ANTQUES are a passion for Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, and her ancestral family home, Blenheim Palace, makes a perfect stately backdrop for the Cotswold Art & Antique Dealers’ Association Fair, which opens tomorrow.

Lady Henrietta, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, is patron of the association — but it is not just an honorary role.

She will be making the most of the opportunity to showcase her own collection of antiques, which she is now selling via her website and, she says, would provide a special finishing touch for any home or business.

“I love antiques and always have — they are one of my passions,” explained Lady Henrietta when I met her at her Woodstock showroom.

She launched her own interior design business Spencer-Churchill Designs 32 years ago. She has a shop in Woodstock and offices in London, and an international reputation in the interiors market.

“Antiques can be bought incredibly well at the moment,” she said.

“It is a shame the younger generation do not really appreciate them and tend to think they are rather fuddy-duddy – but they should look at the quality of the way they are made in relation to a lot of new furniture from high street and chain stores – self-assembly, not built to last and expensive for what they are.

“Quite frankly, I would rather have an antique chest of drawers than that, and it’s amazing what antiques you can pick up – they are really good value.

“I shop a lot at local auctions such as Bonhams and Mallams, and I pick up pieces for my clients. I use a lot of antiques in my work. I have some here at our Woodstock shop, and a big warehouse is also full of them. We are just getting it all sorted, and we will be taking people there to see what we have.

“I have not completely got my act together yet – I have been juggling too many balls in the air – but we have photographed all the items now and are putting them on our website. This is one reason for exhibiting at the fair, to make people aware we do this.”

This is the second CADA Fair at Blenheim and it runs from tomorrow until Sunday. More than 4,000 people visited last year’s event and the 29 exhibitors are looking forward to another successful show.

Everything is for sale, with prices starting at about £100 and rising into six figures. As well as the 22 dealers from last year, there are seven new exhibitors, including Spencer-Churchill Designs.

Lady Henrietta is planning to be running her stall for part of the fair, but it coincides with an interiors show in the US called High Point, so she will be handing over to staff and catching a plane halfway through.

America is an important source of business and she has spent a great deal of time there in the past five months, much of it lecturing.

She produces a range of furniture which is “quite classical but with a contemporary twist” for an American company called Maitland-Smith, and is about to start designing a rug collection.

She is also a prolific writer and has 10 books under her belt. The latest, The Life of the House. The Evolution of Rooms, was published last autumn.

She said that her interiors business in the UK had been busy, despite the recession, although in America there had been a noticeable slowdown.

She always loved art and drawing, and concedes that being brought up in lovely houses with beautiful architecture and beautiful furnishings did have an influence on her choice of career.

“I studied art history in Florence for six months and then another nine months in Paris, and then went to Inchbald School of Design.

“What keeps me interested is that every job is different – different clients, different styles, different requirements.

“Some projects can extend to one, two or three years. If it is a new-build, we are involved from the start with the client and architect, doing the space planning and architectural details, and then the decoration and furnishings.

“I like working on new-build houses as it gives the chance to be more creative — you can put in character and architectural details.

“With an existing house you are working with what is already there. There are some beautiful old houses, but you have to be creative in the decoration, not the architecture,” Lady Henrietta said.

“However, we are a service industry, and we are carrying out the job for a client generally because they do not have time to do it, do not know how, and do not have the contacts. We are taking the painful process out of it for the client, and doing it for them. At the end of the day, it is the client who is going to live in the house, not you, so it is often a compromise.

“That could be a compromise on the space planning side, because it suits their lifestyle better, or maybe they want a fabric or colour you do not necessarily think works.

“You do the best to make it work for the client and do not have a big ego.

“There are a lot of people involved and a lot of co-ordination is needed. Often people say to me it must be lovely to be so creative, but in fact a maximum of 10 per cent is creative and the rest is administrative, getting it all organised. It has been 32 years since I started my company, but I still do enjoy it.”

A regular client is Blenheim Palace, the home of her father, the Duke of Marlborough. Lady Henrietta’s grandfather lived there when she was young, and she was brought up in Charlbury.

She said: “We do all the work at Blenheim, and it makes sense, because we have got all the contacts and can get good prices.

“Doing things at Blenheim is very costly, but equally there’s a lot of wear and tear due to the visitors – so there is a lot of general maintenance work, certainly not luxuries. We also do work on the estate’s rental properties.

“My grandfather died when I was 12, and we spent more time at Blenheim after that.

“I suppose it did inspire me, but you cannot relate a lot of Blenheim to a real house. My inspiration came mainly from the other houses we lived in. After all, how many grand, austere, Baroque houses do you get to work in?”

Lady Henrietta is currently planning her stand for the CADA Fair at the palace. She has been involved in work on the recent addition of a new gift shop and restaurant, and says they are a real asset to Blenheim.

She added: “Blenheim is the perfect place for the CADA Fair – it is easy to park and visitors can have coffee and snacks. We just need some nice weather to get people to come.”

  • The Cotswold Art & Antique Dealers’ Association Fair at Blenheim Palace runs from tomorrow until Sunday and is open daily from 10am to 5.30pm. A complimentary invitation to the show can be downloaded at thecada.org admitting two people to the fair and the palace grounds