FANNY’S Antiques has been part of the fabric of Reading for decades, remaining constant in a town which has seen constant change.
It sells a host of items including furniture, decorations, and clothes, as well as prints.
It’s been owned and run by Julia and Will Lyons since 1993, who got into the business after Will’s first profession in the meat trade became difficult.
“It’s an old meat depot,” Ms Lyons said, “one of about five in that street at the time, when we took it over about thirty years ago.”
Mr Lyons added: “I was in the meat business from about 1971 until about 2014, and I owned maybe 8 or 9 butchers’ shops.
“And we ran the shop as a meat business.”
Ms Lyons explained: “We’ve always been interested in antiques, and I was working in an antiques shop in Henley called Rhinos before the recession in 1992.
“BSE [Bovine Spongiform Enceohalopathy] came along and devastated the business as people stopped eating beef.
“We couldn’t sell the building where Fanny’s is now, and a friend suggested we opened it as an antiques shop.”
Julia explained that she was initially sceptical of the idea, particularly because of the location of the building.
“I thought that it would never work– I mean it was a back street in Reading then.
“The change was okay, except for the fact that every dog imaginable used to be able to smell the meat and wander in.”
They set the shop up by providing space for stallholders, which is still how the shop is run today.
“I rent the space out to a lot of people, and it feels like one big family, there’s one who brings stuff in from France, one who also buys in China.
“And they stay with me– probably because the rent is still cheap– some have been with me for nearly 30 years.”
It doesn’t just cater to residents, though: “We do get customers from outside of Reading, and we get a lot of young people and students these days.
“Because we sell clothes and things like that which is quite nice at our age; vintage is back.
“And of course the green customers come in often too- it’s all been recycled, and I find that quite amazing, really.
“Although they don’t always go for the dark brown wood stained look, but it means we’ve built up a regular clientèle.”
In their time, they’ve seen their fair share of strange objects and curios, and Julia says that work from one of the UK’s most revered artists made its way through their inventory.
“I was driving to work one day when a woman called into a radio phone-in to say that she’d bought a painting from Fanny’s.
“It was a signed David Hockney print– so I called the girl who sold the prints upstairs and told her.
“She said she thought it was a fake, but it turned out it was the real thing.”
She has also honed her skills in spotting items of dubious origin.
“People do bring the most peculiar things; a customer once brought in a picture that they said was by John Constable– but it turned out to have been printed in Boots.”
“There were also a group of boys, about 18, who came in once with an obviously stolen vase– you can often tell when something’s up.
“They asked how old it was, so when I told them it was clearly Victorian they said ‘… Victoria Beckham?’
“That got me really worried about our education system.”
As for its future, she said: “I’d rather see it go on than turned into flats.
“I do get upset about all the flats that take over everything, and it’s not just Reading, of course.
“But it’s a lovely site– we had one customer who was born in one of the houses on the street which was converted into a meat depot.
“We have a daughter who may take it over at some point, but I’d like to see it continue.”
More information about Fanny’s Antiques, including updates on new items, is available via: @Fannys_Antiques on Instagram, and via: facebook.com/FannysAntiques
