About Us
Shop By Origin
About Indigo Antiques
Our Warehouse & Showroom is located just 70 miles from London, outside Pewsey, Wiltshire.
Established as an antiques shop in the mid 1970's by Richard & Marion Lightbown and run with the help of their son, Tom. Indigo is the largest selection of genuine Chinese Antiques & Indian Antiques for sale in the UK. In the last 10 years, we've grown our collections to include Tibetan Antique Furniture & Mongolian Antique Furniture. Whilst the majority of our antique pieces date from 18th, 19th and early 20th century, we also sell a range of Rustic Reclaimed Teak Furniture and Asian inspired furniture made to compliment our antiques whist also pairing perfectly with furniture in contemporary interiors.
We personally select each piece on our buying trips to India, China, Tibet, Mongolia & Japan. With over 40 years of experience buying antiques we have three rules:
Whatever we buy has to be beautiful,
Pieces must be original as possible,
Pieces must look antique and show wear (also known as patination.)
OUR ORIGINS
Richard first discovered India's unique and special culture having driven overland by motorbike from England to India via Afghanistan in the early 1970’s. He met Marion on a ship travelling back from Sydney, Australia. They then set off on their travels through South East Asia, India & Nepal on their epic trip back overland in a V.W. Camper van.
Whilst on their two year journey, Marion & Richards route had them trekking over the Himalayas across the truly beautiful lands of Nepal and Ladakh. There was plenty of time to plan the future.
After trekking they returned to India and purchased stock for a small shop. They knew they had to pursue something they truly loved, and this decision ticked all the right boxes. Buying the art and culture they'd seen in India, to sell back in the UK. It sounded simple enough.....
Richard first discovered India's unique and special culture having driven overland by motorbike from England to India via Afghanistan in the early 1970’s. He met Marion on a ship travelling back from Sydney, Australia. They then set off on their travels through South East Asia, India & Nepal on their epic trip back overland in a V.W. Camper van.
Whilst on their two year journey, Marion & Richards route had them trekking over the Himalayas across the truly beautiful lands of Nepal and Ladakh. There was plenty of time to plan the future.
Richard & Marion on their early travels on the Jomsom trek in Nepal
After trekking they returned to India and purchased stock for a small shop. They knew they had to pursue something they truly loved, and this decision ticked all the right boxes. Buying the art and culture they'd seen in India, to sell back in the UK. It sounded simple enough.....
After trekking they returned to India and purchased stock for a small shop. They knew they had to pursue something they truly loved, and this decision ticked all the right boxes. Buying the art and culture they'd seen in India, to sell back in the UK. It sounded simple enough.....
Founders, Richard & Marion at their first stand in Camden Lock Market selling mostly Indian handicrafts at the very beginning.
Back in the late 70's Indigo's first shop opened as a stall in Camden Lock Market selling Indian antiques and handicrafts. Richard & Marion quickly realised that in such a developing industry, trying to predict customer tastes and trends when sourcing items was a fools game. Once they set the rule to only buy what they loved to take home themselves the task was much easier, and within two weeks they had to return to India to purchase additional stock. The business blossomed from there.
Retaining their passion for Indian antiques to this day, they still follow that cardinal rule and it’s the baseline of our business:
“We cherry pick and we're very fussy buyers. We always buy beautiful things that we know will give us joy, so if they don’t sell quickly we get to enjoy them a little bit longer.”
Marion Lightbown, Owner
“We cherry pick and we're very fussy buyers. We always buy beautiful things that we know will give us joy, so if they don’t sell quickly we get to enjoy them a little bit longer.”
“We cherry pick and we're very fussy buyers. We always buy beautiful things that we know will give us joy, so if they don’t sell quickly we get to enjoy them a little bit longer.”
Marion Lightbown, Owner
Marion Lightbown, Owner
We quickly outgrew our space at Camden Lock Market and opened a permanent shop & workshop on the South Bank in London in Gabriel's Wharf which allowed us to begin importing Indian Antique Furniture.
As the furniture business boomed through the 1980's and we expanded to begin importing Chinese Antiques & Chinese Antique Furniture, Indigo continued to expand. We moved the main base of operations to Marden in the Wiltshire countryside and to a larger premises in London in the interior design sector on London's New Kings Road. Shortly after, we opened our a shop in Bath in the South West of England.
For many years, our warehouse was for wholesale customers and interior designers only. We've supplied many companies over the years, our more prominent retailers have included Heal's, Liberty's & The General Trading Company in London and Brown Thomas in Dublin. See our Wholesale & Trade Page for information on buying Oriental & Indian furniture wholesale.
With the significant changes in retail and the growth of the internet over the past 20 years, we made the decision to operate solely from our Wiltshire showroom & warehouse in Manningford Bruce which we moved to in 1998.
We quickly outgrew our space at Camden Lock Market and opened a permanent shop & workshop on the South Bank in London in Gabriel's Wharf which allowed us to begin importing Indian Antique Furniture.
As the furniture business boomed through the 1980's and we expanded to begin importing Chinese Antiques & Chinese Antique Furniture, Indigo continued to expand. We moved the main base of operations to Marden in the Wiltshire countryside and to a larger premises in London in the interior design sector on London's New Kings Road. Shortly after, we opened our a shop in Bath in the South West of England.
We quickly outgrew our space at Camden Lock Market and opened a permanent shop & workshop on the South Bank in London in Gabriel's Wharf which allowed us to begin importing Indian Antique Furniture.
As the furniture business boomed through the 1980's and we expanded to begin importing Chinese Antiques & Chinese Antique Furniture, Indigo continued to expand. We moved the main base of operations to Marden in the Wiltshire countryside and to a larger premises in London in the interior design sector on London's New Kings Road. Shortly after, we opened our a shop in Bath in the South West of England.
Our shop in London's New King's Road back in the 90's.
For many years, our warehouse was for wholesale customers and interior designers only. We've supplied many companies over the years, our more prominent retailers have included Heal's, Liberty's & The General Trading Company in London and Brown Thomas in Dublin. See our Wholesale & Trade Page for information on buying Oriental & Indian furniture wholesale.
With the significant changes in retail and the growth of the internet over the past 20 years, we made the decision to operate solely from our Wiltshire showroom & warehouse in Manningford Bruce which we moved to in 1998.
A corner of our showroom featuring various Chinese antiques including a 19th century Black Lacquer Wedding Cabinet & a one of a kind Victorian influenced Mongolian sideboard from the 19th century.
OUR SHOWROOM, WORKSHOPS & WAREHOUSE
Based in the beautiful North Wiltshire countryside our 12,000 sq foot showroom & warehouse is the largest of its kind in Europe holding our full collection of antique oriental Indian, Chinese, Japanese & Tibetan antiques & antique furniture. We have workshops where we sympathetically restore all our antiques meaning we can guarantee the authenticity of every piece we sell.
Every piece we sell is in stock in the UK and we always carry a large selection of antique furniture, Architectural Salvage, Stone, Marble & Oriental Decorative Art in stock.
We have container deliveries of stock from India & China every 2 months so there's always New Arrivals. As nearly every piece we sell is unique, our website doesn't show all our stock so it's best to visit or Contact Us - We're open all day, Monday to Saturday.
For a live tour of our showroom, directions and more information click below.
OUR SHOWROOM, WORKSHOPS & WAREHOUSE
Based in the beautiful North Wiltshire countryside our 12,000 sq foot showroom & warehouse is the largest of its kind in Europe holding our full collection of antique oriental Indian, Chinese, Japanese & Tibetan antiques & antique furniture. We have workshops where we sympathetically restore all our antiques meaning we can guarantee the authenticity of every piece we sell.
Every piece we sell is in stock in the UK and we always carry a large selection of antique furniture, Architectural Salvage, Stone, Marble & Oriental Decorative Art in stock.
We have container deliveries of stock from India & China every 2 months so there's always New Arrivals. As nearly every piece we sell is unique, our website doesn't show all our stock so it's best to visit or Contact Us - We're open all day, Monday to Saturday.
For a live tour of our showroom, directions and more information click below.