Rosy Ford

Rosy Ford of Serendipity Antiques, near Ledbury, established in 1969.

A conversation between Rosy Ford and project lead Mark Westgarth.

Rosy Ford started in the antique trade aged 17 in 1969 working for the dealer Freddie Whittingham at his shop 'Owl Antiques' in Ross-on-Wye, before taking over the shop and renaming it 'Serendipity Antiques' shortly after.  In this fascinating interview Rosy tells us about her life as an antique dealer and her love of historic buildings - Serendipity Antiques has been located at the spectacular Elizabethan manor house, Preston Court, near Ledbury since 1980.  Rosy reflects on what it is to be a woman antique dealer, how the antique trade has changed since the 1970s, and the significance of antique fairs (such as Olympia in London) for her business and the antique trade more generally.

Rosy also has some fascinating stories about buying and selling antiques at Bermondsey Market in London in the 1980s, and the market for 'shipping goods', container loads of Victorian and Edwardian furniture and objects send out from the UK to the USA - Rosie used to sell 100's of 19th century washstands to the well-known dealer Terry Sutcliffe (of Herbert Sutcliffe, who had an enormous antique shipping business in Burnley in the 1970s and 1980s).  She also recalls the significance of country house auctions in the 1970s and 1980s - including a time when she bought a huge antique armoire with locked doors, but without a key and which took three men to move it from the house to her van - she later found it contained 100's of massive 19th century damask tablecloths that more than paid for the armoire!

Rosy Ford of Serendipity Antiques

Photograph, Courtesy of Rosy Ford 2024.