My friend Annie Marchant, who has died aged 68 of pneumonia, was a dealer in, and collector of, Victorian kitchen and dairy antiques. She amassed a huge collection of items, and her pieces were often used on film and television sets.
To enter the kitchen of Annie’s farmhouse home in Wingham, Kent, was to move into an older, timeless world; a better world, indeed, of scrubbed pine, old kitchen equipment glinting in the candlelight, a hunting dog, cats curled up on every surface, vegetables from the garden waiting to be cooked and a newborn lamb being warmed beside the Aga. There was no intrusion from the modern world, no electricity, no radio playing, just the tick of the clock, the kettle singing on the hob. It was delightful.
Annie was born and raised in that farmhouse in Wingham, and she lived there for most of her life. She was the only child of John Marchant, a hop farmer, and his wife, Betty (nee Macarthur).
She went to Battle Abbey school in Battle, East Sussex, and after a period working on a kibbutz in Israel – something that made her a passionate supporter of Palestinian causes – she trained to be a fashion buyer for Peter Robinson on Oxford Street in London. Eventually, in the late 1970s, she became involved with an antiques shop called Chattels in Camden Market in north London. After that she set up on her own in 1980, selling antiques mainly in Covent Garden and Olympia.
Annie’s speciality was Victorian “kitchenalia” (a term she hated) - the machines, pots, pans and utensils that were used in the kitchen and dairy during Victorian times. Among those who hired items from her collection was the comedian Victoria Wood, for the set of her soap opera parody Acorn Antiques, which was a weekly slot in her sketch shows during the mid-80s and was later turned into a musical.
Annie was a lively, talkative and strong-minded woman who held
unshakeable views about almost everything – the best word I can think of to
describe her thought processes was that everything should be “proper” – it was, she believed, proper to be frugal, proper to reuse and recycle, proper to grow your own vegetables, proper to preserve produce at harvest time, proper to look after wounded animals.
She had no immediate family, but entertained a huge circle of friends and was accepting of everybody, whatever their background or proclivity. She hated injustice and was sympathetic to anyone she felt had been oppressed by the political system.
Annie moved back into the family home when her parents died in 1990 and thereafter she used it to showcase her collection of old things. She had a great eye for beauty and effortless style – everything around her looked gorgeous, and she was its beautiful centre.
