The Vintage French Farmhouse 

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BBC One Yorks & Lincs HD

The Vintage French Farmhouse

Factual: Antiques

Entertainment

Three dealers head to French markets in an antique-buying and online-selling adventure.

Antiques en France. On a buying trip to Provence, dealers are on the hunt for hidden treasures in its fabulous markets. Can they turn a profit from their purchases?

Series 1

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Nigel Havers

James Gooch

Jacqui Harris

Adrian Higham

Hayley Smith

Rob Butterfield

Rae Gilder Cooke

Dave Martin

The Vintage French Farmhouse: Series 1: Episode 1

Episode 1

BBC One - The Vintage French Farmhouse, Series 1, Episode 1

Three antiques dealers visit a market in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon to find hidden treasures.

Three antiques dealers head to a to a beautiful market in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon to look for hidden treasures and then compete to sell their finds online. 

Antiques dealers Adi Higham, James Gooch, Jacqui Harries are on a buying trip to the south of France. Their base is a historic French farmhouse in Provence – perfectly located close to some of France’s best antiques markets or 'brocantes' as they are locally known. 

The trio are heading to a beautiful market in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, which opens weekly in the shadow of Fort Saint-André. They compete to find two hidden treasures each, to buy and sell for a profit online. The trio’s first challenge is to find something they know will appeal to their loyal customers and social media followers. 

Toy and textile specialist Adi has been sourcing antiques from France for over 20 years and speaks the lingo, so he could be at an advantage for this challenge. He is quick to find a hand-painted wooden figurine of Jesus Christ he thinks could be from the 17th century. He’s convinced he not only has a market in the UK for the piece, but fellow dealer James will be miffed he missed it himself.

However, it’s not a figure of Christ which grabs James’s attention but a hand-painted, bisque pottery model of a harlequin. James speaks very little French, but undeterred, he’s confident with the help of his phone’s calculator that he can thrash out a deal on the harlequin which he thinks dates back to the 1800s. Despite the seller telling him it’s a much later figure by punching 1970 into his phone, James proceeds with the deal. James usually deals in much older pieces that can take months to sell, so could the joke be on him when it comes to selling the harlequin within a day back at the farmhouse?

Last to find a piece for her buyers at home is interwar specialist Jacqui. It’s a brass water canteen that catches her eye, and discovering it may have been from World War I makes it a done deal. But will her client base rush to buy it when she posts it online?

As if the pressure of negotiating in an unfamiliar language weren't enough, the dealers take turns each day to dial up the heat and set each other a challenge to shop to a brief. Today, it’s Jacqui’s turn, and she has decided that all three of them need to scour Villeneuve-lés-Avignon for a mechanical or functional item. A flipping bird toy, a pair of homemade roller skates and opera glasses find their way into the van, but who bought what? With six pieces purchased between them, it’s back to the farmhouse to size up the competition.  

The 17th-century farmhouse is set amongst vineyards and olive groves and provides the ideal backdrop for our dealers to take photographs and videos they hope will make their Provençal pieces stand out when they come to post their objects to sell online.

With just a day to secure a sale and the battle on to make the most profit, which of our trio will come out on top?

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