Shopping

London's antique shops are under threat, protect them here

Decadent adornments at Vintage Modes

Gray’s Antiques Market & Grays in the Mews
In a cosy but decadent corner, tucked under a staircase decked out in plush red, a shelf groans with chunky monochrome Bakelite and elegant slivers of jet. Another overflows with imitation coral fashioned into intricate broaches and bracelets. This is part of Time Out shopping award-winning stall Vintage Modes, where a collective of five dealers sells its exquisite antique clothing and accessories. Gillian Horsup, an expert buyer in vintage costume jewellery, has taken over another corner for her jewellery business having moved on from Camden Passage due to rent hikes.

Her collection includes powder compacts, cigarette holders, purses and hair accessories, from £2 to £2,000. She rarely sells gold, but you could fill pirate’s caskets with her hand-sourced (mostly) vintage pieces made from glass, Victorian jet, Bakelite, early plastics and even fossilised seashell.
Feature continues

‘I look for quality or style – and preferably both,’ she says.

Costume jewellery at Vintage Modes

Gray’s was founded in 1977 by antiques dealer and entrepreneur Bennie Gray, and the rear Mews opened a year later. Now Grade II-listed, the building was originally a nineteenth-century water closet showroom when the firm John Bolding & Son was still neck and neck with Thomas Crapper for supremacy of the WC market. Keen to move away from the snobbish reputation of the antiques world, Gray branded his arcade an ‘antiques supermarket’ when it opened. Today it has roughly 100 dealers, each running two stands, its own uniformed doorman and the River Tyburn, a tributary of the Thames, running through the lower mall.

The front market tends to house the more expensive pieces. High-end antique gems with four-figure price-tags glint and glitter in their cases; collections span many periods, Victorian, Edwardian, art deco. It’s particularly popular with couples choosing an engagement ring, and a personal shopping service is available for those daunted by the selection of stalls.

Wheels of Steel

Jeff Williams is now in his 13th year at Gray’s, running a compact stand in the Mews basement for train set collectors, Wheels of Steel. Williams deals in ‘all periods, across the board, any make, any gauge, clockwork, steam’. On the higher shelves, next to the soothing sounds of the running Tyburn, sit the large G-scale train sets in their original boxes. G is for ‘garden’ and they’re built to run in any weather. Though he gets the odd schoolboy in, most collectors are their dads’ ages. ‘I think they get past the cars and women stage, settle down and then get into collecting in their late-thirties to forties until the day they drop. Some of them spend a colossal amount.’ While Williams’ make of choice is Marklin, he also sells Hornby, Bachman and Tri-ang. Eighty per cent of his stock is found through ‘walk-ins’, people coming in to show him paraphernalia and possibly sell. When we visit, he’s just got wind of a house clearance – some intriguing-sounding engines have been found in the attic. If it turns out he finds a pre-war Marklin in a smaller gauge, one engine could be worth £20,000.

The River Tyburn runs through the lower mall

While Gray’s independence means it is not under threat from rent hikes, trade is not as good as it was for Williams. ‘It’s all because of this,’ he says, gesturing at his laptop. ‘It’s eBay that has made it really tough for us.’ It’s not only eBay that is poaching trade. ‘Businessmen who would pop in whenever they had meetings in London are no longer coming, holding their meetings via videophone and conference call instead.’ Though eBay undoubtedly has its bargains, what it can’t offer is the knowledge and expertise available from traders like Williams.

Another of the market’s characters is Andrew Prince, an immacuately turned-out creator of tiaras and drop earrings which are worthy of royalty, but fashioned from Swarovski crystals rather than real gems. ‘I’ve always, always made jewellery,’ he says. ‘When I was three I made my grandmother a ring of wire and beads pulled off my mother’s wedding dress.’ Why isn’t he working on nearby Old Bond Street with the real, multi-carat McCoy? ‘Because with this you can have so much more fun.’ Kate Riordan

58 Davies St and 1-7 Davies Mews, W1 (020 7629 7034/ www.graysantiques.com) Bond St tube. Open Mon-Fri 10am-6pm.

Best for Jewellery – antique engagement rings and art deco.

London's antique shops are under threat, protect them here