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Issue One

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• M A R C H

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CHARIS WILLIAMS

CURIOSITY SHOP

TRADE SECRETS

Channel 4’s Salvage Sister

Discover LASSCO’s hidden gems

Tips from a props buyer

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Iconic design at Voewood House

I S S U E

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Eclectic Interiors

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WELCOME

Unique interiors that tell stories

Turn to p24 to see the work of ReliCreation, the interiors company who design and make kitchens out of reclaimed materials.

You know that exciting feeling you get when you go into a curiosity shop and, as your eyes dart from an Art Deco cocktail cabinet and French leather club chair to a vintage mannequin and enamel advertising sign, you just have to take it all home? Rather like discovering treasure - that’s what �eclaim magazine loves.

Offering an alternative to the mass produced, �eclaim magazine celebrates dealers, traders, interior designers and makers who choose to work with reclaimed materials, vintage and antiques; unusual items with backstory. From decorative salvage and vintage industrial furniture to mid-century design, upcycled lighting and intriguing antiques, �eclaim salutes not just an exciting interiors trend, but a way of life.

Across the pages of this, our first issue, you’ll discover inspiration on where to look for the finest reclaimed and reinvented objects, from the luxurious at LASSCO (London’s Architectural Salvage Co) to the weird and wonderful at one of Britain’s best-known salvage yards, Wells Reclamation.

We showcase the work of talented designer Zoe Murphy, who transforms furniture destined for the skip into highly desirable artworks, as well as the couple in Cornwall who handcraft wonderful ‘tin tabernacles’ using beautiful reclaimed materials.

There’s painstaking period property restoration with The Landmark Trust and eclectic interior design at Voewood House in Norfolk; the London bicycle company who restore vintage bikes and a chat with TV presenter and queen of upcycling, Charis Williams. From a glimpse into the contacts book of a props buyer who sourced items for ITV’s period drama Mr Selfridge, to a guide on ‘vintiquing’ in Paris, we hope �eclaim magazine will inspire you to create a unique and sustainable living space. A home that tells stories.

AMY BRATLEY EDITOR

facebook.com/reclaimmagazine twitter.com/RECLAIMmagazine www.reclaimmagazine.uk

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CONTENTS

DISCOVER

contents WISHLIST

06 RECLAIM EDIT

A few of our favourite things

22 SOFT LANDING

Cushions crafted from vintage silk

12 SWAG & BONE

Heritage heaven at London’s LASSCO

38 LIGHT FANTASTIC

Luxury upcycled designer lighting

32 STILL LIFE

Curious and decorative vintage mannequins

70 TICKET TO RIDE

Collectible antique rail posters

54 FINDERS KEEPERS

Bizarre and beautiful finds at Wells Reclamation Yard 86 TRICKS OF THE TRADE

TV props buyer shares her contacts 100 SAVE THE DATE

Decorative salvage fairs in 2016 128 INSPIRING READS

Reclaim’s top five books

LIFESTYLE 48 ECO CHIC

Could your home be greener?

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EXPLORE 92 STRIKE VINTAGE GOLD ABROAD

Vintiquing fun in France 124 TRAVEL TREASURE

Visit The Landmark Trust’s Martello Towers in Suffolk

INTERIORS 24 MODERN RELICS

Bespoke kitchens to lust after 66 TABERNACLE TALES

Bespoke ‘Wendy houses’ for grown-ups

120 RECYCLE

Bike restoration in the city

78 THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE

Voewood House, England’s finest Arts & Crafts property

DESIGNERS & MAKERS

108 A STYLISH SPACE

Original storage solutions from Rebecca Winward

40 BRIGHT & BEAUTIFUL

Designer Zoe Murphy’s dreamy upcycled furniture

© BENJAMIN MATHERS

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114 THE TILE FILES Sourcing stunning reclaimed tiles

60 SALVAGE SISTER

C4’s Charis Williams on skip diving 72 BLADES OF GLORY

How Jay Blade’s chairs change lives 104 RESTORATION

Coveting restored original Coalbrookdale benches

SUBSCRIBE TODAY Turn to page 52 for details

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Vintage Gramophone Horn Pendant Light, Original House Light up your home with this striking pendant light from Original House.

Dating from around 1920, this antique gramophone horn has been converted into a light and fitted with a new fixed brass bayonet bulb holder. It comes with a brass ceiling hook and brass or copper chain, so you can hang it straight away and admire. l £350, available at original-house.co.uk

© ORIGINAL HOUSE

�eclaim has scoured the land for the finest reclaimed and repurposed items for your home.

From decorative salvage to luxury upcycled designs, feast your eyes on these unique beauties

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© THE RAG AND BONE MAN

Runway Wall Light, The Rag and Bone Man

The Letter D, English Salvage

© MIKE BROWN/ENGLISH SALVAGE

Using traditional metalwork techniques, Paul Firbank of The Rag and Bone Man, interweaves the histories and identities of parts he finds into new forms and functions. These salvaged British airport red glass runway lights have been restored and mounted to an aluminium Villiers 150cc two stroke engine cover, circa 1938-66, to make an amazing wall light. Paul has brought together the different components by using blasting and colouring techniques, finishing with a living oil treatment. The light is designed for hard wiring to the wall. l £625, theragandboneman.co.uk

D is for ...definitely need this reclaimed, fun, retro letter D light-box sign, available from the reclamation experts at English Salvage, who say the most frequently overheard phrase in their reclamation yard is ‘oh my god, it’s amazing!’. This light-box sign would make a fabulous free standing display piece in your home or office space. English Salvage may have other letters available, so if ‘D’ doesn’t rock your boat, please enquire after others. l £295, englishsalvage.co.uk

© VEERLE EVENS

’Captain Hook’ Chair, Yinka Ilori From a collection of work called ‘If Chairs Could Talk’ launched during London Design Week, artist Yinka Ilori specialises in upcycling vintage furniture inspired by tradition Nigerian parables and African fabrics that surrounded him as he was growing up. Yinka feels passionately about waste in Europe and Africa and uses discarded furniture and found objects in his work, giving reclaimed materials new life and purpose. This beautiful chair is called ‘Captain Hook’. l Price on request, yinkailori.com

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© KATE NOAKES

Record Cabinet, Kate Noakes This beautiful record cabinet by designer and maker Kate Noakes, has been made by in-laying metal with gesso on a reconditioned and recycled record cabinet. Inspired by architecture and industrial design, Kate makes second hand furniture modern again, making re-use and environmental responsibility an important part of her work. Look out for an interview with Kate in next month’s issue of Reclaim. l £935, katenoakes.com

© MIKE BROWN/ENGLISH SALVAGE

© MIKE BROWN/ENGLISH SALVAGE

Vintage Advertising Poster, English Salvage The James Cycle Company Ltd was a famous British cycle and motorcycle manufacturer in the East Midlands, prolific between 1897 and 1966. This cheerful original poster is an ex-Warrington Museum piece and would look fantastic hanging in a kitchen, hallway or living room. l £165, englishsalvage.co.uk

Early 20th Century Set of Shop Drawers, English Salvage Highly sought after, reclaimed shop drawers are winners in the style and storage stakes. This set of early 20th century numbered shop drawers were possibly previously used for haberdashery items, such as ribbons and buttons. Each drawer has a space to include a description label, which might come in handy if you decide to keep your keys in one of the drawers. l £3,250, englishsalvage.co.uk

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Victorian Mini Drawer Unit, Retrouvius

Š TOM FALLON

Salvaged from a hardware store, this precious portal to the past is full of character with patina and wear through lots of use. You can almost imagine the ironmonger in his work apron pulling out the drawers searching for screws and bolts. l ÂŁ145 (+vat), retrouvius.com

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Altered Antique Plates, Beat Up Creations

© BEAT UP CREATIONS

Los Angeles Angela Rossi calls herself a ‘selftaught outsider artist’ who works with recycled, broken and forgotten items. She started making plates after losing her 9 - 5 job and began selling her creations on Etsy. Angela creates these incredibly striking plates by applying images to plates she finds in antique shops and charity shops. A selection of these would look fantastic mounted on a wall, or indeed, under dinner. l From £25, liberty.co.uk or Beat Up Creations at etsy.com

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The Loveseat, The Rag and Bone Man

© THE RAG AND BONE MAN

Feel the love for this amazing, unique ‘loveseat’ from The Rag and Bone Man. The seat is made from a rare double tractor seat, which would have come from an early 19th century potato planter, and the back support is a modified vintage commercial leaf spring that has been reshaped using traditional blacksmithing techniques. l £2250, theragandboneman.co.uk

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LASSCO

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SWAG

& BONE ADRIAN AMOS, THE OWNER OF LASSCO (THE

LONDON ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE & SUPPLY CO) KNOWS THE VALUE OF EVERYTHING AND, INDEED, THE PRICE OF IT TOO. FROM ANTIQUE FIREPLACES TO NEON SIGNS, JANE COMMON STEPS INTO SALVAGE HEAVEN IMAGE BY TIM KENT

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© TIM KENT

LASSCO

here’s a bit of drama on the morning I visit LASSCO, in Ropewalk, near London’s Tower Bridge, to interview owner Adrian Amos – a squirrel has snuck in, possibly welcomed by the neon letters spelling out ALOHA above the railway arch, and resident Irish Terrier Barney is racing around the shop floor in a frenzy of excitement.

Blood up, he charges past antique chairs, lights from Sea Containers House at £2,250 a pop, and old X-ray boxes from St Bartholomew’s Hospital – but everyone is very laid back about this game of terrier tag amongst such treasures.

In fact, laid back seems to be the LASSCO ethos and so while it might be at the top of the tree – and that will be a Victorian maple tree, now doing a turn as a fine old floorboard – when it comes to the reclamation trade it’s neither stuffy nor pretentious.

And that’s true of Adrian too. He’s a proper old-school gent in tweed jacket and waistcoat who gets the coffees in for our photographer and me at the chi-chi coffee shop in one of the railway arches just down the cobbled street from LASSCO, England’s prime resource for architectural antiques, salvage and curiosities. Adrian’s canny too – as any businessman who has seen success over four decades has to be – and is one of the pioneers of the architectural salvage trade. In fact, he reckons, he started out in it before the words architectural and salvage had been put together to create the tag that sums up one of today’s biggest interiors trends.

‘We’re an old cabinet-making firm – my family has been involved in wood going back seven generations – but getting into salvage came about through seeing an opportunity in the 1970s,’ says Adrian. ‘People were filling skips with kit that they were pulling out of old period houses at one end of the street and at the other end they were putting it all back in. The mid-1970s was the tipping point – it was just about the nadir for period buildings. Betjeman was preaching the conservation and protection of historic buildings but nobody was listening.’

‘There was one building which could be said to mark the lowest point, and that was the Birkbeck Penny Bank in Holborn, at the bottom of Gray’s Inn Road. It was a magnificent building, full of character and detail, and it had

‘The craftsmanship and the quality of things we were seeing going into landfill was astonishing. The ironwork, carving and flooring – we couldn’t say no to it.’ a wonderful dome on top but, in spite of Betjeman’s efforts, it was pulled down and replaced by a very banal NatWest Bank.

Interestingly, about a year ago, we bought a large quantity of ceramic tiles from the Birkbeck Penny building, through an old-time antiques dealer. But the blasé disregard for historic buildings really was horrifying back then. I’ve been going through our archives – we take photographs and get a provenance on everything we sell – with a view to digitising them, and it’s terrifying the stuff that was lost.’

So Adrian saw an opportunity.

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‘I started buying and selling and this was around the time someone invented the term architectural salvage – it was first used, to my knowledge, in an issue of the Architects Journal in an article by Dan Cruickshank. One firm started an index whereby they tried to match people with salvage to sell with people who wanted to buy it, but we took it a bit further than that by setting up in a large redundant church in Shoreditch and actually buying the stuff ourselves. We bought more than we could afford and more than we could possibly accommodate, but it was difficult as there was such an enormous supply of worthwhile stuff. The craftsmanship and the quality of things we were seeing going into landfill was astonishing. The ironwork, carving and flooring – we couldn’t say no to it. So we had a big space in the church but we soon spilled out into other yards.’

‘One of the most substantial opportunities was the East India Company warehouses in Cutler Street, which were

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© LASSCO

Current stock of mirrors range from £200 to £14,000. lassco.co.uk

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© TIM KENT

Quirky old photographs for sale at LASSCO.

