I saw this stall at the Alexandra Palace Antiques Fair in North London. It was full of the most gorgeous antique china.

The two ladies who run the stall don't have a shop. They usually sell at antiques fairs in the Essex and London regions. 

The stallholders specialise in decorative china from the 19th and 20th centuries. They seem to love cherubs and fairies, which appear on all sorts of objects on the stall.

This attractive set is actually designed as an elegant way of serving strawberries and cream. The strawberries sit in the main bowl. You then fill the little jug with single cream (a thin cream suitable for pouring over food) and the small bowl with sugar to sprinkle over the strawberries. Delicious.

I love the two little ornamental figures who are holding onto the large flowers. I think they are supposed to be flower fairies.

Many of the pieces of china on the stall are by a British company called Crown Devon. This range of china with the cream background and floral designs was first introduced in the 1890's and is called 'Vellum'. It was their most popular product for about 20 years.

Within the Vellum range of china there was a huge variety of different designs, all of which are now highly collectable. Some of the designs were called 'Royal' such as 'Royal Devon' here. There was also 'Royal Windsor'. 'Royal Chelsea', 'Royal Sussex' etc. Other designs in the series were named after places or rivers.

This carriage that is being drawn by a swan and driven by a cherub would have been used as a container for flowers or just as an ornament.

Often objects like these and the candelabra behind it came in matching pairs. The second swan vase would point in the other direction so that they could be displayed facing each other on a shelf. Pairs in good condition are harder to find and so are much more expensive to buy than single items.

Crown Devon pottery was made by a company that was originally called Fieldings. Early pieces are marked S. F and Co. (after the founder Simon Fielding) but gradually the company started to use the Crown Devon name by which the company is now better known.

Although it takes it's name from the county of Devon the factory was actually located in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, an area of the country famous for potteries.

The company was founded in the late 19th century by Simon Fielding. In 1878 his son Abraham took over and made a lot of improvements to the site. At that time they specialised in making a fashionable type of pottery called majolica ware.

In the early 1890's they introduced their Vellum range of pottery which soon became very successful. Over the following years many new designs were introduced in this style. Many were 'Royal' such as Royal Devon, Royal Eton, Royal Tudor, Royal Suffolk and so on. These were best sellers for the company for over 20 years. Other designs in the series were named after rivers or towns.

By the 1920's tastes had changed and new Art Deco styles were introduced. The company did particularly well with a wonderful range of lustre jugs and vases in glowing colours, decorated with fantastic art deco designs. These are highly collectable pieces today.

They also produced many novelty items such as animals and musical jugs as well as commemorative ware. During this time they were also very successful with a range of decorative figures of ladies in the art deco style. Pieces by artists such as Kathleen Parsons and Olga Hartzeg were particularly striking.

The pottery continued well into the 20th century making decorative china, finally closing in 1982.