Some people find their calling early. Irita Marriott found hers on the other side of a life that began about as far from the British antiques world as it is possible to imagine – and that unlikely journey is exactly what makes her one of television’s most engaging antiques experts. A dealer, auctioneer and porcelain specialist, Irita is a familiar face to millions through BBC One’s Antiques Road Trip, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Bargain Hunt, and now fronts her own series, The Derbyshire Auction House, on Really TV.
Irita was born in Latvia in 1984, the early years spent on a fully self-sufficient country farm alongside her many siblings. School was not where she shone. She still remembers an English teacher telling her, “You will be a no one! You won’t make it in life without English.” It was the kind of remark that could have defined a smaller ambition. Instead, Irita answered it in the most direct way possible: she applied for an au pair job in the United States and set off for New York with barely a word of English and a dictionary in her hand. Thrown in at the deep end, she was speaking and understanding the people around her within three months.
A planned visit home to Latvia two years later took an unexpected turn, and one thing led to another until she found herself on a bus to the UK. She was just twenty years old, and she has never looked back. Her first job was a temporary Christmas post at a garden centre – a role she quickly turned into running the department and, eventually, buying for it. That instinct for knowing what to buy, and for what, would prove to be the foundation of everything that followed.
It was a move to Derbyshire with her husband that introduced Irita to the world of antiques – and to the career she had been searching for. To learn the trade properly, she took a part-time job as a salesroom assistant at a leading Derbyshire auction house, handling an enormous variety of pieces and learning on the job. She stayed for seven years, working her way up to cataloguer and valuer while dealing antiques independently on the side.
What began with car boot sales and small antique fairs grew rapidly into international fairs and the launch of her own business, Irita Marriott Antiques. A full-time dealer specialising in decorative antiques – many of them sourced on frequent buying trips to the continent – Irita considers herself a new-generation dealer, and is proud to count customers all over the world. In 2023 she took the boldest step yet, opening Irita Marriott Auctioneers and Valuers in Derbyshire, one of very few female-led auction houses in the UK.
Irita’s knowledge and warmth have made her a natural on television. She is best known for BBC One’s Antiques Road Trip, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Bargain Hunt, and has also appeared on Channel 4’s The Greatest Auction. Most recently she fronts her own Really TV series, The Derbyshire Auction House, in which she helps people uncover potential treasures hidden in their homes and bring them to auction at her own business, Irita Marriott Auctioneers and Valuers Limited.
Through it all, Irita’s aim is simple: to encourage others to try their hand at antique dealing and to follow in her footsteps into this exciting, endlessly surprising industry. Represented by DML Talent, she today lives in Derbyshire with her husband and their two sons – living proof that a dictionary, a great deal of nerve and an eye for the extraordinary can take you anywhere.
