The race is on for the ultimate in Coronation souvenirs

Somewhere about the place, many of us harbour a souvenir of some great royal occasion, even if few can match the enthusiasm for royal memorabilia of Australian superfans Jan and David Hugo. Their collection of more than 10,000 items has taken over their home in New South Wales, but their enthusiasm for regal knick-knacks is undiminished. Having travelled to London for the Coronation, they plan to return with a new haul of Coronation tchotchkes.

Compared with the kitsch tea towels and cheap crockery of earlier years, the keepsakes of more recent majestic occasions have taken a tasteful turn. Among other official Coronation merchandise, the Royal Collection shop offers a gold-embroidered purple velvet tote bag for £19.95, or a tin of shortbread for £16.95. Not part of the Coronation collection, but freighted with Kingly resonance is a splendid gold-plated fountain pen, £45.

But perhaps the most enviable token of the King and Queen’s great day would be one of the chairs commissioned for a few illustrious guests to perch on in the Abbey. While the Royal couple moved between a variety of thriftily repurposed thrones, Charles III followed tradition by commissioning 100 new congregation chairs.

Made in collaboration with the Prince’s Foundation from sustainable oak with blue velvet upholstery, they are the latest example of ceremonial furniture that dates back to the coronation of Edward VII. The chairs and stools provided for the guests of that sybaritic monarch were unexpectedly rustic, with rush or cane seats.

George VI’S velvetupholstered version looks distinctly less hard on the derrière, while the flatpacked “red chairs” designed by Lord Snowden for the then Prince of Wales’s investiture in 1969 were mass-produced from ash laminate and sold to the public as flat packs for £12.

That brilliantly democratic idea seems like something that might have been revisited this time around: an opportunity to promote the King’s interest in good design and traditional craft skills to a wider audience, while raising money for his charities. As it is, the sale by auction later this year of the 100 Carolean Coronation chairs will certainly attract keen interest – but not many of us will manage to take one home.

 Handel’s glorious Coronation anthems offered some of the most stirring musical moments of Saturday’s ceremony. Now the London house at 25 Brook Street, where the composer lived for 36 years, will reopen on May 18 following a £3million refurbishment. It is not just Handel’s zest for music that the museum will celebrate. He was also a serious foodie, whose guests enjoyed “rice soup with mutton in, petty patties [and] lamb’s ears”.

Visitors will be able to see Handel’s kitchen and sample 18th-century dishes – though possibly not the lambs’ ears, for which recipes seem unaccountably sparse. Florence White’s

Good Things in England

gives a grim receipt for stewed lambs’ tails, which seems unlikely to have appealed to a composer fond of “the sensual gratifications of the table”. But lamb’s head and barley with brain sauce, from Jane Grigson’s English

Food, sounds more promising, even if ears are not specifically mentioned.

“Do not,” Grigson bracingly insists, “make the southern-english mistake of thinking it ungenteel food, or even savage food.” I’m sure visitors to Handel’s house, southern-english or otherwise, will soon be tucking in con brio.