97. HÖGSTOLAR, TOLV STYCKEN, SÄLLSYNTA OCH BEPRÖVADE, KAROLSKA, LITTLECOTE HOUSE, BERKSHIRE, CA 1660-1680.

The Beedham Collection Part II

The Beedham family has been collecting early oak furniture and related works of art for over 70 years, however, the origins of this collection goes even further back. Historically, the Beedham family ran pubs in the South Yorkshire area for over 250 years and in former times it was custom and practice that an incoming pub landlord would take over the whole of the items in the establishment from the previous landlord. It was in this way the Beedham Collection really started. Herbert Beedham, my father, was the first of the family to leave the public house trade and he started up his own Antique business, and brought to the business a wealth of furniture and objects which had been passed down by the family over many years. Herbert had a great passion for early items and would regularly visit the antique and ‘junk’ shops of Sheffield, coming back, much to my mother’s dismay, with yet more antiques and collectables. It was during this time he struck up a friendship with the curator of the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield who introduced Herbert to the, at that time, unknown L S Lowry, from whom he subsequently tried desperately and sadly unsuccessfully to buy a painting. Herbert’s greatest passion was to collect Tudor and Elizabethan Manor House furniture and objects. A Daily Telegraph reporter once visited his shop and wrote an article in the paper emphasising the love that he showed for his items, running his hands over the polished surfaces. Beedham Antiques was established in 1974 and moved to Holme Hall in Bakewell Derbyshire a large Grade I listed 15th/16th Manor House (pictured) where many of the privately owned pieces pieces for sale in this collection were displayed in their authentic surroundings. Paul Beedham, Herberts’ son, took over the business in 2012 and has proudly celebrated its 50th year anniversary and is carrying on its tradition of supplying the finest Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture to important Manor Houses and collectors. Since our family were great private collectors, many of the pieces on display in the saleroom have not been seen on the market for a number of decades. Beedham Family