Unseen Treasures 1

The roadshow reveals unseen treasures from the summer, with highlights including a mask from Phantom of the Opera and Queen Victoria’s parasol, and Fiona pays tribute to the city of Stoke-on-Trent in its centenary year with a visit to the V&A Wedgwood Collection.

At the Hill of Tarvit Mansion in Scotland, Mark Hill discovers a telegram from Beatles drummer Ringo Starr to one of Scotland’s foremost folk singers, Rab Noakes. Mark Smith examines some medals belonging to two members of the same family who served in the Boer War and the First World War.

At the National Maritime Museum in Swansea, Eric Knowles discovers two intriguing female figurines made in the Czech Republic during the 1930s, and Rupert Maas casts his eye over a Victorian watercolour bought for £3 in a charity shop that turns out to be worth up to £800.

At Stephens House & Gardens in north London, Ronnie Archer-Morgan gets his hands on a black silk, satin and lace parasol that may have belonged to Queen Victoria whilst in mourning, and Gordon Foster is intrigued to see an intricate set of silver spice towers used in the Jewish Havdalah ceremony. Also, Cristian Beadman turns up a linden wood carving of St Paul, and Justin Croft peeks inside a rare first edition of The Grapes of Wrath, signed by its author John Steinbeck.

At Shuttleworth House in Bedfordshire, Rupert Maas and Mark Smith are delighted to see a drawing of Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring from the popular TV series, Dad’s Army, sketched by fellow cast member Clive Dunn, who played the hapless Lance Corporal Jones. Stephen Lane is thrilled to see a mask said to have been worn by actor Michael Crawford in the long-running stage version of Phantom of the Opera.

Back in Stoke-on-Trent, which celebrates the centenary of its status as a city in 2025, Fiona is challenged to an odd-one-out game by Asian art specialist Alexandra Aguilar. Inside the V&A Wedgwood collection, Fiona gets a private view of the archives, which comprise over 175,000 artworks and ceramics. She finds out how Josiah Wedgwood became ‘Potter to Her Majesty’ after he designed a creamware set for Queen Charlotte, and Fiona gets to see two extraordinary examples of the company’s output – the Portland Vase, which took four years to perfect, and a pair of jasperware shoe heels.