Antiquing Trip to England: Day 6, Canterbury

Our day in Canterbury was one of my favorites, as it included a tour of a teddy bear factory. Canterbury Bears has been making uniquely English teds for 32 years, sending them to collectors all over the world from their workshop just outside the ancient city.

The workshop may look quietly unassuming from the outside...

...but inside, it's a riot of bears, parts of bears, piles of mohair, shelves of trims, boxes of eyes, intriguing machines, and friendly ladies stitching teddy bear smiles.

 Colorfully dyed mohair waits to be cut into bear parts.

 Metal dies for cutting out bear parts.

The machine that stamps out the bear parts, 

using the dies like a cookie cutter.

 A box full of newly stamped out bear parts.

The stuffing machine. The nozzle (just touching the chair back) is inserted into a bear, then the machine blows it full of stuffing.
We were told the bears' eyes are not sewn on until after this step,
"so they can't see what's being done to them."

Speaking of eyes, here are some of the varieties:

Hand-sewing the eyes, nose, and mouth on a nearly-finished bear.

 After a tour of the workshop, we were invited to browse the shelves and purchase bears to take home. We got to see prototypes and archival pieces too, and it was lots of fun to poke around.

I got this little ted, whom I absolutely adore.

A shelf of bears. The little white one was 

a never produced prototype

that went home with a very lucky tour guest.

After our factory visit was over, we headed into Canterbury. The skyline of the medieval walled city is dominated by the famous cathedral, which looms over everything:

The cathedral's origins lie all the way back in 597 AD, but the oldest remaining section, the crypt, is from the 11th century.

A particularly beautiful corner in the cathedral's cloisters.

The cathedral is full of monumental stained glass windows; the oldest is this, the Adam Window (so named for the figure of Adam, digging with a spade, in the bottom row, third from the left) which dates from 1176!

No scones today: instead I tried something new, a Bakewell Tart. It was a pastry shell filled with raspberry jam and almond sponge cake, with a shortbread star on top. Completely delicious.

Speaking of delicious things: we saw fabulous candy shops in every town we visited. They had an almost magical quality, like the candy store in the Harry Potter books. This one, The Sugar Boy, was one of my favorites.

There were surprisingly few antique stores in Canterbury; in fact, we were told by the owner of the one we did find that it was pretty much the only one. Good thing we found it, too: it had a case full of old bears.

Repairs were ongoing at this old antique shop.

 Inside: a big, beautiful vintage bear greeted us. 

Sadly, he was too big and heavy to get home (42 inches!)
so as far as I know, he's still sitting there now.

At the back of the store, though, was this case
filled with smaller bears:
some old, some new, and all wonderful.

I got this unusual ted, which I think may be from Australia, made by Barton Waugh. In the case above, he's on the right side, back row, in the middle. Noseless. Below, he here is after his nosectomy:

Just before leaving Canterbury, we stopped by its Information Centre and loaded up on postcards. Sitting by the register was this great little Canterbury Bear I hadn't seen at the factory earlier: a small version of their Union Jack patterned bear, appropriately named...Jack. He is clearly very happy to have gone back to the States with me.

Coming up next: Day 7, the Victorian seaside resort of Eastbourne.

Antiquing Trip to England: Day Five, Tenterden & Pashley Manor Gardens

After the previous day's shopping extravaganza, it was nice to have a quieter day scheduled next on the tour. I'm sure my checking account enjoyed the respite as well.

First we stopped in the lovely town of Tenterden, which had just a few antique shops, mostly filled with china and silver. We took the opportunity to linger in Tenterden's lovely old churchyard. The church, St. Mildred's, dates from the 12th century, and the churchyard was just as picturesque, and looked just "as seen on TV" as this fan of British murder mysteries could hope.

St. Mildred's churchyard.

A lonely urn.

A tomb under the trees.

No trip to England would be complete without a visit to a classic English garden, and that was in fact the highlight of the day. Our tour guides found a beautiful one for us: Pashley Manor Gardens, a Tudor-period estate once owned, we were told, by the family of Anne Boleyn. Overflowing flower beds, neat and tidy kitchen gardens, carefully cultivated landscapes, numerous water features, and a small wood surround a 16th century manor house on the property.

 A beautiful view at the Gardens.

A Grecian folly, with duckies in the foreground.

The Gardens also have a lovely tea room which serves wonderful light meals, savories, and sweets. This was one of the finest meals we had on the whole tour: potato-leek soup, a cheese scone, slices of English cheddar, a fresh salad with carrot-ginger slaw, and a carmelized onion and goat cheese tart. Fabulous!

The Tea Room terrace at Pashley Manor Gardens.

Coming up next: Day 6, Canterbury, and a visit to a teddy bear factory!

Antiquing Trip to England: Day Four, Lewes

Our fourth day in England was my very favorite of the whole trip (with Canterbury a close second, due to our visit to a teddy bear factory there). The town of Lewes (pronounced LOO-IS) is an antiquer's dream, hosting 13 antique shops, some with over 100 dealer booths inside.

