Furniture restorer celebrates 50 years in the business

A Petworth furniture restorer from near Arundel is celebrating 50 years in the business.
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Ant Tester is the Midas of antiques: everything he touches ends up gleaming.

Having been in furniture restoration for 50 years, the Burpham resident has got his magic hands on a fair share of valuable treasures, including pieces of the Duke of Norfolk and the bishop’s chair in Arundel Cathedral.

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But Ant, who has worked at Thakeham Furniture in Golden Square, Petworth, for around 35 years, said every day was a school day.

Ant Tester is celebrating 50 years in the furniture restoration businessAnt Tester is celebrating 50 years in the furniture restoration business
Ant Tester is celebrating 50 years in the furniture restoration business

“The art of restoration is not doing too much,” he said. “I have seen so much damage over the years.

“If someone takes a disk sander to the top of a table, you can’t get those hundreds of years of patina back; just because they have got a water mark on it doesn’t mean you have to take the polish off.”

At 16, he began his career under Major Michael Hay-Will at Aruncraft in Burpham and eventually ran a college there. He restored furniture at National Trust homes including Uppark in South Harting and Bateman’s, former home of Rudyard Kipling, in Burwash.

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He turned his hand to furniture making after the discovery of a 4,000-year-old piece of Yew tree, pickled in clay, unearthed while Burpham’s sewage system was being installed.

One of the pieces of furniture that Ant Tester restoredOne of the pieces of furniture that Ant Tester restored
One of the pieces of furniture that Ant Tester restored

The resulting 50 pieces, known as the Aruncraft Miniatures, saw Ant featured on television. He got the item he owns valued at Sotheby’s, only to be told it was priceless due to the age of the wood.

Two former students, Tim and Belinda Chavasse, poached Ant for their business and he has happily worked for them ever since.

Following a spate of well-intentioned amateur restorers spoiling priceless paintings – including the infamous ‘Monkey Christ’ incident of 2012 in Spain – Ant urged people to leave it to the professionals. He said: “I won’t stop doing it until they take me out in my coffin – and I’ll probably have done that as well, to be honest.”

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