I thought I would share my favourite places for finding vintage and antique items for the home with you all. Even though many wonderful things are often found on Gumtree, Ebay and Facebook Marketplace, I still love a good vintage and antique shop hunt to find preloved items that can have a new lease of life in my home. It’s good for the environment, good for local sellers and hopefully good for your wallet too.
If you are ever fortunate enough to visit one of my favourite countries, or you’re lucky enough to live here, always take the time to visit Ballinderry Antiques. They say they are Northern Ireland’s biggest antique shop and, given that they are located in a huge beautiful old building, I can well believe this! There’s several floors to explore and this is where I got my charcoal sketch of a Georgian lady from that you may see featured in some of my Instagram posts.
Ok, so this is a town, rather than a shop, but this town is one of the top places for finding antiques. I believe on the last count there was 14 antique shops, Hungerford Arcade antique centre has over 115 dealers and there is a flea market on every second and fourth Sunday. I’ve picked up copper pans from one of the shops here, WW1 binoculars from the flea market and many more delights. It’s a traditional old market town with walks along the river Kennet and perfect for a day out.
Warwick Market is based in Wickham and is a shop that allows different dealers to showcase their items. It has a great variety and I’ve picked up some good items over the years here, in particular my silver display trays which I love. Wickham as a town has a number of antique shops that are also great to explore, making it another place for a day out.
4. House Clearance Auctions
So this isn’t a set place, but rather than trawling online, I’d recommend checking out your local house clearance auctions. It sounds morbid, but I like to think that it’s nice to see old items that would be otherwise discarded given a new lease of life and repurposed for another home. It’s at my local house clearance auction that I picked up my drinks display cabinet, which was chipped and battered, and I have repainted and put on display with drinks and glasses in our living room.
This is one of the biggest architectural salvage yards in Lancashire and is one of my favourite places to hunt for reclaimed materials, such as stone flags for kitchen floors or wooden beams to go across fireplaces. They have an incredible range of materials that my family and friends have used in their Victorian and older period homes.
MM xx
thecuratorshome.co.uk 