It feels good to be home after a wonderful week in London with a dear client.  We arrived on a Saturday and hit the ground running.  Our days were filled with shopping for antiques and great dining around town.

We stayed at the beautiful Corinthia Hotel, which is located in London’s Whitehall Place in a renovated Victorian building. This custom Baccarat dandelion chandelier in the lobby was breathtaking.

We finished our first day off with a delicious dinner at da Polpo where I had the best Fennel and Endive Salad with a Wild Mushroom Pizzetta…Mmm starting the trip off right!

Below, our trusted driver, Dennis, who helped us to negotiate the London traffic and took us touring through the countryside.

(Fun Fact: Dennis used to be Sarah Ferguson’s driver.)

We were fortunate enough over the course of the week to visit with several interesting people in a variety of locations including the Cotswolds, Chelsea, and the Kings Road area of London.

We started at the Winter Decorative Antique & Textile Fair in Battersea Park.  At the stalls of Brownrigg @ Home Ltd., a wonderful set of framed antique wax seals (above) caught our eye.  Later in the week we visited their shop in Tetbury, which had some inspiring finds.

We were delighted to see our friends, Jean and Doug Hill of French Country Living Antiques, who have shown at the Theta Charity Antique Show in Houston in the past.  We made our first purchase here of this delightful 18^th century Swedish panel.

Jean and Doug also had this fabulous moss covered table constructed from a single tree.  It has to be sprayed with water every day to keep it alive and growing.  We had never seen anything like it and were completely enchanted by it.

Another great find (and purchase!) were these wooden inlay tobacco jars from Belgium that we spotted at Monique Relander Antiques booth at the Winter Decorative Fair.

The next day, we made our way to Dale House Interiors Art & Antiques in the North Cotswolds area of England where we saw numerous dealers and bought several 17^th century pieces. This is a set of pub skittles;  a traditional pub game in Europe much like bowling…they look interesting in a bowl or as a centerpiece, don’t you think?

We were struck by this creative idea (above, right) of placing pine cones in the pot with hyacinth bulbs to help them grow straight.   Very clever!

On day three, we stopped in at Chelsea Textiles on Walton Street.  We love this new embroidered “dog” fabric and the fabulous carved scissors and needles over their fireplace.

We visited the many antique shops on Kings Road and stopped in Trowbridge to say “Hello” to our friends there. We spent time enjoying the collections of the dealers in Core One and The Gasworks, where we spotted this great lantern—an impressive scale at over 58 inches tall.   We also came across this unique oversized Dutch porcelain tray with very unusual coloration, set into a lovely antique timber table.

Core One has an interesting mix of eclectic treasures, such as these metal chairs and plaster urns.

One of our favorite afternoons was spent at Sotheby’s on Bond Street where David Macdonald gave us a lovely and informative preview of the upcoming auction, “1000 Ways of Seeing: The Private Collection of the Late Stanley J. Seeger”. We also had a delightful lunch at the café at Sotheby’s where we enjoyed the lobster club sandwich and a fabulously fresh Bellini (Yum!).

We ended the trip with a delicious dinner at Scalini on Walton Street.   Scalini happens to have been one of Princess Diana’s favorite restaurants, and we understand why.  The house-made pasta and the delicate sauces were divine.

Credit: Image

 Below are photos of some of the fabulous antiques we saw in the Cotswolds and throughout the trip.   We were inspired by the beauty and quality of the pieces in the shops we visited.   We hope that you find something here that will inspire you.