Pugin and Herdman – two Victorian greats

Funny how things come full circle, isn’t it? With an increase in knowledge and improved communications, the antiques industry is replete with remarkable discoveries that serve only to make the hobby of collecting even more compelling.

See a slideshow of Hardman of Birmingham images

Take the silver toast rack pictured here. It turned up in an auction in Australia where specialists rightly believed it was designed by that master of gothic, A.W.N. Pugin. But in the absence of any documentary evidence, they couldn’t prove it.

In the course of their research, the auctioneers turned to one of Pugin’s suppliers, the Birmingham-based John Hardman & Co.

Founded in 1838, it was Hardman who created much of the Pugin-designed furnishings,

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Gothic proportions

Lovers of anything gothic should rush to their nearest cinema and revel in the latest horror blockbuster Van Helsing … "A shrieking bore” according to Peter Travers in Rolling Stone magazine, "[A] disaster of gothic proportions..." said MaryAnn Johanson in Flick Filosopher.

But forget the unlikely storyline (or lack of it), Kate Beckinsale’s amazing hydraulic teeth and the bloody special effects. Go and revel instead in the glorification of everything gothic. And if there isn’t a modern day revival in interest in gothic antiques, I’ll eat my bat!Read more »