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© TIM KENT

© TIM KENT

LASSCO

Get the LASSCO look ‘The old maxim remains – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,’ says Adrian. ‘Let your house tell its story. The basic default position is to put yourself in the mindset of the person that first built it. There’s nothing more awkward than taking a Victorian house and turning it into some stripped back modernist dream à la Lord Rogers. If you buy a 19th century worker’s cottage, don’t put in concealed lighting – concealed lighting fits in a modernist apartment. I tell people to read and visit as much as they can before putting their hands in their pockets. Join the National Trust – it’s getting more examples of ordinary houses and their interiors are all in keeping with the period they were built in. And, if you’re going to successfully use architectural salvage, ideally it won’t stand out too much – in fact it shouldn’t stand out at all.’

(top left) Sea Containers House lights, £2,250. (above) Bring your home to life with unusual items. (left) Beautiful doorknobs at LASSCO, perfect for period properties.

© TIM KENT

at that time owned by the Port of London Authority and were being sold off. That was a whole block of late-18th-century brick-built warehouses and they were magnificent. There are photos of them in use in the Museum of London – they had floors for ostrich feathers and ivory tusks and oriental carpets. And the buildings were magnificently constructed – brick with cast-iron windows, all fireproof; the floors a magnificent Baltic pine and the structural posts, as far as I could see, massive oak.’

When Adrian talks about the historic buildings which have given up their bounty to his custodianship they arise from the rubble in the telling – in the case of those structural posts from the East India Company he makes them flesh and blood: ‘The joists were such that when we sawed them up the resin flowed out of them, even though they were 200 years old. We had no idea what to do with the wood – we just knew it was far too precious to let go. The only alternative to us buying it – well, it would have been burnt or there might have been a bit of a market on farms for fencing. But that was it – that was the fate of timber back then.’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given LASSCO’s beginnings as a firm of cabinet makers, it is the timber that Adrian seems most protective over – there are two great warehouses dedicated to it at Ropewalk and a big yard in LASSCO’s Oxfordshire Three Pigeons branch.

‘The maple we have in stock at the moment comes from a building in the West End that’s owned by University College Hospital and it’s splendid quality pre-war flooring,’ he tells me. And Ropewalk, which LASSCO has owned for 16 years, was once a timber yard itself.

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Over the years, as interest in architectural salvage has grown – Adrian describes the customers of his early years of high supply and low demand as ‘an elite, far-sighted bunch of generally rather moneyed people’ – so too has LASSCO, which outgrew the church in Shoreditch and now operates from three sites. There’s Ropewalk in Bermondsey; Three Pigeons near Oxford and, what many regard as the jewel in the crown, Brunswick House.

‘We have been in Brunswick House about 12 years,’ he says.

‘There was always an ambition to have a good Georgian house and it was an absolutely lucky stroke that we happened to have some money in our pockets when Brunswick came up for sale. It’s all about a bit of theatre and Brunswick House is very dramatic – when looked at from the front it’s every child’s idea of a Georgian mansion. It’s got that lovely porch

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© TIM KENT

LASSCO

© LASSCO

’We ham it up. Through every window passers-by can see a chandelier sparkling. The house looks like it should be on the front of a chocolate box.’ © TIM KENT

(above) The Brunswick Cellar and other rooms in the house are available to hire for events. (top right) Neon ‘Ten’ letters reclaimed from Angus Steak House. (right) Queen Elizabeth II Coronation mug from 1953.

and triangular pediment which is what all Georgian houses should have. But of course, the most interesting thing is that it sits there on that corner in Vauxhall surrounded by giant buildings – there are new ones going up all the time and next we’ll see are two towers of 57 storeys – and Brunswick House is looking, by contrast, ever more odd. And one is tempted to say it’s out of place, but of course it’s not; it’s the big buildings that are out of place. I imagine people driving past saying: ‘Look at that funny Georgian house there.’ But it’s been there for 250 years – it has every right to be there.’

For anyone who hasn’t visited Brunswick House, the sight of it, perched precariously yet stoically against the sprawling glass and concrete developments, is good for the soul – it’s a defiant foot soldier against the march of modernity and the obsessive need to build ever bigger and ever higher.

‘We ham it up,’ Adrian smiles. ‘Through every window passers-by can see a chandelier sparkling, so as you come around the roundabout past the godawful illuminated digital advertising hoardings, there’s the St Georges Wharf Development and then suddenly there’s this house that looks

like it should be on the front of a chocolate box. We always fly the union flag and, to celebrate Trafalgar Day, the White Ensign.’

And, just like the objects it contains, the house tells a story.

There’s a restaurant downstairs furnished with LASSCO wares – ‘The objects and lighting change all the time as our lads are so busy selling the stuff,’ says Adrian– with a stage draped with heavy theatre curtains. And Adrian obviously gets a real kick out of the hospitality side of the business.

‘We have newspaper reports dating from the 1820s describing festivity in Brunswick House and that aspect of it remains today,’ he says. ‘The restaurant is always buzzing.’

I think the real appeal of all the LASSCO sites, however, is the fact that, despite the hauteur of the LASSCO brand, they retain a junkyard sort of feel. Someone with a keen eye has obviously put a lot of work into arranging the pieces, but the showrooms don’t feel overly curated and there’s an affability about them that welcomes not just the doyennes of design but the casual browsers too.

‘We aspire to shabby-chic but we usually end up just shabby,’ Adrian laughs. Still, it must feel strange to have spent years pioneering the use of architectural salvage for it to have suddenly become such a trend?

‘It does,’ he agrees. ‘There are two ways of appreciating what we do: one is as a look and the other is as a means of avoiding waste. And now the product designers and interiors experts are motivated by the aesthetic side of the thing and the

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The Eisenhower Room, at LASSCO

A room with history

© TIM KENT

‘This room – the Eisenhower Room, where we’re chatting – is very interesting,’ says Adrian. ‘Panelling is widely reused and this is a case in point: look at the wonderful carving and architraves. We bought the panelling from a runner who’d removed it from a building in Grosvenor Square that was the US Naval Headquarters during World War Two. And we have a photograph of General Bradley – reputedly the D-Day invasion and thus the liberation of Europe were partly planned in this very room.’

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Light fantastic at LASSCO.

Trend spotting ‘Mid-century modern seems to be the way forward, whether that’s through expedience or an actual conscious decision I’m not too sure,’ says Adrian. ‘People tend to collect stuff from the last 70 years because there’s more of it around. Victoriana is a busted flush – nobody wants it, yet in the mid- to late-1960s it was where it was at – Granny Takes a Trip and Christopher Wray on the King’s Road, for example. But that’s all been left behind. The Georgian look, however, is shorthand for old money and class and will always prevail. Take Ireland – there is a huge demand for Georgian fireplaces there now. Obviously the Irish economy fell off a cliff eight years ago, but now there’s a lot of people with money again – I was talking to an Irishman the other day and apparently the friday evening London-to-Dublin plane is dubbed the money train – and these successful Irish property entrepreneurs want to put their cash into something. Back in the day in Ireland a Georgian fireplace was the sign of a wealthy, successful landlord; today’s rich want to emulate that - to mark their status in the same way.’

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LASSCO

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In stark contrast to that, Adrian notes the provenance of every piece that passes through his hands and keeps an eye on its post-LASSCO life as well – often, boomerang-like, pieces return to his guardianship.

‘In the antiques trade one owns a piece only for a certain time, so I have possession of something for a while and then I pass it on and take the profit,’ he says. ‘And sometimes I’m sad to see things go but if you’re sensible in this business you know where things have gone and keep a record and might well buy them back one day. As an example, we recently cleared out Lounge Lovers, the cocktail bar which was round the corner from Les Trois Garcons – both were run by three lads who were in the antiques trade and whom we’ve known for many years. We actually sold them the pub that they turned into this very successful restaurant and bar and then when they closed

© TIM KENT

deconstructed, distressed look has become the mainstream.

And LASSCO leads trends – we like to think so anyway – and retail designers in restaurants, for example, now come to us for ideas. Jamie Oliver’s restaurants and Nando’s, for example, use a lot of our stuff.

Jamie Oliver puts it into a brand new retail unit and creates an illusion that it’s an Italian trattoria. We had an event last September here at Ropewalk as part of the 2015 London Design Festival where we held an exhibition of photographs of some of the retail and hospitality interiors we’ve kitted out and that was really well received.’

‘In another sense, though, this whole trend thing is quite depressing – well, one shouldn’t get too depressed about making money, I know. But the look has now become so universal that we’re seeing engineered floorboards – plywood boards with a distressed surface that are manufactured to look old. It’s very strange. Look at designer jeans that are pre-ripped – why not just wear a pair of old jeans? I don’t understand that side of it at all.’

© TIM KENT

© TIM KENT

(left) X-ray boxes from St Bartholomew’s Hospital, from £180 each. (below) LASSCO Ropewalk entrance.

we were invited down to look at all this wacky kit – much of which came from us in the first place. We bought the lot and, within a couple of weeks, we’d sold it all on again.’

It’s this thrill of conserving artefacts – carrying on their stories and appreciating their history – that keeps Adrian as interested as he was forty-odd years ago.

‘In our trade one has to have an eye. It’s all about the knack of spotting something and knowing it should be saved and has a purpose beyond the one it’s been serving,’ he says.

‘Some of our stuff we get very cheap indeed and some of it we’re actually given because government departments and local authorities don’t want to see wasted. We get 20 emails a day offering us things and we hear about virtually every demolition in the south-east. But I still get that thrill from discovering a significant item. We came across something the other day by a very roundabout route and I believe it’s a tablet from an early Georgian chimney piece from East India House, which was demolished in the 1860s. It’s about deciphering the iconography; there’s Britannia being offered a cornucopia supported by four putti each representing a different continent – and there were only four continents because the fifth hadn’t yet been discovered. There’s a goddess in the background, clasping a topmast from a ship, and bales of cotton or opium or hemp - it’s superb. It sold immediately into the Trade. So to discover something like that and pass it on, well, that’s the joy of this job.’

» LASSCO Ropewalk, 41 Maltby Street, Bermondsey, London SE1 3PA, Tel: 0207 394 8061 » LASSCO Brunswick House, 30 Wandsworth Road, Vauxhall London, SW8 2LG, Tel: 0207 394 2100 » LASSCO Three Pigeons, London Road, Milton Common, Oxfordshire OX9 2JN, Tel: 01844 277188 » To explore LASSCO's incredible stock or hire a room for an event, find out more at lassco.co.uk

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Soft landing

Crafted from vintage silk scarves, tea-towels and fabric, these souvenir cushions are a beautiful trip down memory lane 2

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STAr CHOICE Made from original vintage fabric, circa 1960, with superb architectural images of London drawn by Carey Masters Originals. The reverse is a very rare 1950s fabric.

4 1. Costa Dorada l £95, vintagecushions.com 2. London Architecture l £190, vintagecushions.com 3. Monte Carlo l £45, Clare Carter Designs, notonthehighstreet.com

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7. Mexico l £115, The Baobab Tree, bouf.com 8. Mataranka Thermal Pool l £10, 20th Century Girl, etsy.com 9. Westminster Abbey l £165, vintagecushions.com

4. Maryland l £26.60, Clare Carter Designs, etsy.com

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5. Venice l £48, vintagecushions.com 6. Scotland l £16, 20th Century Girl, etsy.com

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© RELICREATION

INTERIORS

CRAFTED FROM RECLAIMED WOOD, THIS FABULOUS BESPOKE KITCHEN IS THE WORK OF LONDON BASED CARPENTRY AND INTERIORS COMPANY RELICREATION. NAOMI DORAN, ONE HALF OF THE TEAM BEHIND RELICREATION, SHARES SOME OF HER FAVOURITE DESIGNS WITH

�eclaim

BY JANE COMMON

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‘CAR BOOT SALES OUTSIDE LONDON ARE A TREASURE TROVE AS THERE ARE SO MANY BARGAINS.’

© RELICREATION

Naomi and Dani invite clients to view their flat, to showcase their furniture and interior design work.

never been a need to advertise ReliCreation as we haven’t had a quiet moment. I don’t know how people find us but our blog gets a lot of traffic so that could be it.

Where does your interest in old stuff stem from?

I was just a bit demoralised by what’s available to buy brand new out there – it’s so much more interesting to find old things and be inspired by them. Car boot sales outside of London are a treasure trove as there are so many bargains. My mum has a caravan in Norfolk and we always go to a couple of boot sales when we visit.

Do you have a shop or is everything you design by commission?

No, our flat is full of furniture we’ve designed so when a customer is interested in commissioning something they pop round for a cup of tea and look at our home for inspiration.

It’s a really personal service! We’ll chat about what a client wants and I’ll do a drawing – then when it’s approved Dani will create it.

