For the love of car booty

This bank holiday weekend, contributing editor Abi did this...

I've just got back from the Ford Airfield car boot near Chichester; a not too big market of some of the hands-down best junk you'll ever get to rummage.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself as I've scored a load of treasure for under a tenner and had a joyful couple of hours rootling through boxes and bags and wallpapering tables full of cheap treats.

Abi particularly loved Pauley's stall (above and top)

As you'll know from my previous kitchen makeover post I have a thing for vintage coffee pots; fifties, sixties and seventies pottery and china and pretty much anything borderline kitsch. I've been itching to get to Ford for a while (my mother-in-law lives nearby) and our Easter family visits were the perfect opportunity to sneak a little car bootage in.

Above: a Midwinter Queensbury coffee set

Some more Meakin ceramics (see the set Abi went home with below) 

Ford market comprises two aisles of stalls on the hard standing of the old runway. There's much less of the bane of car boots – modern tat like tonnes of kids plastic toys, pot plants, rails of Primark clothes and 400 pairs of orthopaedic shoes on a tarpaulin – and much more of the proper old-school car booty of house clearance boxes filled with immensely rummage-able knick-knacks, excellent period furniture from the 40s to the 70s, bundles of kitchenalia and quirky collectables without the vastly marked-up prices you get in London shops.

 

My haul includes yet another J&G Meakin coffeepot (a complete set; this design is called 'Topic' by Alan Rogers who designed a lot of the classic late 60s stuff for Meakin) for £4 (above, top). I got it from a stall holder called Pauley; a delightful chap who runs a surf shop on the coast and was happily flogging boxes and boxes of gorgeous pottery and china from the 50s to the 70s. I also bagged an utterly adorable donkey ornament (above) that will go in our bathroom perfectly I think. He cost 50p.

Other bargains were this Meakin 'Galaxy' platter for £1 and this Johnson Brothers teapot also for £1. 

But my favourite buy of the day is this gorgeous glass decanter; it's French and I think probably from the late fifties/early sixties – only £3.

I could've bought much more but a shortage of display space at home stopped me, alas. But the stuff on offer was so enticing; and despite a few obvious dealers in situ (some very rare and utterly gorgeous weighted anglepoise lamps were labelled at £190 each despite needing an awful lot of restoration) I could have happily filled the car with, among other things, these fab mid century chairs, a cute little Carltonware fruit cruet and these rather freaky vintage medical prints.

Abi resisted these 50s diner chairs...

...and this solid perfume Revlon owl locket 

...and these airline chairs

...and this lovely old Roberts radio

I also saw these diner chairs with original atomic upholstery and some splendid old airline seats too but the steers head I'll give a miss, although I almost went for this old Roberts radio and a dinky little vintage Revlon solid perfume Owl locket; shame, would've been perfect for my next Abigail's Party...

Ford Airfield car boot every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday