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A fourth generation of Tennants has joined the Yorkshire Dales-based auction house to take the business forward into the 21st century. Ruth Campbell finds out more about ambitious expansion plans being executed by Rodney Tennant and his three daughters and discovers how the business grew from an old, tin garage more than 100 years ago

The glass display cases in the lobby of Tennants Auction Centre contain an array of the sort of enthralling curiosities that are guaranteed to draw you in. From old Dinky toys to china dolls, a turn-of-the-century triple magic lantern with its original limelight burners and a sampler embroidered by a young girl in 1815, each has a story to tell.

There is a faded 1913 poster advertising Lakeland Coach Drives "through unrivalled mountain and Lakeland scenery", antique laces and costume dresses, rare and unusual scientific instruments and even a collection of microscopes belonging to the famous botanist and conservationist David Bellamy.

This feels more like a fascinating museum, the sort you might want to linger in for a few hours, than a typical auctioneer's.

But then Tennants, one of the largest specialist auction houses outside London and an international leader in country house clearances, with annual sales of more than £12m, has never been what you might call typical.

Its ambitious new £9m extension, doubling the size of its sale rooms in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, also includes new restaurants, lecture and seminar rooms, exhibition space and a function hall, complete with a stage equipped to hold events for up to 550 people.

There are even plans for a multi-faith room, reflecting the increasingly diverse range of customers, who come from all over the world. "Many people travel from the Far and Middle East and we would like to provide a place for them to pray," explains Chairman Rodney Tennant.

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ATTENTION TO DETAIL: Chairman Rodney Tennant takes a closer look at one of the lots on display

His may be a traditional, family-run company, but it has never shied away from doing things differently. As well as selling the items that pass through its salerooms, Tennants will be building on the public's fascination for antiques with a series of exhibitions.

Alongside displays of unusual collections, experts in everything from rare stamps and coins to valuable pottery and treasured family history mementoes will be giving talks and advice. Dr Bellamy will even give a lecture on his collection before it comes up for sale on October 29.

Tennants was one of the first auction houses to encourage the general public in 20 years ago, its plush and welcoming surroundings at its purpose-built Leyburn Auction Centre - complete with restaurant and parking - making the whole buying and selling process easily accessible to all.

But even to those who don't want to buy, a day out at this particular auction house, where two years ago an 18th century Chinese Qing dynasty vase Rodney discovered by chance in a local house was sold to a buyer in Hong Kong for £3m, has always provided entertainment in itself.

Now, more than 100 years after Rodney's grandfather, Edmund Slinger Tennant, started selling livestock and agricultural machinery from a tin garage and adjoining field in nearby Middleham, his granddaughters – Rodney's daughters Alison, Jane and Caroline – have recently been made directors.

It's a business Edmund, who also worked as a grocer, wool merchant and small-time farmer back in the early 1900s, would barely recognise today.

With 24 specialist departments - including decorative arts, jewellery, glass and ceramics, wine and whisky, rug and tapestry and stamp and postal history - the company employs 50 full-time staff and a network of experts to oversee more than 80 sales a year.

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But the next generation of Tennants, which has clearly inherited Edmund's entrepreneurial spirit, is determined that many of the working practices he established, including the importance of providing a personal service and always putting clients' interests first, will be carried through into the 21st century.

A framed print in their backroom office reads: "There is no fun like work", which seems to sum up the family ethos.

Alison, 31, project managed the new-build and also heads the events team. Jane, 27, who previously worked for interiors firm Oka, is one of the youngest female auctioneers in the country, while Caroline, 33, is a London-based accountant, responsible for financial planning.

"We're the largest family-run auction house in Great Britain. That may make us sound a bit parochial, but I am rather proud of that," says 67-year-old Rodney. "We are all fiercely proud to represent the fourth generation in the family business," adds Jane. "And we're all looking forward to taking it onto the next level."

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THE TENNANT FAMILY: Alison, Lesley, Rodney and Jane. Daughter Caroline also works in the family business

While his daughters take charge of the day-to-day running of the business, Rodney can now concentrate on what he has always loved best - getting out and about to see clients. He started helping his father and grandfather in the Dales at just seven years old: "I was always fetching, carrying and polishing. It was a great apprenticeship. Most sales then used to be on village greens or in the village hall. People came with their thermos flasks for a day out, it was all very local. Then, one day, we noticed people had come from Lancashire. That was a big thing."

