Swanzey: Flea Market Found

By Barbara Hall
Web Editor, Yankee Magazine

Last time, we brought home these treasures:
small brass hanging planter
yellow charger (platter)
painted doorstop
carnival glass candlesticks
yellow pottery bowl
berry-picking box
brass bell

Our favorite flea market is at the Cheshire Fairgrounds in Swanzey, New Hampshire, and we think of each visit as a treasure hunt. You’ll park on an unpaved, often mud-laden driveway, walk on cement floors in low-ceiling rooms, get blasted by a heating/cooling unit that is itself an antique and inadequate for the space. But you’re there for the hunt. This unpretentious multidealer shop holds an endless variety of stuff: toy trucks, tables, tools, tins, toasters, lanterns, linens, lamps, quilts, paperweights, pottery, prints, hatboxes, furniture, fishing tackle, cookie jars, jewelry, bottles, model boats, even baby shoes. And what the locals know is this: The dealers have to vacate the premises every July for the six-day Cheshire Fair, when the building is used for food and flower displays. Rather than move everything out and back in again later, they give serious discounts: 25, 30, even 50 percent off! Still, any time of year, it’s worth a visit, or, depending on what you’re looking for, a treasure hunt.

Fairgrounds Antiques
249 Monadnock Highway, Route 1
2 East Swanzey, NH 03446,
603-352-4420