Emily DennisA Beccles antiques shop is set for a starring role in a new television series. Fauconberges in Smallgate, which is run by former teachers Richard Crozier and Richard Howard, will appear on the BBC2 programme Antiques Road Trip on Tuesday .Emily Dennis
A Beccles antiques shop is set for a starring role in a new television series.
Fauconberges in Smallgate, which is run by former teachers Richard Crozier and Richard Howard, will appear on the BBC2 programme Antiques Road Trip on Tuesday .
Filming took place last summer and saw expert James Braxton visit the town in search of antiques he could sell for profit.
The programme, which is currently showing each weekday, pairs eight of Britain's top antique experts and sends them on a road trip across the UK in classic vintage cars. They have to compete with each other to make the most money buying and selling antiques.
Each expert has a starting budget of �200 and is tasked with trading up the antiques they find and increasing profits each time they are sold at auction with the money going to Children in Need.
The final week of the series sees experts James Braxton and Mark Stacey visit the region.
As well as Beccles they visited antique shops in other places including King's Lynn, Wells, Holt, Sheringham and Southwold.
Mr Crozier said the programme makers had been scouting for locations before filming began.
'We were told about the filming about a week before,' he said. 'What they were looking for, to a certain extent, was dependant on the amount of money they had either made or lost in the previous part of the trip.
'They had sold previously at Diss auctions before coming here and when they arrived they didn't have an awful lot to spend.'
Mr Braxton spent time in the antiques shop looking through the cabinets and weighing up what might make a profit.
He eventually settled on a Victorian watercolour of Herstmonceux Castle gate house in East Sussex. The price was �28 but Mr Crozier and Mr Howard agreed to sell it for �15.
Mr Crozier said that while it was nice for the antiques shop to feature on the programme he did not feel it accurately reflected the antiques trade in general.
'Not only were they looking for a bargain - they were looking for a gift,' he said.
'Everybody knows they are doing it for charity. But viewers see these people getting large discounts and it gives people the impression that we are operating at 100pc profit, which is not the case. The maximum we can usually offer is a 10pc discount.'
He added: 'They only had a budget of �200 each for the week. To a certain extent the programme doesn't reflect the full range of what is buyable.'
Mr Crozier and Mr Howard have run Fauconberges since 1997 but have been trading in the town for 30 years.
The programme featuring the antiques shop will be shown on BBC2 at 6.30pm on Tuesday .
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