Detling 6

This episode comes from Leeds Castle – which is not in Yorkshire! Located in Kent, the castle was bought in the 1920s by the English American heiress Lady Baillie, who renovated it according to her vision of a medieval retreat but with the latest technology, such as hollow beams through which phone cables were run. In the 1930s, Leeds Castle hosted lavish parties attended by guests from the worlds of entertainment and royalty. In one of the rooms, Eric Knowles is shown a secret staircase that Lady Baillie used to escape parties, leading to a sumptuous dressing room.

Hoping to buy a bit of a glamour for themselves are two teams of families, who have an hour to buy three profitable items. In red are mother and daughter Eileen and Joanne. Eileen reckons she’s a good haggler while Joanne is determined not to buy tat. Their opponents are dad and daughter Steve and Becca; their motto is if you like it buy it. With expert Jonathan Pratt by their side, the blues check out a stall of model cars, but they’re not to Steve’s liking, so they motor on. Across the fair, the reds pick up a framed photo of Concorde cruising above New York, but expert Catherine Southon doesn’t think it will take off at auction. In the sale room, one bonus buy is definitely worth writing home about, and Eric thinks the other has legs – four in fact!