Where do you get all the reclaimed wood you use to forge your pieces?

The main material we use is reclaimed scaffolding boards

© RELICREATION

What’s ReliCreation’s story?

Well it’s me and Dani – he’s my partner in love, life and everything. My background is in interior design – I moved to London when I was 19 to study Art at Central Saint Martins and then did a degree in Interior Design at London Metropolitan. So I do interiors and I’m an artist as well. I make concrete artwork.

Dani and I met in Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club on a night out about eight years ago. He was a photographer then but he loved carpentry and, in 2010, he made a beautiful chest of drawers from a pumpkin crate, which we called the Pumpkin Chest, in my art studio, just for the love of it. This was before the whole fashion for upcycling, but when Dani had finished the chest it was so wonderful that we decided to see if we could sell it. We put it on Gumtree and there was loads of interest, so Dani started to build more and more furniture. And one day it occurred to us that we had a thriving little business on our hands so we started a website, a blog and, in 2011, ReliCreation was born.

Dani and I design the furniture together – then he makes it in his workshop just up the road from our flat. And, as well as doing commercial interiors for pubs and shops, we design kitchens using reclaimed timber. We’ve done well and we’re lucky – it’s been a whirlwind and we’re crazily busy. There’s

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INTERIORS

MELLOW YELLOW

(This image and previous page) This was for a client in South London and we designed everything but the lights which were already there, and the wall tiles which the client chose. It took about eight to ten weeks from design to finish and we love it. It’s so warm and vibrant. I particularly like the racking, which was inspired by overhead luggage holders in old train carriages.

THE PAINT: I use Dulux all the time for commercial projects so I flicked through my massive colour palette and found the right one.

THE OVEN: It’s a new oven designed to look old-fashioned – I think it’s by Leisure.

SINK: Again it’s a new Belfast sink, bought online. I love the little orange curtain next to it. Dani’s from Sardinia and his grandmother had a house in a little village there, which was passed on to the family when she died. It has a really old-fashioned kitchen with one of these little curtains and Dani was inspired by that. The fabric is from Romo and a seamstress friend sewed it.

THE CABINETS: The doors are all reclaimed floorboards; the structures and work tops are reclaimed scaffolding and the red Bakelite door knobs are from a little shop in Italy. The glazed cabinets with reeded glass create interest – reeded glass is quite old-fashioned but it’s beautiful. We have a local glass cutter and supplier we use locally in Stoke Newington – A & B Glassworks. We walk down the road, choose the glass we want and they cut it to size.

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INTERIORS

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© RELICREATION

CLEAN AND GREEN

Dani and I designed and built this entire kitchen in East London. The space – a conservatory extension with a glass roof – was white and cold so we wanted to make it warm. The client gave us free rein and we decided: ‘Let’s do something beautiful.’ And we could as we had a blank canvas! I put an image board together for the client and he really liked a picture I showed him of a unit with black stained doors so we went from there. Design-to-finish probably took around three months.

TILES: They’re by Solus Ceramics, a company I use a lot for my commercial projects.

LIGHTS: Mullan Lighting in Ireland.

SINK: It’s a Belfast sink we bought online. It’s new – we do have a vintage one at home and it’s lovely but it does tend to get rather stained.

CUPBOARDS: They were all made

by Dani in his workshop from reclaimed wood which we stained black – the only things he built in situ were the work surfaces. The copper piping is just plumbers’ piping which Dani cut to size. Using copper piping for kitchen fixtures has become quite trendy over the past couple of years and it is really effective.

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© RELICREATION

© RELICREATION

INTERIORS

Naomi designs the furniture and Dani makes it in his workshop.

Like what you see?

Contact ReliCreation at relicinteriors. wordpress.com Call Naomi or Dani on 07769 706484 or follow them on Twitter @ReliCreations

which we buy as scrap so that’s from scaffolding companies selling old stuff that’s no longer fit for purpose. When it arrives with us it’s cracked and filthy and Dani transforms it.

We also use a lot of old Victorian and Edwardian floorboards bought from reclaimed timber places or, even better, which we find in skips. We’re always nosing in skips – they’re irresistible.

I find it incredible that people throw their old floorboards out because they scrub up so well. And we collect abandoned pieces of furniture on the street and modify them – use the legs or the drawers in a design and give them a new life.

What’s your favourite piece ReliCreation has ever produced?

The dressing table is probably my favourite piece. Our client wanted a backstage-at-the-theatre style look with light bulbs and everything but she had a really restricted space so it was a challenge. What I designed and Dani created, though – well, I think it’s beautiful. The wood is all from old floorboards and scaffolding which we’ve given a good stain varnish, as we do on all our reclaimed timber. The lights are just ordinary

‘WE COLLECT ABANDONED PIECES OF FURNITURE ON THE STREET, MODIFY THEM AND GIVE THEM A NEW LIFE.’ LED bulbs fixed in place by Bakelite lamp-holders. As for the handles – well, it’s so difficult to find good old-fashioned cabinet handles these days but Dani’s dad, who lives in Italy, was good friends with a man called Giovanni Binelli who ran a hardware shop in Cagliari. The shop was closing down so Dani and I had a rummage and came away with a big bag of Bakelite and metal handles. I love the stool as well. We called it Mysterious Mahendra and it has a lockable drawer which is good fun. That’s a good place to keep personal things – a secret diary maybe!

What advice would you give to people looking for reclaimed wood?

Avoid scaffolding unless you really know what you’re doing as it has a life of its own – because it’s stored outside it has a high moisture content and that makes it difficult to work with. We keep all our scaffolding stacked inside for three months to dry out before we attempt to use it.

Reclaimed floorboards are much easier as they generally come straight from their original home to a shop where they’re de-nailed and scrubbed up a bit. Saying that, they are pretty pricey – about £45 a square metre – so finding them in skips saves money.

Shop-wise, we get all of ours from a place in Enfield called Reclaimed UK Ltd which is brilliant. It has every type of reclaimed wood imaginable including parquet panels and old oak from French railway carriages which is expensive but lovely. Dani bought some and used it for coat hooks.

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Get the ReliCreation look Naomi’s concrete artwork is on sale at naomidoran.com Reclaimed UK Ltd – reclaimed.uk.com Solus – solusceramics.com Mullan Lighting – mullanlighting.com Dulux – dulux.co.uk Leisure – leisurecooker.co.uk Romo Designer Fabrics and Wallcoverings – romo.com A & B Glassworks – abglassworks.co.uk

© RELICREATION

This bespoke dressing table is one of Naomi’s favourite pieces.

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CURIOSITIES

still

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This collection of unusual and beautiful antique French mannequins has been sourced by Original House and date from the late 19th and early 20th century. l From £340, original-house.co.uk

life WHEN YOUR EYES MEET OVER A CROWDED AUCTION

ROOM IT’S EASY TO FALL IN LOVE WITH A MANNEQUIN. HERE, BBC ANTIQUES ROADSHOW SPECIALIST LISA LLOYD TELLS US MORE

BY RACHEL TOMPKINS

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urious, quirky and sometimes downright spooky, vintage or antique mannequins make an intriguing addition to your home, whether as a clotheshorse, or a silent companion propping up the cocktail cabinet. But what makes these shapely creations so appealing? Perhaps it’s a desire to cling on to the past, or a universal fascination with the female form, which has existed throughout history.

Indeed, the very first mannequinlike figures were discovered as far back as ancient Egyptian times, the earliest ever found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.

‘There are also examples of mannequins dating from the 18th century days of Queen Marie Antoinette,’ says Lisa Lloyd, a specialist on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. ‘These were more like fashion dolls which Marie Antoinette would send to her family to show them the latest fashions in the royal courts. They could have been anything from about 12 inches high to a few feet high.’

Lisa, who has worked in antiques for over 25 years, including 16 years as an auctioneer and director of Rosebery’s in London and who now runs her own successful antiques business, Hand of Glory, tells us that mannequins dating from before the middle of the 19th century are extremely rare.

‘There are only one or two examples of Georgian mannequins in existence,’ she explains. ‘Then mannequins were more commonly used for artists so that their sitters didn’t have to sit for days on end for a portrait.’

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© DISCOVER ATTIC

A great many of the antique mannequins we see at auctions or online today probably date from around the 1870s. They became popular due to retailers realising the potential of showcasing clothes in imaginative shop displays, bringing fashion to life to increase sales. Though most, if not all mannequins, were well covered in the Victorian era, a mannequin in 1898 achieved notoriety for being more than a little daring. The wax figure known as ‘Miss Modesty’ had her arms and hands raised to cover her face in modesty, as

A vintage Selfridges mannequin with the original linen covering and Selfridges mark, dating from 1900. l £350, discoverattic.com

WHEN ELECTRICAL LIGHTS WERE INTRODUCED INTO SHOPS, WAX MANNEQUINS MELTED, LEADING MANNEQUIN MAKERS TO USE OTHER MATERIALS.

© SHERYL'S ART DECO EMPORIUM

CURIOSITIES

A gorgeous blonde, blue-eyed plaster mannequin circa 1930. l £645, sherylsartdeco.com

she modelled women’s underwear in a shop. It might seem insignificant now, but in those days, to be advertising lingerie in such a way was very bold.

Though mannequins have, through the ages, had a practical function within the retail industry and for dressmakers or artists, they also give an insight into the perceptions of the ideal female form. Their changing shapes are also influenced by changes in technology. When electrical lights were introduced into shops, for instance, wax mannequins melted, leading mannequin-makers to use other materials such as papier-mâché, as introduced in 1867 by the French company Siegel & Stockman, a brand which supplied most Parisian shops with their mannequins during the Art Deco era.

At the turn of the 19th century, mannequins, generally headless, had tiny ‘wasp’ waists, reflecting the trend for women to squeeze themselves into corsets, despite it sometimes making them ill. Later, trends shifted away from the ‘wasp’ waist, towards slimmer busts and bare ankles and after World War I, mannequins became more relaxed with moveable limbs. World War II brought mannequins with serious facial expressions, but when the war finished they became noticeably happier and more voluptuous. And it was around this time that child mannequins began to be seen in shop displays, modelling clothes for children.

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©ELEMENTAL

La Violette is a rare and elegant vintage corset sculpture from Paris, dating from 1930. l £1200, elemental.uk.com

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© ADEL ROOTSTEIN

CURIOSITIES

Elemental 130 Shoreditch High Street London, E1 6JE Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 11am - 6pm elemental.uk.com 0207 2477588 Discover Attic 34-38 High Street Hampton Hill Middlesex TW12 1PD Open: Monday to Sat, 10am - 5.30pm discoverattic.com 0208 9439626 Sheryl’s Art Deco Emporium Viewing by appointment only in Warlingham, Surrey sheryls-artdeco.com 01883 620767 Original House Appointment only warehouse near Cirencester, Cotswolds original-house.co.uk 07909 581411 Hand Of Glory Antiques By appointment, 15 St Mary Street, Chippenham, Wiltshire handofgloryantiques. com 01249 447478

Another fascinating era for mannequins was the 1960s when Adel Rootstein created incredibly lifelike mannequins, sculpted from sitting models. Adel Rootstein has become one of the most important mannequin brands in the world, famous for creating mannequins of cultural icons.

‘Adel Rootstein made the original Twiggy mannequin with Twiggy’s famous large eyes, long lashes and skinny body,’ says Lisa. ‘This really made a name for her.’

Though the original 1960s mannequins are rarely available, a search on eBay offers up various vintage Adel Rootstein mannequins, often dating from the 1980s.

All kinds of materials have been used to make the earliest mannequins, from wood, leather, wire and papier-mâché.

While plastic is used by some mannequin manufacturers today, most use fibreglass. And just as they did in the 19th century with Miss Modesty in her lingerie, mannequins continue to attract controversy. In July 2015 following a public outcry, a well-known store announced that it would not order any more of the 6ft 1 inch waif-like mannequins with 25.5 inch waists that it was displaying in the shop window. And more recently there’s been uproar after it was revealed that a number of shops are requesting fatter child mannequins to reflect the current increase in child obesity.

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Despite being around for hundreds of years mannequins are more popular than ever. Lisa, whose own 1940s French plaster mannequin, with a painted face, can be seen seated in the side-car of a motorbike in the Antiques Roadshow’s credits, believes it’s because they’re great fun and that they appeal to many collectors.

‘A lot of the countertop mannequins have brand names on so they appeal to collectors of advertising material too,’ she says. ‘They’re also in demand by fashion collectors, so there’s a big crossover of appeal.’

