BBC Antiques Roadshow guest stunned as ‘staggeringly intricate’ 300-year-old wood carving receives huge value

There were also ancient carvings from the Indian subcontinent, but it was the intriguing wooden carving with a mysterious past that caught Allum’s eye.

First laying eyes on the piece, Allum noted: “It essentially, what we have here is just the most staggeringly intricate piece of work. This is made of limewood, what do you know about it?”

The guest exhaled and explained: “Very little I feel. It was purchased by my father and his business partner. When it was purchased we were living around Manchester so I think it came at a dispersal sale.”

Diving into the history of the carving, Allum revealed: “Now, the design of it. Essentially there are some elements that are dated very very well and I can kind of point to particularly three elements which are these birds, two down the bottom and one at the top here.

“Now, these are called Ho Ho birds and they’re a rococo kind of invention in essence, so we are looking maybe at 1730, 1740, for that kind of element, that is the idea.

“In the middle, we have got this stylised tableaux in the background of that tableaux in the distance we’ve got a carved sky and in front of that we have what appears to be a 17th early 18th-century frigate or Gallion so to speak.

“We have a hunting party, who strangely seem to be hunting a lion which is a bit incongruous but also what appears to be a stag or an antelope which appears to be chased by a hound in the front.

“Now, I reckon on the whole it dates from maybe, 1740, 1760, that is my impression of the date of it. We are going to talk about value, for auction purposes, I am going to put an estimate of £6,000 to £9,000.”

The guest was taken aback by the valuation but thanked Allum for his help.

The welcomed valuation comes after fans of the BBC series recently slammed an episode for not having any valuations at all, leaving them to complain on their X accounts.

Bruce and the experts headed to St Thomas’ and St Bartholomew’s hospitals in London for the instalment and perused over several historical artefacts with ties to the history of nursing.

She revealed none of the items on display would receive a monetary valuation from the experts, leaving one X user to complain: “Remember when #AntiquesRoadshow was an antiques programme and #countryfile was about the countryside? Heady days.”