Noelle McElhatton

The car park at Surrey’s Kempton Racecourse was over-flowing with a queue of buyers building up before opening time at 6.30am. Under a cloudless blue sky, post-lockdown demand was palpable across the day. Could it get any better for fair organiser Sunbury Antiques Market? In truth, the road to Kempton on Tuesday, April 13, had been a long one for Edward and Jennie Cruttenden, owners of Sunbury Antiques.

“It seemed appropriate,” Simms says, and she should know. LAPADA and fellow trade body the British Antique Dealers’ Association have both spent many months preparing members for a seismic shift in the way the UK trades with its single biggest market – the European Union. It is now two months since Britain departed that union, at the same time signing a trade deal on the new EU-UK trading relationship. Stories of dealers encountering real difficulties with the new rules are not hard to find.

Sunbury Antiques Market, organiser of the bi-weekly Kempton Park Racecourse fair, is moving into London with a trial Sunday event in Wimbledon next month. Kempton fair returned from lockdown with a bang this month, with organisers hosting three rather than the usual two fairs in July.