential photograph at every turn!





























































































































































































































































































































































































We called in at Heaven Farm on the way home for  a pot of tea and some cake.
It was sun set time.











































Fantastic colours.
I think my camera picks out reds very strongly.
And of course I do look at every photograph and tweak a little so that the photograph portrays what my eyes and brain saw. The sunsets needing no tweaking.
Photography, for me, is more than a record of places and events - though it is that too.
Photography for me is a way of sharing the beauty and interest that I see in my life.
It is a way of holding on to the things which have mattered to me on a particular day - people and places and moods.
I have a favourite picture from this day. I wonder which your favourite would be?