If you’d like to get your hands on one of these shapely forms, you can try an auction, but they’re seriously contested. A good place to start is with an online search. According to Lisa the

© ADEL ROOTSTEIN

Where to buy your mannequin?

headless wasp-waisted mannequins are really collectable, and make the highest figures, going for up to £400 at auction and retailing for anything up to £1000. You could also look out for French countertop mannequins, from the 1920s onwards, which sell for around £400.

‘The big name for wasp-waisted mannequins is French manufacturer Siegal & Stockman,’ says Lisa. ‘Made out of papier-mâché, the headless and wasp-waisted ones tend to be the most valuable. The Edwardian ones are more bulky in size and though people still like them, they don’t pay anything like the figures they do for the wasp-waisted ones.’

Continually desirable, mannequins make a good investment, but watch out for reproductions. ‘The 1940s French countertop mannequins are often reproduced,’ says Lisa. ‘The original ones usually have solid bottoms, whereas reproductions have been cast from originals and don’t have the solid bottoms.’

A decorative item, a talking point or a curiosity, mannequins are far more than just a clotheshorse. There’s no doubt that an antique or vintage mannequin will bring style and statement to any home.

» �eclaim would like to thank Lisa Lloyd, of BBC Antiques Roadshow. Lisa’s antiques business, Hand Of Glory, offers an eclectic mix of antiques and objects. Check out her online shop at handofgloryantiques.com

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@CharisWilliams

Charis Williams AKA The Salvage Sister

@CharisWilliams777

thecharis

TheCharis777

www.reclaimmagazine.uk XX

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WISHLIST

Light fantastic

Who knew that a tin can or a glass bottle could be transformed into an incredible light? These clever designers have upcycled ordinary objects into beautiful, unique lights (top row) Husband and wife team Richard Holman and Katy Shooter at Humblesticks create distinctive table lamps from recycled demijohn bottles and gin bottles. A burst of colour from the fabric covered cable looks amazing with the drum shade. Is your bedside table calling out for one of these?

l Demijohn lamp, £160 and Gin lamp, £90 Choose from a range of shades at humblesticks.co.uk

(middle row) Dutch designer Willem Heeffer transforms industrial waste materials, such as espresso boilers from a coffee factory, and old washing machine drums into lights. He+s also re-imagined the humble Heinz Beanz tin and cleverly upcycled a discarded item into a designer object. These would look great in your dining area or hanging above the kitchen table.

(right) In her skeleton lights, designer Donna Walker strips back the fabric from existing lampshades and upcycles them to reveal the beauty in the original craftsmanship of the wire frames. The energy saving bulbs throw out a gorgeous light, perfect for a living area.

l From £60, donnawalker.org

l Heinz lamp, 70 Euro (approx £49), Drum lamp, 310 Euro (approx £218) and Boiler lamp from 270 Euro (approx £190) willemheeffer.nl

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Zoe’s designs have been described as optimistic and cheerful.

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DESIGNER & MAKER

INSPIRED BY THE FADED GLAMOUR OF HER SEASIDE HOMETOWN OF MARGATE, KENT, TALENTED DESIGNER AND MAKER ZOE MURPHY TRANSFORMS RECYCLED FURNITURE AND TEXTILES INTO DREAM DECOR. HERE ZOE SHARES HER CREATIONS WITH �eclaim

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Some of Zoe’s work has been inspired by a trip to Mexico.

© ZOE MURPHY

he coastal town of Margate in Kent, with its theme park and history of beach donkey rides, has long been British designer Zoe Murphy’s muse. A once neglected seaside town, Margate is slowly coming back to life. Now home to the Turner Contemporary and the re-opened Dreamland theme park, it has a vibrant emerging creative scene at its heart. By screen printing reclaimed furniture with bright and decorative patterns inspired by her surroundings, Zoe’s designs reflect the town’s potential to transform into something beautiful. Previously short-listed for the New Designer of the Year Award, Zoe’s eco-friendly work has gathered a celebrity following and won high-acclaim, with people enchanted by her stunning re-invention of discarded furniture.

What fascinates you about the re-use and rejuvenation of unwanted furniture?

I like to promote the idea of loving what belongs to you and getting people to take more responsibility for the things they’re consuming, whether that’s using second hand furniture, buying less or opting for organic cotton. I’ve always been aware of taking responsibility for the future of the planet and have been interested in finding ways of trying to get a subject which might be political and making it more consumable. My furniture is a vehicle for that. Even at an early age I understood the importance of making serious information more accessible. At primary school I started a ‘save the planet club’ and even wrote to the Queen about the ozone layer. My parents didn’t know I’d written to her until I got a letter back from Buckingham Palace thanking me for my letter, saying that the Queen shared my concerns for the planet!

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DESIGNER & MAKER

(clockwise from right) Limited edition Margate drawers, in purple.

Nest of recycled tables brilliantly upcycled with Zoe’s decorative patterns.

A beautiful palette side table.

Could you describe your work?

I design and make printed design and textiles, often using imagery inspired by my hometown of Margate, but increasingly using imagery from other projects as well. Last year my annual collection ‘Brilliant Print’ was part of my Mexico to Margate project inspired by a journey to Mexico, exploring colours and patterns. My designs are screen printed onto second hand mid-century furniture items and organic cotton too. I used to screen print onto silk recycled from old wedding dresses, but I was concerned about how the dresses were made originally and so I’m now using organic cottons.

Please tell us about your workshop.

I have a workshop in the old town part of Margate, which used to be a storage facility for a tattoo shop. From what I gather it’s an old coach house linked to some local buildings that were part of a brewery. When I took on the space it was in a bad state, so with the help of my family, I re-wired, re-plumbed and plastered the place taking it on when nobody else wanted it. I remember getting the keys the same weekend as the Turner Contemporary opened in 2011. Before then I was in a tiny space in an old pie factory, stripping furniture, printing and doing all of the design work in one room. In my workshop

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now, I do all the making downstairs and I can open up the front for exhibitions. Upstairs there’s a space for computer work and meetings. There’s room for people too; I run the business, but have freelance staff and teams of students come in every term, as I lecture at the University for the Creative Arts in Kent and the south of England.

You’re highly acclaimed, but how did the business evolve?

It began after I created my final collection of textile and furniture pieces for my degree course at Loughborough University. Margate was my muse and it was all about loving what belongs to you and exploring ways to reconnect to the things people own and places that people live in. Some students were selected to go to London to the New Designers Showcase at the Business and Design Centre in Islington

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Inspired by Margate, drawers

by Zoe Murphy.

Vibrant and colourful, Zoe’s furniture looks amazing in a white room.

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Limited edition Margate drawers.

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DESIGNER & MAKER

(clockwise from right)The ‘sea glass’ sideboard, in blues and greens.

Striped Margate coffee table.

The ‘Windbreak’ side table, inspired by seaside holidays.

and I was short-listed for the New Designer of the Year Award.

My work was picked up by press and orders started to come in. At the same time I was going to interviews at textile design studios in London and being asked to come back to further interviews, but those studios were looking at my printed woods and saying ‘Are you sure you’re not going to go and set up a business?’ I’d say ‘No’, but at the same time people were ordering more furniture and eventually I realised there was enough to have a job making furniture.

How important is colour to you?

I recognise why people buy my stuff because when I talk to other designers I can sometimes hear that they don’t have the same preciousness about finish or the same intellectual interest in colour, concept and theme. I always have a story to tell or concept to put across and to me colour is the first way to do that. You notice colour first, before minute details, and so I am precious about colour. We might do a chest of drawers in the workshop and one colour might be slightly off in relation to the others and I’ll say ‘Something about that

pink is making me think of an ogre princess. It’s got to go.

Knock it back with the grey’. I’m really aware that a slightly different hue of a colour can make you feel something and that’s because as humans we have complex working brains.

As a designer you can be in control of the message you’re sending.

What’s a typical day like for you?

First thing I pull on some wellies and go for a walk on the beach. I wander around and look at the horizon for a bit and level problems and achievements, making sure my head never gets too big or too small. I sort out my emails and orders then get downstairs and strip furniture, do the screen printing and colour matching, ready for projects.

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DESIGNER & MAKER

seaside town. Underneath the grime though, everything was sparkly and hand-painted, so I had that feeling that there was something underneath the surface, all around me. I went off to University and thought I would never come back to Margate, but while I was away I started to respect where I was from a lot more because I realised it had made me the way I was. Margate inspired by final project at University and I made it really personal because I thought it might be the last chance I had to do something so personal. In actual fact it was just the beginning.

(above left) ‘Catch of the Day’ print. (middle and right) Screen printed silk cushions.

I might visit local furniture dealers as you can still get quite fairly priced furniture in Margate. A junk warehouse called Scott’s in Margate has a department called ‘Junk Deluxe’ that has a fantastic stock of mid-century furniture, so I go there, but I also know ‘Del boys’ up and down the country.

Surprisingly I still find a lot too. You can be driving around and find furniture left out on the street for free. Sometimes clients come to the studio, often with pieces of their own furniture, perhaps items they’ve inherited, for me to work on.

What exciting projects are you working on?

I’ve recently exhibited at Design Week and TENT London and enjoyed doing an installation for Dulux, interpreting a colour trend for 2016. The next thing I’m working on is furniture for G Plan, who have commissioned pieces for a collection they’ll be showing in their showroom. It’s so exciting to be working with Dulux and G Plan. Dulux is a colour company I grew up with, which gave me the freedom to use colour and made colour seem important. And I use G Plan furniture all the time. It’s very well made and the simple, straight style is perfect for my detailed and decorative designs.

You’ve been to Mexico. Where next for inspiration?

We went to Mexico in 2014 and I was really inspired by the applied surface patterns, such as embroidery. This year we stayed in the UK because I did a souvenir collection for Dreamland, Margate’s theme park that has reopened. In 2016 I’d like to get out to the States and see places like Los Angeles, to look at the mid-century buildings in Palm Springs. It’s important to me to live a creative life, so I can be the best creative individual.

Describe your ideal room to rest.

My own home is full of stuff collected from boot fairs and is an eclectic mix. I like spaces I live in to have personality, so my ideal space to rest would be a room with collections of textiles from around the world reminding me of travel, midcentury furniture, traditional craft items and big plants. I like the thought of being covered in leaves in a tropical-style den, resting in a dark space.

Why is Margate so important to you?

Growing up in Margate defined who I was. In the late 1980s there was nothing going on. You had to make your own fun.

The theme park was closed, local landmarks were out of bounds and I was exposed to the faded glamour of a British

» Zoe Murphy’s furniture and textiles are stocked at Liberty London, Osborn & Little, and the Lombard Street Gallery, Margate. Prices start at £335 for a small side table and £1,055 for a chest of drawers. To make enquiries and order online, go to zoemurphy.com

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‘You Are Here’ print.

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GREEN LIVING

10 Ways To

Eco Chic Your Home THERE WAS A TIME WHEN ECO AND CHIC WERE ABOUT AS FAR

AWAY FROM EACH OTHER AS DIOR AND DUNGAREES. BUT TIMES HAVE CHANGED. FAST FORWARD A DECADE OR TWO AND CHOOSING THE ECO OPTION NO LONGER MEANS SACRIFICING STYLE IN ORDER TO SAVE THE PLANET

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FLOORING One of the first stylish but sustainable interior ideas to go mainstream, stripped wood flooring is always on trend. It’s easy enough to find reclaimed floorboards locally or online, then to fit, strip and varnish these yourself. If you don’t have the time for sourcing it yourself, check out The Reclaimed Flooring Company that sells a wide range of beautiful reclaimed and tailor made wood floorings.

If you do want to buy new, buy bamboo - it’s one of the most sustainable, renewable alternatives to hardwoods (as harvesting bamboo doesn’t require the destruction of the entire plant).

Tiles, too, are a classic way to add interest, colour and pattern to your flooring. Source beautiful salvaged tiles such as those from Bert & May, specialists in handmade Spanish artisan tiles and antique encaustic or terracotta tiles from across Europe.

Want a warmer option? Steer clear of nylon carpets as they take huge amounts of oil to produce and are often bound with adhesives riddled with VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds).

Instead, pure wool carpets made in the UK are an expensive and luxurious investment, but one that can reduce heating bills long-term. Alternative Flooring produces 100% wool

(below) Keep toasty with a chic and eco-friendly woodburner.

carpets that are also 100% biodegradable (the first in the UK).

Remember to specify a non-toxic underlay, too.

3

RENEWABLE ENERGY First things first, make sure your home is well-insulated.

An un-insulated home can lose as much as a quarter of its heat through the roof so think about insulating your loft with a sustainable option like 100% sheep’s wool. With solar panels, wind turbines, solar water heating, air and ground source heat pumps there are multiple ways to generate heat and electricity at home, but it can be difficult to work out what’s right for your property and conscience. Talk to The Energy Saving Trust for expert advice on how best to choose and install renewables.

