My grandparents opened their first antique shop in Shaldon in 1927. They specialised in fine furniture, silver and paintings but my grandfather's main love was ceramics. They moved across the river to larger premises in Teignmouth, buying the building in Wellington Street from where the well-known clockmaking Boyce family had operated from in the late-Georgian period until the Edwardian era. From here my parents continued the business in the early 1970's.
The Boyce wall clock from his workshop in Wellington Street and which was still in attendance during my tenure.
It was against this background that my interest in antiques was developed and by the age of thirteen I was accompanying my father to auctions and bidding on his behalf. I started buying tin-plate toys by such makers as Bing, Karl Bub and Hornby and undertaking the research on these pieces, dealing from my parents shop on a Saturday. If a mechanism needed repairing I visited Frank Pilbeam, a clockmaker in Bovey Tracey, Devon, who restored clocks for my father.
Frieda Extence outside her first antique shop. Shaldon, circa 1928
On leaving school in 1981 I joined Frank in his workshop to learn the craft of clockmaking. After three productive years I set out on my own using the workshops at the rear of the Wellington Street shop, the same ones, almost untouched, as used by the Boyce family. I statrted to buy and sell clocks, as well as restoring them, and after a while found I enjoyed the dealing side of the business much more than the restoration and so started dealing in clocks as my main business. At this point I was selling on to dealers up and around London who I had met whilst attending all the horological auctions held at the four main London houses, which I had been going to so as to both gain knowledge of clocks and to make contacts.
At the end of 1984 I was approached and asked to take over the management of the Antique Clock department within Harrods, Knightsbridge and, with some reluctance, left Teignmouth and ventured to London to continue what I now considered my training. During my two years in the job I met many of the worlds top collectors and dealers, many of whom remain both friends and clients.
In January of 1987 I joined Derek Roberts in Tonbridge, Kent, one of the worlds leading horological dealers & consultants and author of a number of specialised reference books, to contunue the 'training'. As his right-hand man I helped run the showrooms & undertook many trips abroad, to both Europe and America, where I not only bought items for the business but also met with many of our clients, both collectors and dealers, with whom I have also sustained long-lasting relationships.
It was whilst with Derek Roberts that my interest in research really took hold as we held a number of important horological exhibitions and wrote & published many catalogues showing the stock we held. I was becoming a collector of not only clocks but books on horology and now have a large library of rare and out-of-print books and journals from which to gain information and reference for the research I undertake for the items in my showroom and those belonging to clients & institutions.
In 1989 I decided to go alone and undertook a three-month exhibition and lecture tour in Switzerland following which I opened a small showroom in Stow-on-the-Wold. In 1997 I returned to Shaldon and some seventy years after my grandparents first put their name to an antique shop in the village so I did. I have now moved to Honiton where I have a selection of stock available to view at The Grove in the High Street.
Philip Mould filming in my Shaldon shop for the Antiques Show on BBC2
I have since worked with the BBC on The Antiques Show as a consultant on various projects including writing the script & supplying the clocks for David Dickinson's 'Buyers Guide to Longcase Clocks' and appearing as an expert, along with the shop, with presenter Philip Mould on the 'Buyers Guide to French Clocks'. I also write horological articles for various magazines & newspapers.
As well as running my showroom I work in various consultancy roles one of which is as the horological specialist for the Exeter auctioneers Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood running quarterly clock & watch auctions. This involves finding items for auction, researching and cataloguing clocks & watches as well as liaising with clients. If you wish to know more about selling or buying through Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.
In February 2004 I was elected a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers and have since had the further honour of being raised to the Livery.