Antiques are big business - and there is no antiques business bigger than Tomlinsons. which has become a shrine for connoisseurs the world over. RON GODFREY, business editor, visits the North Yorkshire honey pot for home makers and aficionados alike.

IF TOMLINSONS' 75,000 sq ft warehouse is a North Yorkshire cathedral dedicated to the thrilling thingamajigs of history, then Sarah Worrall is its high priestess.

You only have to hear her intoning her litany of love for a madly beautiful (or is it beautifully mad? ) George III tilt-top breakfast table with crossbanded edge on a pedestal and four reeded supports on brass hairy paw casters to know that she speaks the language of antiques fluently and with passion.

Such is her reverie within that mighty rectangle set against the rural sky outside Tockwith, that it is almost as though the £2,495 plus VAT price tag is an afterthought.

Sarah is the sales director of the antiques specialist company. Three years ago, a headhunter tapped her on the shoulder while she was a Marks & Spencer manager, and founder Raymond Tomlinson could not have had a more enthusiastic, more pre-ordained interviewee for the job.

She was already a regular visitor to Tomlinsons - one of its 14,500 Tomlinson Fine Furniture Club members who at that time on weekends only were allowed into this holy of holies, which was predominantly for trade dealers.

Like them she found herself examining in illustrious detail dozens of items of furniture and objets d'art among the 5,000 pieces there, listening with awe to organised lectures on the splayed, fluted, curve-edged and exquisitely inlaid examples on display in areas clustered into eras.

Like them, she always visited the workshop and marvelled at the skills in action of the company's 14 craftsmen restoring more than 2,000 pieces for sale every year throughout the UK and to more than 20 countries worldwide.

Today Tomlinsons is an official quality assured visitor attraction site (with its own brown signposting on the highways) and non-trades people are now allowed to converge on the warehouse throughout the week.

Now Sarah is the one who charms many of its 5,000 visitors a year with her intense knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the finesse and style of the ages.

Just lately the oohs and aahs are reserved for the £2,750 Duchess Dressing Table where the recently 'done in' Tom King of the Emmerdale soap planned his wedding - and next to it, the £3,500 Victorian mahogany furniture which was supposed to be Tom's marital bed (but never saw action).

Oh yes, Sarah says, the television producers tend to turn to them to furnish their period houses as in the recently screened ITV production of Mansfield Park (Fanny's bedroom a la Billie Piper) filmed nearby at Newby Hall, near Ripon.

"I must show you this, " she says breathlessly descending on a 1790 mahogany with satinwood and ebony bureau (she loves that George III period) and opens it up to reveal tiny elongated boxes.

"It was obviously specially commissioned for the lady of the house, combining the desk with this secret dressing table.

"And what about these original little bottles which slotted in? Some still have hair oil in it - look!" she says holding one of the containers up to the light. Price: £18,500 plus VAT.

And she loves to illustrate as you walk through the timeline of eras (some dealers and buyers purchase whole Victorian or Regency or Edwardian room sets) how craftsmen from one age to the next always moved forwards by looking backwards, aping and amending the designs of their forbears.

You stroll through time - past the chunky, flamboyant Victorian artefacts which flaunted the wealth of empire, then the smaller pieces that reflected diminishing property sizes in the Edwardian period and on to the 1920s and 30s which harked back to the twisty carving known as gadrooning, flamboyant edging and fluid shapes of the Victorian period.

It is easy to understand why the Tomlinsons At Home service introduced towards the end of last year has really taken off.

This is an exclusive and free service for customers who want to furnish their period homes with antiques but do not have the time or expert knowledge.

After an initial visit to the warehouse showroom to get a feel for period and styles, Tomlinsons experts visit the customer's home in the UK, discuss taste and requirements and draw up computerised drawings with suggested furniture in place.

Sarah, who furnished her own spliced Georgian cottages in this way, says: "We have about 12 houses on the go at the moment and, using photographs, we are also helping customers with properties in Los Angeles, France and Majorca.

"It is a delight for us. We are getting to meet wonderful people and seeing amazing homes."

The firm also sources for experts and others rare and wonderful examples of European furniture.

Probably the most expensive item in the building, but not yet properly priced, is a pair of massive mirrors, as big as the floor areas of most people's lounges. One of them is being restored, lying flat on the workshop floor and the high ceiling reflected in its ornate gold, cameo-studded frame gives the viewer knee-wobbling vertigo.

"Amazing, isn't it?" says Sarah. "We believe it came out of Lowther Castle, near Carlisle, which was the ancestral home of the Lonsdale family. They sold the furniture in 1950 and the mirrors went into a private collection.

"It's hard to quantify its value. I have a letter saying that a previous owner registered it for auction at £140,000 for the pair. But we think that's a bit excessive. It should be between £40,000 and £50,000."

But she urges people not to be daunted by the high price. There were huge bargains to be found in the warehouse's Ready To Go section.

"Sometimes restoring antiques can put people off because of cost, so we have selected 1900 to 1940s furniture, cleaned it, checked it and priced it well within the pockets of most people.

"This beautifully carved 1930s dressing table, for instance costs £350 and people can buy whole dining room suites at prices well below the cost of brand new furniture - and much more interesting."

From small beginnings

IT ALL began with Raymond Tomlinson's antiques shop which he opened in Wetherby.

He was concerned that he was spending too much time sourcing his stock.

Traditionally the market had been supplied either by auction houses throughout the country or through house calls and clearances, but both sources of supply tended to be unreliable.

So Raymond came up with an ingenious idea - why not create an antiques wholesale business?

By keeping overheads and margins as low as possible he was able to offer an alternative source for dealers at fixed prices and with a huge selection.

Soon the whole world was beating a path to his door and by 2001 the business had a turnover of £10 million. Nowadays his staff is coy about saying just how much greater is sales growth, but clearly it is massively more.

That was the year that Tomlinsons scooped the Evening Press Exporter of the Year title, with sales abroad, particularly the US, accounting for 50 per cent of its business.