Woodburners are one of the most chic heating options and are surprisingly eco-friendly, too, as burning wood remains largely carbon neutral (the CO2 absorbed as young trees grow, compensates for that released by burning).

© SHUTTERSTOCK

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FROM THE GROUND UP Whether you’re building a new house or renovating an older property, architects have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips. From basic building materials to final furnishings, get advice from the eco experts. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) offers ‘Ask an Architect’ sessions at various locations around the country including Bristol, Liverpool and London, giving homeowners the opportunity to get face-to-face advice from local architects.

BY LOTTIE STOREY

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© SHUTTERSTOCK

GREEN LIVING

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GARDEN Outdoor spaces vary hugely in size but just the briefest of Pinterest browses will yield surprising ideas for growing your own in the smallest of spaces. Planting fruit trees or bee-friendly plants are baby steps with big results (and don’t require you to go slug-spotting by torch light). No garden?

No problem. You can get green-fingered from the comfort of your sofa with Seed Pantry’s smart pods - just a windowsill will do.

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FURNITURE It goes without saying that buying secondhand is vastly more sustainable than buying new. Good thing, too, as much of the character of a gorgeous home comes from a careful choice of furniture. There are some amazing stockists of reclaimed and salvaged furniture if you’re looking for something in particular, while eBay, Gumtree and Freecycle can be more like playing vintage roulette, often with surprisingly good results.

For made-to-measure sustainable furniture including beds, chemical-free, organic mattresses (Soil Association certified!), wardrobes, bookcases, dining tables and chairs, try for a company such as Green Woods Furniture. Or opt for something a little different, such as the bespoke, handmade furniture with a natural Nordic feel by Thors-Design - think tables and benches made using century-old wood from decommissioned Danish wharves. For the most purse-friendly of options keep an eye out for bits and pieces poking out of skips or even left on the street. And don’t be afraid to make your mark by adapting what you find - upcycling is fun.

7

WHITE GOODS Most white goods now come with eco ratings, making it easy to choose the least power-hungry options for your home. Where possible, fix broken appliances rather than replacing them, and don’t forget what’s inside. Choose local, organic food for the fridge (try a weekly veg box), wash your clothes with eco-friendly laundry liquid, and go natural when it comes to cleaning products (Ecover and Method are

©LITTLE GREENE

PAINT Most paint companies have reduced VOCs in their products, which means picking an eco-friendly colour for your home is easier than ever. Some paints are greener than others, however, so for an eco option with a high-end finish choose designer favourites Farrow & Ball or The Little Greene Paint Company. For VOC-free paints, try Earthborn who hold the first EU Ecolabel licence of any paint company in the UK. And for the greenest of the green, go with Auro whose 99% natural paint is so pure it can be composted!

top brands). Plus, pop a Hippo water saver inside the cistern to reduce the amount needed to flush your loo.

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LIGHTING There are as many decorative lighting options available as there are eco bulbs to power them. The Madrid-based PET Lamp Studio took their basic lampshade structure to partners in Ethiopia, Chile and Colombia, each of whom applied their own traditional designs resulting in colourful, culture-specific lampshades. But don’t underestimate your own DIY skills when it comes to lampshades - professionallooking drum lampshades can be made in just a few hours (search the web for a workshop near you), while there are countless online tutorials for making shades from paper, cardboard and other household recyclables - peruse Pinterest for the best.

(top left) Fresher, tastier and brighter, homegrown veggies are best. (above) Here the walls are papered in Wilton wallpaper in Sovereign, £66.50 per roll. The white woodwork is painted in Shirting 129 Intelligent Eggshell and the blue woodwork is painted in Deep Space Blue 207 Intelligent Eggshell. Cost is £53 for 2.5 litres Intelligent Eggshell and £26 for 1 litre from littlegreene.com

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SOFT FURNISHINGS Rugs are the easiest way to warm those beautiful reclaimed floorboards. The Re Rag Rug Project designs and makes experimental handmade rugs using waste materials considered worthless by the textile industry. And keep that well-earned heat inside with thick, lined curtains!

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©PET LAMP

PET Lamps exhibited at VitraHaus, Germany petlamp.org

© DECORATOR'S NOTEBOOK

Strong and stylish, this braided basket was produced, by hand, in a small workshop in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Bangladesh. £39, decoratorsnotebook. co.uk

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FINISHING TOUCHES And finally, it’s the little details that can really pull a home together. Plan your knick knack shopping with care - try Decorator’s Notebook for ethical homeware that supports artisans around the world or Folksy for independent makers closer to home. Try applying the same ethos to craft markets as you do to food - feast your eyes on beautiful ceramics picked up from markets or treat your perfectly painted walls to a satisfyingly local work of art.

Sustainably stylish, these ten top tips will transform a worthy wishlist into a chic shopping adventure - what you gain in green you also gain in sheen.

Your little green book RIBA: architecture.com Reclaimed Flooring Company: reclaimedflooringco.com Bamboo flooring: ecotimber.com Bert & May: bertandmay.com Alternative Flooring: alternativeflooring.com The Energy Saving Trust: energysavingtrust.org.uk Seed Pantry: seedpantry.co.uk Farrow & Ball: farrow-ball.com The Little Greene Paint Company: littlegreene.com Earthborn: earthbornpaints.co.uk Auro: auro.co.uk eBay: ebay.co.uk Gumtree: gumtree.com Freecycle: freecycle.org Green Woods Furniture: greenwoodsfurniture.co.uk Thora-Design: thors-design.com Ecover: ecover.com Method: methodproducts.co.uk Hippo: hippo-the-watersaver.co.uk PET Lamp Studio: petlamp.org Lightbulbs Direct: lightbulbs-direct.com Pinterest: pinterest.com Re Rag Rug: brieditis-evans.se Decorator’s Notebook: decoratorsnotebook.co.uk Folksy: folksy.com

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© JASON BRYANT R#1_P.54-59 [Salvage Yard]AIFADH.indd 1

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SALVAGE

Finders

Keepers IT’S EASY TO SPEND AN ENTIRE DAY HUNTING FOR TREASURE AT WELLS RECLAMATION IN SOMERSET, ONE OF BRITAIN’S TOP RECLAMATION YARDS. �eclaim’s JANE COMMON DOES JUST THAT - AND MAKES A WEEKEND OF IT BY

CHECKING INTO STON EASTON PARK, A COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL WITH A FEW SALVAGED SECRETS OF ITS OWN

(left) Owner Haydn Davies set up Wells in 1985.

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Wells Watch

Haydn’s military background is displayed in some of the choices of pieces so there are tanks, a Bloodhound surface to air missile and nose cone covers from Tornado jet fighters. As for the yellow submarines: ‘We had four from the Royal Navy but two have sold. One of them discovered the Mary Rose but, unfortunately, I don’t know which.’

Wells Reclamation isn’t just about the big and the bold, though. There’s an indoor emporium selling more traditional

© JASON BRYANT

© JASON BRYANT

Great for: Items for decorating your garden or venue, building materials and masses of quirky pieces.

From a cast iron snail and pizza paddle board to a wooden toboggan, it’s all here.

Favourite find: Has to be the giant cockerel.

ppropr iately enoug h for a salvage yard that’s just down the road from the site of the Glastonbury festival, visiting Wel l s Recla mat ion for t he afternoon provides something of a psychedelic experience – no mind-altering drugs required.

There are yellow submarines; a ten-foot high cockerel; a massive statue of Mick Jagger as The Thinker; horses with fibre and muscle made of metal rope and, most terrifying of all for any revellers who have stumbled in to the yard on their way home from a wild weekend at the festival, a larger than life wild boar with glistening metal spikes.

My mind’s well and truly blown by this visual feast and the only drug I’ve imbibed is caffeine – as for my little dog Attlee, who has accompanied me on my weekend away in Somerset, his hackles raise in preparation for a scrap with the boar.

So it comes as no surprise when Haydn Davies, who set up Wells Reclamation in 1985 and now runs it as a family business, says that he lends artefacts to Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis every year.

‘We are two businesses five miles apart so I said to Michael: ‘Give me tickets to the festival and I’ll lend you some stuff,’’ Haydn says. ‘Now he sends his manager down here before Glastonbury and he picks what he likes – he tends to take bulls and things that relate to the dairy herd. In return I get five tickets to the festival and that gains me a lot of friends. I give them away, though – I don’t go because my family don’t consider me cultured enough!’

I’m not sure about that. Haydn started Wells Reclamation when he left the army – he says he’s always appreciated the ‘romance of old stuff’ – and now travels the world picking up pieces to bring home to his five-and-a-half acre yard. He visits the Ukraine, Russia, China, India and France and takes in 80 tonnes of salvage a month.

‘We pay commercial rates to the tune of what Tesco pays so we have to make this ground sweat,’ he laughs.

© JASON BRYANT

Pick up a quirky garden ornament at Wells Reclamation.

SALVAGE

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fare – antique furniture among it. I spot a lovely Georgian mahogany games table and a G-Plan teak sideboard.

‘I love the old furniture,’ Haydn’s wife Margaret tells me and indeed the emporium is her domain. ‘We get so many young people in and it’s wonderful that they appreciate the antique pieces too.’

As for Haydn, apart from his love of military memorabilia, he appreciates the stone work.

‘I enjoy stone in its natural form – the Seven Wonders of the World were all made of stone,’ he says. ‘Whether it’s flag stones or gate posts – if it’s weathered and it’s got a fair few Christmases on it then, to me, it’s lovely. Stone floors are popular at the moment and proper old-fashioned roof tiles.

We’re selling a lot of them right now.’

I suspect, though, that what Haydn really enjoys is chatting – and he readily admits it.

‘I like people,’ he nods. ‘It’s amazing the stories I hear in a place like this. We have celebrities in too – I don’t know who most of them are – but we had the Gallagher brothers and I did know them. They bought some statues.’

If I had the Gallagher brothers’ wealth I know exactly what I’d plump for – the cockerel. I can just picture him in my back garden in South East London and Attlee would think all his Christmases had come at once if he had such a colossus to lift his leg against every day...

‘WE ARE TWO BUSINESSES FIVE MILES APART SO I SAID TO MICHAEL– GIVE ME TICKETS TO GLASTONBURY AND I’LL LEND YOU SOME STUFF.’

(far left) Wells is well stocked with obscure military items. (left) How about a mermaid for your front lawn? (right) A stone dog on a plinth available at Wells; the perfect guard dog.

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© STON EASTON © STON EASTON

© STON EASTON

(above) The servants’ dining area at Ston Easton. (right) The eerie ‘Staff Painting’.

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SALVAGE

The grand entrance to Ston Easton House Hotel, just ten miles away from Wells.

A STAY AT STON EASTON PARK After an afternoon strolling around Wells Reclamation, it’s time for something different entirely – a stay in Ston Easton Park, a country house hotel ten miles drive away. Wells is all about the fairground colour and fiesta, whereas Ston Easton is the polar opposite – a splendid manor in which to relax and unwind in elegant but genteel surrounds. Combining the two for a weekend makes for a good mix – a bit like the gin and tonic I sip in the mahogany bookcase-lined library at Ston Easton come to think of it. And the two places have one aspect in common – reclamation. For, just like a down on its luck piece of old furniture that has been lovingly upcycled to forge a whole new life, Ston Easton had a few troubled times before becoming the high-end hotel it is today.

A place of dwelling since the Tudor era, it was in the 1700s that Ston Easton emerged as the Palladian mansion that greets visitors at the end of a sweeping drive today. Over the centuries it was home to grand families, welcomed royalty – and its garage housed the first motor car in Somerset. But, in the 1950s, after the family that had owned it for generations had to sell up to pay death duties, its treasures were sold at auction and, derelict, it fell victim to vandals who looted brass-ware and stripped lead from the roof. In 1958 it was even threatened with being razed to the ground to make way for the A37!

But salvation came in 1964 when it was purchased

by William Rees-Mogg who, one could say, upcycled it, scrubbing it up, securing the structure and tracking down many of the treasures that had been sold at auction. (ReesMogg’s son Jacob, who spent a large part of his childhood at Ston Easton, is now MP for the area and recently gave a talk at the hotel about growing up there.)

