Tasmania seeks to host filming of Antiques Roadshow — ABC News Australia

The National Trust of Tasmania in Australia has launched a campaign to bring the British television show Antiques Roadshow to the state to film an episode. To promote the initiative, residents were invited to bring family heirlooms and charity shop finds for appraisal at Runnymede House.

As ABC News Australia reports, local historian Warwick Oakman assessed items at the event on Wednesday. National Trust Tasmania chief executive Jen Fry said the state had many stories to tell, from Aboriginal history to the small items people keep at home.

Residents’ heirlooms

Among the items presented as part of the campaign was a carved dark stone piece featuring the profile of a bearded man. Its owner, Chris Hooly from the Huon Valley, bought the item at a Tasmanian charity shop last year. The piece bears the initials H.L. and the date 1910, but its owner has still not established its origin.

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Claremont resident Kathleen Moore showed two small porcelain dolls, which she believes may be at least 100 years old. They were given to her father by an elderly woman whose lawn he mowed, and he later passed the dolls on to his daughter. Moore keeps them in cotton wool and two tea towels inside a plastic container.

Betting on historic locations

Antiques Roadshow is a long-running BBC programme in which appraisers travel to different towns to examine and value family heirlooms and other historical items. An Australian pilot episode hosted by Issa Schulz from The Chase Australia was filmed in the Blue Mountains last year and published on the show’s YouTube channel in July.

The campaign was supported by the tourism organisation Destination Southern Tasmania. Its chief executive, Alex Heroys, described possible filming as an opportunity for the state’s tourism sector and suggested the Government House gardens, Runnymede and Tasmania’s historic villages as locations. The Blue Mountains pilot was Antiques Roadshow’s first return to Australia after six episodes released in 2005.