The Christleton Website is 25 Years Old this Year. Wow, how the years have flown by. It has been quite a journey. I cannot remember all the Apple programs I was using to build it at the start but I do know they have changed a number of times along with where the website is hosted. I suppose the biggest thing to happen was the increase in internet speed. It was painfully slow in the early years. The guide books to building websites used to tell you to make your images small as people would not be prepared to sit looking at their screen waiting for them to download. How things have changed. Here we are in 2025 with nearly everyone having fast download speeds and some having super fast download speeds.

Building websites has been quite an adventure which I have really enjoyed. Another big adventure which is also still ongoing is discovering the World of Antiques. I started at the age of 17 when my parents gave Browns of Chester £500 so that I could sign up as an articled clerk for three years. No pay in this period but my parents did recoup the £500 as I was able to complete the term. The second half of my articles took place in the auctions rooms behind 103 Foregate Street, Chester. There were weekly sales of general chattels and special antique sales at least once a month.

My initiation to auctioneering started in a building known as The Shed situated in the yard behind the auctions rooms. There I was trusted each week to selling general houseware including beds, tables, chairs, mangles, dolly tubs and possers. Numerous upright pianos were entered for sale but they were extremely difficult to sell. Some weeks I could not sell one and then there was all round rejoicing in the office when as I was able to knock down a couple at five shillings each. After offereing one for many weeks with no sale it would be sent to the tip.

In time I moved on to sell real antiques both in the Chester auction rooms and at country house sales. The cataloguing and preparation for these often took quite a number of weeks. Then there were the viewing days which sometimes seemed a bit long and boring. You just hoped someone would ask you about one of the lots so you could start spouting forth relying on your newly gained youthful knowledge. One of my first outside sales was at Greenbank on Eaton Road outside of Handbridge. The sale included a large selection of fine Chinese porcelain which brought all the main dealers flocking from London and beyond. Another memorable house sale was at Cornelyn outside Llangoed in Anglesey. We all stayed at The Bull in Beaumaris and travelled to the large country house every day. I remember selling the outside effects including a small Victorian carriage probably drawn by a pony. And then there was the carved wood ships figurehead portraying a man. Any applied paint had faded I seem to remember and it fetched about £50. That sale gave me one of my first introductions to the antiquarian book trade. There was a vast library of old leather bound books in the attic rooms. The most important books had been removed to sell individually but all the remaining books were offered in just a few lots. They fetched just a small amount of money but I wonder if any hidden treasures had been missed. To collect the books after the sale the booksellers dropped the volumes down the well of the stairs catching them in sheets on the ground floor. The books were then spirited away to cars waiting outside. I do believe that an auction ring was working that day. This is an illegal agreement amongst a group not to compete in order to keep the price low. They would then auction the books between themselves and the profit was shared amongst the members of the ring. I am not sure if this practice goes on nowadays but I am sure it was quite prevalant then. I remember returning to the attic rooms and seeing a third of the library had been left untouched.

I later joined the staff at Browns of Chester but this did not last for too long. Burton Tailoring has bought the company and did not want an auction room. In the last week of business my boss Mr. Welch used to take me down to the bowling green near the River Dee to while away the hours. My other boss was Colonel Edmund Longster who I owe a lot to. I think they would have been interested in the career path I took but I never saw either of them again. I moved with the Estate Department to new premises next door to The Boot inn in Eastgate Street, Chester. In some two years the axe fell again as Burtons did not want an estate department and I was given a golden handshake of about £140.

Those years working with antiques, however, moulded the rest of my life. I came down from rostrum and crossed the floor to become an antique dealer which I still am some 60 years later.

It is therefore just so exciting, during the 25th anniversary of the Christleton website, to be able to add a New Antiques Section thanks to my friend Philip Harland. His enthusiasm and passion for antiques I am sure is going to rub off on you.