It wasn’t until 1982, however, and under new ownership, that the house’s new role as a hotel began and now it’s one of the finest in the land – so alluring it even has a helipad for busy city execs fleeing to the countryside for the weekend. And doesn’t that potted history sum up the joy of reclamation? Finding something down on its uppers – be that an old wooden chair on the roadside or a derelict Palladian mansion in Somerset – and watching it rise, phoenix-like, from the flames to become something wonderful again.

z

Kat Bowhay is events coordinator at Ston Easton Park and gives regular history tours of the house. I ask her which of its antiques is her favourite and she tells me a story of a painting that was sold in the 1956 auction – and then recovered the year Ston Easton became a hotel.

‘We have a ghost story here,’ Kat says. ‘This picture – it’s called ‘Staff Painting’ – which hangs in our Yellow Dining Room tells the tale. It shows servants from many years ago – a maid, a head housekeeper, a gardener and a bailiff.

According to the rumours, the maid was married to the gardener but fell in love with the bailiff. The housekeeper found them kissing and went mad – their relationship was bringing shame on the house. So she killed the maid and dragged her body up into the roof to hide it. But a few months later, so the story goes, the maid’s body was discovered when her blood dripped down into the master bedroom below and now she’s supposed to haunt the house. Anyway, this painting was commissioned in 1770 by one of the Hippisley family, who owned the house for four centuries, to recount that story and it hung at Ston Easton Park until 1956, when

Reclaim and Relax

all the contents of the house were sold at auction. But the local man who bought it left it to the house in his will – he returned it, I suppose, which was amazing – and when he died in 1982 it came home.’

‘Staff Painting’ isn’t Ston Easton’s only nod towards the lives of the servants of grand houses like this, though – below stairs (literally, below stairs) there’s a perfectly preserved Edwardian kitchen; a maids’ room and the servants’ dining area. For fans of Downton Abbey like me it’s a familiar scene and as I have a nose in the kitchen – available to hire for private dining – I half expect Mrs Patmore to return from an errand in the village and scold me for idling in her domain.

Wells Reclamation Company Ltd, Coxley, Wells, Somerset, BA5 1RQ 01749 677087 wellsreclamation. com Ston Easton Park, Nr. Bath, Somerset, BA3 4DF 01761 241631 stoneaston.co.uk l Prices start from £149 per night for the classic bedrooms.

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Attlee, of course, isn’t interested in all this upstairs downstairs nonsense – he just wants to strike out and explore the 36 acres of grounds with Oscar the Cocker Spaniel, Ston Easton’s maître d’og. An affable chap Oscar is too as he takes us for a tour of his turf but then any self respecting Rover would exert bragging and wagging rights over this place – there’s a tennis court and croquet lawn, a fine expanse of parkland leading to a Weeping Willow lined river and a folly tucked away down a wooded path. There’s also a Victorian Kitchen Garden which supplies 60% of the hotel’s fare and it’s in there that I spot something that Haydn, in his junkyard just down the road, would most heartily approve of – a little vintage tractor. Kat reassures me it works – it certainly provides a photo opportunity for the dogs – and I can quite picture it in my garden, next to the giant cockerel. What an inspiring weekend this has been – my garden gnomes had better watch out!

‘THE HOUSEKEEPER FOUND THEM KISSING AND WENT MAD – THEIR RELATIONSHIP WAS BRINGING SHAME ON THE HOUSE.’

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THE INTERVIEW

SALVAGE

SISTER

THE

QUEEN OF UPCYCLING, TV PRESENTER AND DESIGNER CHARIS WILLIAMS RECENTLY GRACED THE SCREEN IN C4’S KIRSTIE ALLSOPP’S FILL YOUR HOUSE FOR FREE. OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE SALVAGE SISTER, HERE SHE SHARES HER RE-USE EXPERTISE WITH �eclaim IMAGES OF CHARIS WILLIAMS BY STUART GRIMWOOD

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THE INTERVIEW

Charis created this usherette for Mathers, the ice-cream parlour.

What is it about salvage and upcycling that excites you?

I get a real kick out of salvage and reclamation. It’s the excitement of finding treasure that has a story to tell, that is unusual and beautiful and that has been overlooked by everyone else. Plus the money saving aspect, and the fact that I’m saving a valuable resource from landfill that no one else will have.

When did your interest in salvage & upcycling begin?

My life was all about thrift, salvage and sourcing vintage items from a very early age. I was born into it. I’m from a working class background, and we didn’t have the means to go out and buy new, not the quality we wanted at least.

My mother loves a bargain, so we would go around all the boot sales in Brighton every Sunday looking for good quality vintage clothes and accessories for her fancy dress hire shop, and also for school clothes for us and anything else we needed. I don’t remember ever going to high street shops as a child, unless they were charity shops!

My father grew up during the Second World War and he remembers the rationing well: not being able to just go out and buy what you wanted. Everything was rationed, from fabric to food. Because of this he absolutely hates waste of any kind. My sister and I thought we were being deprived as teenagers when he would limit us to one toilet roll a week between us, and time us in the shower! But I actually think he’s right now, there is far too much waste in the world and we need to teach our children not to waste resources, starting at home.

I also remember my dad taking things home from the local dump and picking through skips for pieces of wood he could use in his work or around the home. He was always fixing something up with parts of something else that weren’t necessarily made for the task, yet functioned perfectly. Once he made an in-roof TV aerial out a piece of 2x2 wood he found in the sea and some bailing wire. I guess it stuck!

How did you career as the Salvage Sister begin?

I’ve always been a creative and artistic person who hates waste, so in 2008, after doing some research into construction waste, I set up Britain’s first ‘re-use’ reclamation yard in Brighton. Our yard differed from most others as it not only dealt in old and rare architectural salvage with a high monetary value, we also offered a free collection for unwanted brand new building materials. Because of our pioneering scheme we received a lot of media coverage and that meant that TV production companies became interested in us. When one of the production teams came to the yard to film they saw some of my work and asked me to present The New Reclaimers, a home makeover show about renovating and refurbishing on UKTV Home, where we often upcycled pieces. It was a great feeling giving people inspiration and motivation to try these projects themselves, saving them money and making their homes unique and I have never looked back! I run my own company now which creates bespoke pieces for homes and

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Which upcycled piece is your favourite?

I love working with reclaimed wood and mannequins, so my ‘clockwork orange’ mannequin lamp, which uses a removable vintage bowler hat as the shade, is one of my all time faves!

I’ve also made an usherette inspired display unit for Mathers Ices, which is a retro ice cream parlour in Brighton. I’d had the idea for a while but was looking for the right opportunity to come along. The owner was so pleased with the display that he re-commissioned me to make an art deco mirror frame out of reclaimed barn cladding to match. Recently I built a mobile bar out of pallets and scaffolding boards for The Beach House in Worthing, which completely folds up to go in a car! I’m at my best when I have to really think about how something will work and what materials would work best and I have to overcome problems. The mobile bar ticked all these boxes; it had to be large and sturdy when erected, had to look like a cool rustic bar that would entice customers, plus it had to be moved easily from one city to the next and from festival to festival.

Tell us about your workshop.

I built my workshop on my own from free scrap and salvage I had collected. The main frame and base is constructed from pallets and fence posts, the damp proofing is out-of-date vinyl advertising banners and I stuffed the cavity with insulation from a demolition site. All the boarding, the electrics, plug sockets, lights, everything is reclaimed and salvaged. It didn’t even take me long to gather – which just goes to show how much waste is happening all around us.

What are your tips for salvage hunting?

My top tip for salvage hunting would be to keep your eyes peeled at all times! You can find useful materials everywhere, at road sides, in skips, building sites, ilovefreegle.org, freecycle.org, the ‘Trash Nothing!’ app, your local classified free ads, ‘Free’ Facebook groups for your area, maybe your friends, family or neighbours that are having a clear out or having work done, and your local wood recycling store. You can find washed up pieces on beaches too. My dad has even found salvage on the seabed when diving - we still have an ancient Greek vase with barnacles all over it that he found on holiday!

Is there a project a novice upcycler could try?

There are loads of things you can do for a first time salvage and upcycle project. You could find an old wooden window, and paint the glass with glass adhering blackboard paint and hang it on your wall in the kitchen for your shopping list. If the glass is broken you could remove it and attach chicken wire across the back of the frame and use little pegs to attach memos and notes. Or maybe, if you find a nice old rustic chunk of wood, you could attach hooks and put it on the wall for your keys. Pallets are easily available and can be turned into a range of items from coffee tables to planters and shelves. I let my salvage do the talking. When I find a piece I think about what it lends itself to and go from there. You can look at my website and follow me on social media for lots of ideas, hints and tips.

‘MY TOP TIP FOR SALVAGE HUNTING WOULD BE TO KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED. YOU CAN FIND MATERIALS EVERYWHERE!’

businesses made from reclaimed and salvaged materials and have an online shop where customers can order my upcycled pieces at salvagesister.co.uk

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(top & middle) The mobile bar that Charis built out of scaffolding for The Beach House, Worthing. (bottom) Some amazing pieces can be discovered at car boot sales.

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(top) Charis regularly rescues furniture from skips and with a little love and attention, brings them back into use. (above) A jam jar chandelier makes a striking feature light.

Find Charis online Facebook Charis Williams AKA The Salvage Sister Twitter @CharisWilliams Instagram @CharisWilliams777 salvagesister.co.uk chariswilliams.co.uk

‘UPCYCLERS ARE A WEIRD AND WONDERFUL BUNCH. WE CAN BE OVER THE MOON ABOUT FINDING A BROKEN MANNEQUIN.’

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THE INTERVIEW

What tools are essential if you want to try your hand at upcycling?

Obviously it depends what project you’re working on, as to what materials and tools you will need, however as a starting point I’d say that sandpaper, paint, paintbrushes, screw drivers, a hand saw, tape measure, beeswax and a drill are essential. As you move on you will want a staple gun, jigsaw and circular saw, grips, wood glue and a workbench.

What sort of salvage finds make you most happy?

Upcyclers are a weird and wonderful bunch. We can be absolutely over the moon about finding a beaten up piece of driftwood, or a broken mannequin, a nice chunky piece of old rope or a vintage wooden stool with questionable stains! We see the beauty and possibilities in the broken and discarded.

People who haven’t yet found the joys of upcycling do look at you like you’re completely insane when they catch you midfind, but that’s never bothered me!

You’re also an artist?

I paint portraits, murals and bespoke artwork for my clients and ship it all over the world. I paint anything from clouds on ceilings to trompe-l’oeil (the art of illusion) scenes and pet portraits. One of the strangest requests I’ve had was for a theme park who wanted me to paint 13 life-size dinosaurs in the most imaginative and thought provoking colours and patterns I could - to inspire the children that visited. I had great fun thinking up colour schemes and working with what I see in nature now to reflect how the dinosaurs may have looked then. Another time I was asked to paint a realistic cast iron fireplace onto a wall in a lounge to fool guests! You can see more of my artwork on my art website brightonwallart.co.uk.

Upcycling is trendy. Do you have to fight for your salvage?

I’ve never really had many problems when salvaging in terms of someone else grabbing what I’m grabbing. The closest I’ve ever really got to a scuffle was in Scotland when I found a stack of antique pub chairs next to a skip. There were quite a few chairs though, so they took what they could and I took what I could. In that situation neither of you has more of a right to the salvage than the other, you just have to stand your ground and be fair, treat people how you would like to be treated. At most of my usual haunts I’m now friends with the workers. I’m always kind and considerate. I find manners go a long way and taking five minutes to have a chat with the guys who work at the wood store, or the building site where I’m getting materials from can save you a lot of hard scavenging. Most of the time they’ll even text when they get something they know I’ll like.

What’s in store for the Salvage Sister in 2016?

The future is looking bright for the Salvage Sister! I have some great work coming up, including murals and bespoke salvage commissions and brand sponsorship for my businesses. I’m also waiting to hear about two potential TV programmes which will be about reclaiming, bargain hunting, salvaging and upcycling again - mixed with a whole lot of fun! It will give me another platform to showcase what can be done with ‘waste’ and to inspire others, which is what I live for. As always with TV, it all has to be top secret until the last minute, but you haven’t seen the last of the Salvage Sister… in fact this is just the beginning.

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HOW ONE CORNISH COUPLE REINVENTED THE CARAVAN AND CREATED STUNNING RECLAIMED WORKS OF ART IN THE PROCESS

Tabernacle tales

BY ANDREINA CORDANI

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UNIQUE

Each build is unique, using reclaimed treasures or vintage items.

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f you were raised on UK camping holidays, the word ‘caravan’ can be an emotive one – sometimes triggering flashbacks to cramped conditions, chipped Formica and colossal family rows. But step into one of Anna Bingham and Dan Mullaly’s creations and all those preconceptions completely vanish.

