Dartington Estate 1

The roadshow is at Dartington Estate in Devon, where finds include surreal shoes modelled to look like feet by the French firm Pierre Cardin and a quirky ceramic model of a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, complete with cigar.

Duncan Campbell is intrigued by the story of a fragile glass and silver claret jug, buried in a field during the war to keep it from the Nazis and retrieved many years later. Frances Christie is fascinated to hear how one man’s grandfather was gifted an abstract painting by mid-century Scottish artist Robert MacBryde, while Elaine Binning gives the stamp of approval to an 18th-century statue of a post boy, once used to advertise postal services outside a coaching inn.

Lennox Cato falls for an 18th-century tea caddy that has been used as a storage tin, and Matthew Haley is delighted to see personal letters and drawings from the mathematician, inventor and computing pioneer Charles Babbage.

Fiona Bruce gets a glimpse of rare historic clothing from a collection housed at nearby Falmouth University, including a Georgian dress and a side-saddle-horse-riding costume from the 1920s. Fiona also takes up Chris Yeo’s challenge to place three pieces of Devon studio pottery in their order of value.