The latest summer fine art sale last Saturday, he reflects, made £1.7m, with at least £500,000 of goods bought by Chinese buyers. "Now I would be really upset if I didn't have customers from Hong Kong, Beijing, Dubai, Bahrain or Shanghai at a sale," he says.

While his business has grown on a grand scale, Rodney has never lost any of his initial passion and fascination for antiques. "I have always loved the history and charm of the objects," he says. "Every day I see something I have never seen before in 60 years in the business. The great thing is you are still learning."

It was taking a job as a porter in Sotheby's, where he worked his way up to a position in the ceramics department, that introduced him to a whole new world. "I got to meets international buyers and collectors, really interesting people, and travelled to New York and Zurich to see clients and do sales. I learnt an enormous amount," he says.

By the time he returned to the Dales in the early Seventies, the contents of the old farmhouses he was clearing out were, remarkably, usually worth more than the houses themselves: "It was all so collectable," he says.

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FANTASTIC FIND: Tennants Associate Director Nigel Smith holding the Chinese vase which sold for £950,000 in March this year

It was Rodney who had the foresight to tap into the British public's fascination for old things when he opened Tennants' large, purpose-built 40,000sq ft Auction Centre in Leyburn, which felt more like a hotel than the usual draughty, spit-and-sawdust auction houses frequented mainly by dealers, in 1993.

Before long, the new venue was attracting coachloads of tourists. "You just have to look at the popularity of programmes like Bargain Hunt, Flog It and Cash in the Attic. People love to bag a bargain," he says.

The business is changing all the time, with their sales now accessible to anyone around the world, he adds. "I think everything goes in 25-year cycles. I used to be envious of the old, established London auction houses with large client bases for niche items, but with the advent of the internet, the market is so much more open now."

Unlike the "Big Three" London auction houses, Tennants is happy to sell items worth as little as £20. "Around 60 to 70 people come in every day with items to sell. Some may have things that knock your socks off. Others might end up at the charity shop. You just never know," he says.

Once, he discovered a valuable DuPaquier porcelain stem cup among a box of household pots a woman from Richmond no longer wanted. It was an absolute gem, "a joy to discover". And it might easily have been thrown out.

Sometimes people bring things he feels are too special to sell and he has urged families to rethink. "Once it's gone, it's gone," he says. "We may be shooting ourselves in the foot when people decide to keep things, but that's fine. I get real pleasure and joy from finding such things and bringing them to light."

One particularly memorable sale four years ago, he recalls, unearthed a number of surprising finds. They belonged to the late Major John Hext of Coniston, a photographer in the Army during the turn of the century. Boxes of sepia pictures, taken with an old, mahogany quarter-plate camera, revealed never-before-seen pictures of the Battle of Ladysmith, one of the early engagements of the Second Boer War.

Others showed members of the head-hunting Indian Arbor tribes in traditional costume. And then, in the attic, Rodney and his team found the very clothing featured in the photographs, including elaborate headgear, necklets and carved body wear. "That was absolutely astonishing," he says. "More than 1,000 people came to view that sale, it was fascinating."

More recently, a 93-year-old American widow was so pleased at the job Tennants had done with her holiday home in Scotland that she reappointed them to clear out her family estate in Virginia. "It was a glorious place, under the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with lots of particularly fine English porcelain, paintings and furniture and some lovely American things too," says Rodney.

He and his team spent several days photographing and cataloguing it all into 600 lots, which will be sold on December 6. "We got the export documentation, organised a container and oversaw the whole thing."

Now he is relishing being able to share some of the thrill he experiences when he makes such discoveries. "I am looking forward to exhibiting these things and helping to bring history to life in our new building, a tourist destination in itself. There will be no other place like it."

For details of forthcoming sales and events, visit tennants.co.uk The Auction Centre, Harmby Road, Leyburn, N Yorks DL8 58G. T: 01969 623780