In fact you’d barely recognise it as a caravan. From the outside, it’s more like a small house, some even have little removable church spires. Inside, the neat pitched roof gives it a high ceiling, generous windows provide plenty of light and the interior is fitted top to bottom with beautiful reclaimed items lovingly restored and repurposed. Each one is different and takes the concept of glamping to a whole new level.

‘Glamping wasn’t even a word when we started our company,’ recalls Anna. Back in 2005 the couple relocated from London to Dan’s home county of Cornwall, looking for a change of pace. ‘It got to a point where we’d had all our fun living in London. We’d done it. So we had a choice – go around and do it all again or make a change in our lives. I’m a country girl at heart and we both loved the idea of living somewhere quiet and green, so we moved to Cornwall.’

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Dan had worked as a music tour manager, Anna as a lingerie designer but they soon realised that if they wanted to spend any time together they’d have to come up with something new. ‘We both had a love of classic cars and camper vans so we decided to launch a vintage-style campsite on the back of that. After doing some research online we bought a 1950s caravan and an old showman’s wagon from a fairground family in Wales. Both had been in back gardens for years and needed some love.’

Anna’s design experience and Dan’s former life as an art student came to the fore – and they had a pool of skilled workers right on their doorstep. ‘Boat builders work with wood and metal which is perfect for caravans,’ she says.

The couple’s campsite opened in 2006 and was a roaring success – when baby Victor arrived the following year they were already busy with bookings and soon the campsite became a well known local landmark. ‘People would call

‘PEOPLE WOULD CALL US AND TELL US THEY’D SEEN AN OLD CARAVAN IN A FIELD OR TO OFFER US THE ONE THEY HAD IN THEIR BACK GARDEN.’

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The gorgeous interior of a creation by Love Lane Caravans.

Imagine spending a cosy night in here complete bliss!

The door here is from Buckfast Abbey in Devon and the architrave is from a Cornish chapel.

Originally the quatrefoil shapes were filled with a copper gauze but these had discoloured, so it was removed during restoration.

The worktop and drawer fronts are reclaimed Iroko wood science benches from Camborne Tech (Now Camborne School of Mines). The 1960s nickel taps from a reclamation yard and the handles (just seen) are early Bakelite, sourced from eBay.

us and tell us they’d seen an old caravan in a field or to offer us the one they had in their back garden.’

However after a few years things started to change.

‘The raw materials started to dry up,’ says Anna. ‘We were among the first people to open a vintage-style site but as glamping became more popular, fewer suitable vans were available and parts were going up in price. Part of the problem is that when you’re restoring an old caravan you have to replace like-for-like. If we wanted to continue we would have to start thinking more creatively and making our own caravans from scratch.’

The couple toyed with a few different designs, but one afternoon in 2012, Anna was driving through the fishing village of Cadgwith Cove and caught sight of a tiny blue church. ‘Dan and I had seen it before on our walks around the area but suddenly I looked at it and thought – that’s what’s been in my head!’

The building, St Mary’s Church, was a tin tabernacle – the popular name for the small prefabricated churches built by missionaries in the 19th century. Made of corrugated iron they were simple but often charming buildings – many were put up in the UK and others were shipped all around the world. ‘There are quite a few of them in Cornwall, so I loved the idea of us adapting a common local sight to make our own design. We’d be making something new but still

keeping the vintage feel. It also meant we could take a very simple, rectangular shape and customise each one differently.’

The couple produced three prototypes for their campsite – the overall measurement of 2.55m x 5.6m meant that the tabernacles could still be legally classified as caravans and could be towed on their pneumatic tyres (albeit slowly!). It also meant that buyers didn’t need planning permission to put one in their garden. The first two caravans sold quickly and soon the couple closed the campsite to concentrate entirely on the Love Lane Caravans construction business. Now Anna spends her days searching for architectural salvage and vintage items to include in the buildings.

‘I go to junk shops, auction houses, reclamation yards and I have people looking out for things for me as well,’ she says. ‘It’s always a challenge to find the raw materials but it’s fun too. I think I’ve cleared out most of Cornwall and am working my way through Devon! Ebay changed everything for the vintage business – people are more switched-on to it which makes it harder to snap up the raw materials. Often I’ll arrive at a

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UNIQUE

‘AFTER DOING SOME RESEARCH ONLINE WE BOUGHT A 1950S CARAVAN AND AN OLD SHOWMAN’S WAGON FROM A FAIRGROUND FAMILY IN WALES.’ How about this for a home office? The Empire Studio has two enormous windows, obtained from a window museum and has been built with raw corrugated tin.

Contact Anna or Dan at lovelanecaravans. com

reclamation yard to find that they’ve already upcycled the stock themselves – sometimes not very well – and that’s not what I’m looking for at all! Still, that just pushes me to get more creative. My next plan is to cultivate friendships with builders who may be clearing the fittings from old properties.’

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There’s little room for upcycling in the exterior design but sometimes a great find can be incorporated. Their Empire Studio – which is designed more as an open studio space than as a caravan – includes windows reclaimed from an architectural museum called the Brooking National Collection and an architrave from an old chapel – another building features a door from Buckfast Abbey, Devon.

‘We’re ranging further afield all the time. Although we don’t make buying trips abroad we tend to pick things up whenever we travel – Dan picked up some art nouveau candle holders in Berlin and we recently brought a confessional booth back from Utrecht in the Netherlands which is still in our workshop waiting for the right project.

‘Different clients approach us with different ideas. Some will say ‘I’ve found this vintage wallpaper I want you to

include’ and everything else we find fits around it. I love that kind of challenge. Others won’t give much brief at all – they just love old things, antiques with a story. About 30 per cent are buying them as an extra outdoor space for friends and family, or many buy to rent out. But one thing all our clients have in common is that they want something unique.’

As for Anna and Dan, they couldn’t be happier, living and working in Constantine, Cornwall among the green fields.

‘We’re always happy to show people around our workshop – it’s right next to the Trengilly Wartha Inn, which visitors often find quite handy!’

Victor, now eight, takes an active part in the business – giving feedback on design, taking on cleaning duties for extra pocket money and picking up the odd piece of wood to make into a toy boat along the way. ‘If you’re the sort of person who takes on big projects, work is always going to be busy and stressful. But at least here we can go to the beach afterwards, take a breath of sea air and let it all go. And of course you have the satisfaction of making something beautiful from scratch which is something we both love to do.’ » See more tin tabernacles at www.lovelanecaravans.com

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An original poster promoting travel on the famous Montreux Oberland Bernois railway in Switzerland, one of the earliest electric railways in the country. Dating from the 1950s it’s by Samuel Henchoz (1905-1976). l £750, antikbar.co.uk

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WISHLIST

This original vintage travel advertising poster for British Railways, ‘Newquay on the Cornish Coast’, dates from 1948. Artwork is by the British painter, Harry Arthur Riley (1895-1966). l £1,950 antikbar.co.uk

By British painter Paul Nash (1889-1946), this poster, ‘Come Out To Live, Buy A Season Ticket’ dates from 1936 when Nash designed posters for London Transport. l £700, kikiwerth.com

Dating from 1937, this original vintage Great Western Railway (GWR) advertising poster promotes train travel to Devon, with artwork by Leonard Cusden (1898-1979). l £1,750 antikbar.co.uk

An original vintage railway travel advertising poster, from 1950, for Danish State Railways (DSB) with artwork by Aage Rasmussen (1913-1975). l £475, antikbar.co.uk

A poster for the world’s smallest public railway, which comes with a letter from a station master stating that it was found in the attic during building work. It dates from 1929, by the artist N Cramer Roberts. l £1,500, antikbar.co.uk

Ticket to ride

Vibrant, enticing and capturing a moment in time, original advertising and promotional rail posters are highly collectible.

Whether to enjoy as a work of art, a reminder of a bygone era, or to consider as an investment, enjoy these classics...

Unsigned but possibly by Alan Durman (1905-1963) this ‘Choose Ramsgate’ poster dates from 1961. l £300, originalrailwayposters. co.uk

By artist Lance Harry Mosse Cattermole (1898-1992), this original ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England’ poster dates from the 1950s.

Cattermole produced many posters for British Railways. l £425, originalrailwayposters.co.uk

Dating from 1951, this original ‘See Britain by Train’ poster is

by Abram Games (1914-1996). l £1100, kikiwerth.com

This 1959 poster ‘Dover - Go By Train’ is by artist Frederick Griffin (1906-1976), who produced a range of commercial work for British Railways, British Overseas Airways Corporation and shipping firms. l £300, originalrailwayposters.co.uk

Believed to be from the late 1950s, early 1960s, this poster ‘Torquay - Queen of The English Riviera’ is by Xenia. l £450, originalrailwayposters.co.uk

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BLADES OF GLORY JAY BLADES, 45, WAS THE FORCE BEHIND OUT OF THE DARK, A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE THAT HELPED DISADVANTAGED YOUNG PEOPLE THROUGH TEACHING THEM CRAFTSMANSHIP AND FURNITURE-RESTORING SKILLS. NOW HE’S SETTING UP A SIMILAR PROJECT – JAY & CO – IN WOLVERHAMPTON. HERE, JANE COMMON FINDS OUT MORE

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INSPIRE

Jay’s studio is in Wolverhampton, where the town’s motto is ‘out of darkness cometh light’.

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INSPIRE

Where does your love of furniture come from Jay? I’ve always had a flair for using furniture cleverly – growing up I didn’t have much money so I got creative, using milk crates as record holders and bricks to hang up my clothes.

I always had an old piece of furniture in the back garden, halfway through being scrubbed up.

Where did you learn upholstery?

I was taught by master craftsmen and women – my oldest teacher was 92 and she taught me how to do caning. Then I was taught traditional upholstery by the guys that do all of the Ralph Lauren furniture – Greengate in High Wycombe.

Modern upholstery is quite simple; cut a bit of foam and sew in around that.

Why did you choose High Wycombe to start your first social enterprise and what’s the attraction of Wolverhampton for your second?

High Wycombe used to be the furniture capital of Britain.

Ercol was based there and it’s where the original Windsor chair came from. It should have been called the High Wycombe chair really but I think the manufacturer thought Windsor sounded grander!

As for Wolverhampton, there’s a lot of deprivation there, which creates a real need for this kind of community project.

But Wolverhampton and the Black Country have a strong manufacturing base and I want to be part of reviving that.

Japanning, for example – applying black lacquer to pieces– started in Wolverhampton and then was actually exported to Japan.

I’ve found a great studio in Wolverhampton, based in a centre that’s becoming a creative hub for students and local community members setting up businesses. It’s a good fit with what I do.

Also I’ve just discovered that Wolverhampton’s town motto is ‘out of darkness cometh light’ and as my previous incarnation was called Out of the Dark there seems to be a symmetry there.

What do the young people get through their involvement with Jay & Co? Some young people I meet along the way, others are referred to me by schools and social services. I don’t tell them I’m going to teach them how to restore furniture because that sounds a bit dry. Instead, I tell them I’ll show them how to make money from nothing.

We find a piece of furniture – the best treasure chests are people’s garages – and together we fix it up so they learn painting, craft and restoration. Then, when the piece is finished, I show them how to photograph and market it to sell to the right customer. We mainly do pieces by commission but we’ve sold through West Elm and in Heals and there are many exciting projects coming up.

The money we receive for the furniture goes into making the social enterprise sustainable so that’s paying our rent and buying materials – the kids are all paid by salary.

Jay was taught by master craftsmen and women.

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The G Plan Chair Someone saw me on the programme Money for Nothing and he had a lot of furniture in an old warehouse next to a massive car park for Audi and BMWs and he asked me to have a look. So there are all these cars worth millions and then all this old junk!

But I found a G Plan chair that was a gem – it has perfect shape and form and is an ultimate winner. There’s no way of going wrong with it – apart from giving it the wrong fabric, which would be criminal.

I reupholstered it with light beige wool at the back and dark grey at the front, along with a grey cushion. I painted the legs all black apart from one, which is red. And I’ve sewn a red button at the back that’s the same colour as that one leg.

It took us a week to restore and we’ve already got two customers for it. Whoever gets it will be very lucky – it’s the governor. And this is what I love about what we do – creating total one-offs. There’s no other chair that looks like this one in the whole world.

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‘I DON’T TELL THEM I’M GOING TO TEACH THEM HOW TO RESTORE FURNITURE BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS A BIT DRY. INSTEAD, I TELL THEM I’LL SHOW THEM HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM NOTHING.’

