One guest left the show with a huge smile on their face after they brought a box of items connected to to be valued, including his famous top hat.
This week, the show paid a visit to Eltham Palace, just a few miles from the heart of London where Churchill lived on occassion.
The last guest of the day had presented expert Mark Smith with a box and it was clear the Medals and Militaria expert was flabbergasted by the contents.
Before acknowledging what it contained, he asked the guest to confirm where he got the items. It was at this point that he revealed how he found them at “the dump”, explaining that he had been working there for fifteen years and could take any items he wanted.
Mark asled: “Okay, so we took out some of the stuff, and you said, ‘I’ve got this hat and I’ve got this and this’, what was the story you then told me?”
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A guest got a pleasant surprise when Churchill memorabilia they found in a dump got a huge valuation (Image: BBC)
He recalled: “I’ve got loads of letters, like over 200 letters with this same load, and it was from a mother to her son. The mother used to work for Winston Churchill. She was a cook, and the husband was a butler for Winston Churchill as well.
“And she used to write to her son every day about the daily goings of Winston Churchill, what he was getting up to, how he was feeling, and just interesting stuff about him.”
Mark then pointed out the other mementos in amongst the letters including a signed photo from Winston to the original owner, one of his trademark cigars and his top hat, which Mark descrived as the “the piece de resistance”.
Seemingly this was a fraction of the treasures in the box. As the guest anxiously awaited the valuation Mark looked earnest. “You’ve caused a problem,” he said.
“Because if you come to me with all of this stuff and said, ‘I’ve been buying this over the years and I buy it from auctions’ and all that sort of stuff, I would have sat there and thought to myself: ‘Well, very likely it’s not real. It’s been brought together and given a providence.’
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MArk Smith was astonished to be presented with a wealth of Winston Churchill memorabilia (Image: BBC)
“But I’ve seen all those letters from that lady to her son. Daily letters saying, ‘This is what Winston is doing today’ – and this is during wartime as well. So she’s, she’s sending home all sorts of information which so corroborates all of the things that you’ve got.
Mark observed: “And it’s not just these bits here. You’ve got lots of other things that that Winston touched, Winston signed, and Winston owned… We had to think about this. So I think that your box…we think that your box is worth £10,000.”
The guest’s jaw dropped as they exclaimed: “Oh my God, that’s crazy” while Mark and others in the vicinty laughed with joy at the man’s unexpected good fortune.
The expert added: “You found it on the dump. It’s fantastic. Everyone that I’ve told about this as we walked around today…I mean, the other thing I’ve also said is, where’s the dump? Because we all want to come down there”.
He chuckled: “Dozens of people have asked me,” the guest acknowledged. “I’ve just told everyone!”
Antiques Roadshow airs on Sundays from 7.35pm on One or catch up on iPlayer.