Lewes is beautifully set in a valley just beneath the South Downs, chalk hills that run above the coast in the southeastern corner of Great Britain. It has been occupied since prehistoric times. Romans had a settlement here, and Saxons built a castle, which pops up on the unsuspecting shopper between a couple of stores on the high street.

Lewes Castle.

The main shopping area houses unique stores in lovely old buildings. This one, a second-hand book store called the Fifteenth Century Bookshop, was one of my favorites. (Click on it to magnify and see more details: it's magnificently ancient.)

Lewes is also home to Harveys, a beautiful brewery founded in 1790.

The highlight for me was Sue Pearson's famous teddy bear shop. Sue is an expert in antique and vintage bears, with several published books to her credit. Bears and Bygones was housed in a tiny storefront, but had a huge range of carefully selected antique, vintage, and modern bears. Here's a glimpse inside:

Doesn't this one look sort of like Winston Churchill?

It was difficult choosing at Sue Pearson's, but I finally settled on this couple, a 1930s English gentleman wearing a vintage sailor shirt, and a lovely 1920s American lady in her garden party dress and lace collar:

A charming couple of character bears.

From Sue's stock of modern artist bears, I chose this tiny "tea bag" ted, created by a Belgian artist whose work is quite difficult to find. Just 5 inches tall, he has a very unusual face that was most appealing.

After the teddy bear shop, it was time to begin exploring the antique stores. Our first stop was Church Hill Antiques Centre, housed, as its name suggests, in an old re-purposed church.

A sign we like to see!

A view inside the Church Hill Antiques Centre: 

Victorian taxidermy, old books, and china.

I found a really cool old toy in this antique shop: a lithographed tin bank in the form of a dollhouse, Queen Mary's Dollhouse, to be exact. Queen Mary's dollhouse was created specifically for her in the 1920s. It was designed by a famous British architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, and furnished with incredible miniatures donated by over 1,500 of the finest craftspeople in the country. The house is massive (the largest dollhouse in the world) and unbelievably detailed: water runs in the taps; fine champagne fills the tiny bottles in the wine cellar; and famous authors wrote miniature versions of works in their own hand for the library. 

This tin dollhouse bank was made by two firms who contributed items to the real dollhouse, and was sold to raise money for the Queen's favorite charities. Incredibly, the bank still had its original key attached, and there were eight old English coins (pennies, half-pennies, and farthings) inside, dating from 1885-1926.

Detail of the lithography, showing the dollhouse interior,

complete with a garage full of cars at the lowest level.

The text on the underside of the bank reads:

"Made in England

Model of 

The Queen's Dolls' House

Issued by 

Cauldon Potteries Ltd., Stoke-on-Trent

(Potters to Her Majesty the Queen)

in conjunction with

Chubb & Son's Lock & Safe Co., Ltd.,

128 Queen Victoria St., London, E.C. 1

Produced by Special Permission of H.M. The Queen,

whose charities benefit by the sale of each model.

Cauldon Potteries supplied miniature china for the Queen's Dolls' House, and Chubb & Son's Lock and Safe Co., a miniature Chubb safe to protect the Queen's Dolls Jewels."

After this great find, it was on to the next antique shop: the Lewes Antiques Centre. 

 Another sign we're happy to see...

...and still another!

The Lewes Antiques Centre had loads of old toys over its four floors, including this beautiful case holding a 1930s Noah's Ark and a bunch of bears:

I liberated this adorable vintage ted, a 1940s British bear with a cheery disposition:

 

By skipping lunch (we didn't even stop for our usual scone break) we made it to each and every one of the antique shops in town. We had our priorities straight, for sure!

 A very enticing antique shop window.

Our last stop was the Lewes Flea Market, housed in a beautiful Victorian building, with antiques over two floors. 

 An enticing view through the open doorway.

Yet another welcoming sign.

This wasn't really a flea market, as its name suggested. It was a fully realized antiques shop, and the bric-a-brac was invitingly dense:

This taxidermied bear wearing a fez pointed the way
to various collectibles.

I found a beautiful antique German bisque doll here, complete with old clothes and shoes, including a lovingly hand-knit sweater and matching stockings. Made by Goebel circa 1900, she measures a hefty 18 inches tall.

Doesn't she look like she's just been happily surprised by something?

My last find in Lewes was this vintage miniature wooden toy village, made in Germany. These little sets make great accessories for dolls and teddy bears, and are just lots of fun to play with. Villages like these have been made in Germany for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Finally, we limped (quite literally) back to the coach with our bags of finds. My new Wooly Bear sat next to me on the ride back to our hotel, guide books at the ready as we prepared for tomorrow.

Coming up next: Day 5, the village of Tenterden and a visit to Pashley Manor Gardens.