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INSPIRE

The Wheelback Chair This chair was one of eight found on a roadside – we did them all up but this was the best. It was different from the others as it had a crack on the seat but that’s what makes it so unique – we had to put fabric on the seat and none of the others have that. The paint is Dulux Minted Glory; the fabric is curtains from Oxfam and I’ve created the socks to show the original wood. I like to leave an element of history in my pieces and with this chair it’s there in those socks.

What’s your favourite piece you’ve ever restored?

I haven’t created it yet – well, there’s a chair I’m working on at the moment that’s ‘wow’. And I recently did three Ercol chairs that were a bit out of this world. A lot of it is to do with the painting – making it unique. When the whole upcycling trend began people painted chairs in one or maybe two colours – that’s what I used to do but I have to keep innovating and moving. I like pushing myself and coming up with styles which are new and exciting.

How do you get your ideas?

Just living my life and opening my eyes, really – I might see a child holding a sweet and two colours will come together and that’s an idea. Recently I’ve been watching telly for inspiration.

I don’t watch a lot but there are so many colours on there and I find it quite hypnotic. And when working on a piece I always consider its history and respect that in the way I restore it.

What techniques would you suggest to give new life to old furniture?

Buy stuff in charity shops and I say that for two reasons: one, you’re supporting a local charity and two, there are always great finds in there. It’s getting harder to find stuff on the roadside these days due to the upcycling trend but charity shops are still good and car boot sales can be as well.

When it comes to painting the object, either use chalk paint; you don’t need to sand it, or rub the wood down and then apply a primer - and this is the method I prefer. Generally, I give a chair between six and eight layers of paint and varnish.

And you’ve now got a busy television career as well?

That all came about from a short video I did – it got 70,000 views and through that I met Kirstie Allsopp and was on Kirstie’s Homemade Home. I like doing television – it’s quite exciting at times although there’s a lot of waiting around.

But mainly it’s a means to an end as it gets publicity for my projects and, ultimately, helps the kids.

Find Jay online Facebook Jay & Co Twitter @Jay_n_Co Instagram jay_n_co jayand.co

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PROPERTY

the

Butterfly House J

VOEWOOD, BUILT IN 1905, IS ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S FINEST ARTS AND CRAFTS HOUSES. DESIGNED AS A PRIVATE HOME, IT SPENT NEARLY 100 YEARS AS A SERIES OF INSTITUTIONS UNTIL RARE BOOK DEALER SIMON FINCH RESTORED IT AND BROUGHT IT ALIVE

© BENJAMIN MATHERS

BY LINDSAY CALDER

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PROPERTY

The ‘sunken’ gardens were a result of the quarrying of material from the site for the building of the house. The layout of the gardens has been little changed since they were first planned. The flint covered pillars would have originally been topped with wooden pergolas but they were apparently far too low and were thus soon removed. These areas were then apparently used when the house was a boys’ school before the First World War, as stages for performances.

© SOPHIE MUTEVELIAN

n late Victorian Britain revolution was in the air. In the midst of the industrial age, with mass production and little regard for craftsmanship, a new approach to design was emerging, to be known as the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Designers, architects and artists turned to traditional skills, pioneering the idea that the home should be a work of art, however ordinary your life was.

At the movement’s heart was simplicity and an appreciation of well-made objects.

Designs for furniture were more organic, inspired by nature, folk art and the medieval. Typical of the period are chairs with rush seats, oak tables with cut out hearts, copper mirrors with Celtic motifs.

If there was one golden rule for kitting out your Arts and Crafts home, it was summed up by William Morris: ‘Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’.

Buildings were designed on the same principle - soundly constructed, with attention to detail, but never ostentatious.

A combination of unvarnished wood, stained glass and natural stone created mellow, harmonious interiors.

Even the very footprint of a house could look to nature, with butterfly or X-plan houses, designed with two wings at an angle, like a wide embrace.

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Perhaps the most stunning example of a butterfly plan house is Voewood in Norfolk, built between 1903 and 1905 by the architect Edward S. Prior for the Reverend Percy Lloyd.

Constructed using stone and flint excavated from the site hence the sunken garden - it manages to be both rustic and gently grand.

The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner later described it as ‘by far the most interesting building in this part of Norfolk... a violently idiosyncratic house reminiscent of Gaudi’.

But Mrs Lloyd didn’t like the house that Percy built and they never moved in. Instead Voewood spent nearly 100 years as a series of institutions, including a boys’ school and various convalescent homes.

It was rare book dealer Simon Finch - someone Pevsner might equally have described as idiosyncratic - who finally made the house a home.

In 1998, Finch was at a friend’s house, idly flicking through a glossy property magazine. He wasn’t looking to buy somewhere but was struck immediately by the look of Voewood.

In its latest incarnation the house was a home for the elderly and it was years since the original name Voewood had been used. Much to Finch’s amusement, it was called Thornfield Hall - Edward Rochester’s home in Jane Eyre. ‘So it had to be changed from that!’ he says.

You couldn’t see the house from the road - a huge part of its appeal - and then as you turned up the drive, there it was, still standing proud despite an inevitable sun lounge tacked on to the front. There were still residents in the home, so Finch needed to use all his imagination to envisage the Voewood that Prior had intended.

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Š SOPHIE MUTEVELIAN

The main entrance of Voewood. Check out the chimneys, every single one of them is slightly different.

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ŠCHRISTAYLORINTERIORS.CO.UK

This impressive table is in the Dining Room. The curtains are velvet, embroidered with butterflies and moths in silks, velvets, lace and beadwork. They were created as a collaboration between Annabel Grey and textile artist Kirsten Hecktermann.

The rug is modern but was made to a design by Charles Voysey.

(right) A beautiful space, the office at Voewood tells a thousand stories. Have a look at the painting of a fireplace leaning up against the fireplace. Quirky and playful interior design.

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PROPERTY

‘IT’S DEFINITELY A ONE-OFF. THE TILES, THE FLINT WORK AND THE CHIMNEYS ARE QUITE EXTRAORDINARY.’

‘It was one of the most extraordinary houses I’d seen,’ he says. ‘It was obvious that it was a beautiful house that just needed to get rid of the institutionalisation of nearly 100 years. The structure is so fantastic so you can’t really get away from that. It’s definitely a one-off - the tiles, the flint work and the chimneys are quite extraordinary.’

Despite the sun lounge, the bathrooms, the institutional kitchen, all the wall partitioning and the lift that had been installed, the house was a love punch for Finch: ‘I had my son Jack with me and our young puppy. I was so obsessed with the house that I left the puppy behind.’

The house and gardens are Grade II* listed. Wasn’t he daunted? Never mind the expense.

‘I was only going to restore it to the house it once was, so when it came to dealing with the grading I was a good guy. I didn’t want to mess with it in any way,’ explains Finch.

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He had built a house in London - a modern glass and concrete end of terrace on Portobello Road which was ‘quite an undertaking’ - and as a result he felt like he could do any project. ‘My experience was that if you bought a really good house you could always sell it on. Like buying rare books,’ he says. ‘With Voewood I thought, I’ll do up a couple of rooms at a time and see how it creeps along. I had no plan.’

Finch got the keys to Voewood in September 1998 and the first thing he did was tackle the ‘hideous’ sun lounge.

‘I definitely took part in the taking down of that!’ he laughs. ‘Then it was removing the lift from the main hall, which meant quite a bit of work to rectify the damage.’

He found there was no shortage of talent for the restoration work: ‘There are a lot of very good local craftsmen in the area and as it’s a relatively small community in Norfolk you get to

©CHRISTAYLORINTERIORS.CO.UK

Simon Finch

hear who’s good pretty quickly.’

The original oak internal doors had disappeared over the years and been replaced by fire doors, so with the help of old photographs Finch commissioned a local carpenter to replicate them.

There were pleasant surprises: the original parquet flooring - some of which had been covered by carpet - was in amazing condition. But still, it was an enormous project, with 30 rooms to work on.

For the six bathrooms Finch bought a job lot of French claw-footed tubs from a brocante in France. A friend spotted them and asked if he wanted them, so they were packed up and sent over to be re-enamelled.

Voewood, which has 15 bedrooms, can be rented out in its entirety for weddings, so Finch lives in a coach house in the grounds, staying in the main house when he hosts friends there.

During the early years though, he effectively camped at

The prints to either side of the vintage disco ball in the Main Hall are by Anthony Benjamin with African tribal shields and an antique stuffed Hartebeest above.

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‘HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSE THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE USEFUL OR BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL.’ William Morris

This is the chill-out room where you can gaze at the Jimi Hendrix poster, which is a very rare Big ‘O’ edition Martin Sharp poster known as ‘Exploding Hendrix’.

the house, coming up from London at weekends and setting his mind to filling the interior while working closely with textile designer Annabel Grey.

‘I gave Annabel and other artists quite free reign, talking through ideas and going for it. Annabel, who I’ve known for years, wanted to do wall and floor mosaics which I’m thrilled with. She also collaborated with Kirsten Hecktermann to create the amazing appliquéd and embroidered butterfly curtains in the dining room.’

Finch’s part was buying art and furniture and putting it all together. ‘There was no plan,’ he admits. ‘Just thinking it would look quite good in the house somewhere, but not knowing where.’

Hence Lew Grade’s piano. Finch was buying the media mogul’s library after he died and asked if he could buy the baby grand Steinway as well. He is more a guitar man than keyboard, but the piano ‘gets played lots by other people’.

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Instead of filling Voewood with pieces of furniture from the period and replicating historically correct paint colours, Finch has taken a different approach.

‘I’ve bought some nice Voysey-esque chairs, a William

Birch settle and some pottery but nothing earth-shattering.

It could have been incredibly beautiful to go down the purist Arts and Crafts route. But it would have been much more expensive and rigorous - and less fun.’

Fun is the right word. Voewood is full of the unexpected.

There is a collection of butterflies, sold as excess material from the Natural History Museum, a pair of stuffed swans from a flat in Belgrave Square (spotted when he was buying the library there) and even a glinting disco ball.

The art is surprising too...

Hanging in the downstairs loo is a drawing Damien Hirst sent to Finch. It’s a ‘cock on a coffin’ says Finch, explaining that Hirst drew it in response to Finch’s book catalogue on sex and death entitled Coming and Going.

In the dining room, a huge painting of The Last Supper dominates one wall. The Judas figure is a self-portrait of the artist, Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, known for his 1920s portraits (he painted Wallace Simpson).

From African animal skins from a house he once owned in Cape Town to a drawing of a satyr by Jean Cocteau, the incongruous and unexpected seem to work under Finch’s ‘buy what you love’ curation.

‘I’ve enjoyed doing Voewood in a non-purist way,’ he says.

‘I think it’s got life. I’m obviously a bit close to it, but people respond well to the house and what we have done to it.’

Is he a collector or a hoarder? ‘Neither,’ he insists. ‘I’m just a buyer of things. I don’t mind letting go of them either.

That’s being a dealer. I know very well that there will always be more wonderful stuff to be bought, something new, something different...’

There’s no doubt that Voewood is bursting with ‘wonderful stuff’, a house that stays true to Art and Crafts ideals.

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The walls of this bedroom are entirely hand painted by Annabel Grey, who was staying in this room whilst she was working in the house. The story goes that she was conducting all of her paint tests in one corner which Simon saw and thought looked fabulous, casually suggesting that it would be fun to do the entire room. Simon then disappeared off to South Africa for a while and when he returned she had quite literally painted the whole room, pipe-work, radiator and all!

IMAGES Š SOPHIE MUTEVELIAN

Celebrate at Voewood Voewood is an award-winning venue available for weddings, ceremonies, parties or events, with exclusive use of the house, all rooms, gardens and grounds and the use of its contents. If you would like to know more, please go to voewood.com, or call 01263 713029.

Save the Date The Voewood Decorative Arts Fair is on the 11th and 12th June 2016, with a PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association) book fair in the house on the 11th June. (left) The amazing mosaic bathroom is interior designer Annabel Grey’s handiwork. (above) This beautiful mosaic floor is also by Annabel Grey, who did a huge amount of work in the house. She created many of the hand painted designs for the curtains, pebble work and wall paintings too.

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TRICKS OF THE

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LUCY HALEY IS A PROP BUYER IN TELEVISION ART DEPARTMENTS AND OVER THE PAST SEVEN YEARS HAS WORKED ON EVERYTHING FROM ITV1’S ACCLAIMED PERIOD DRAMA MR SELFRIDGE TO BBC4’S DETECTORISTS, WITH SOME GIRLS ALOUD TOUR VISUALS ALONG THE WAY. SHE SHARED HER LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF BEST BUYS WITH �eclaim...

SUNBURY ANTIQUES MARKET, KEMPTON PARK RACE COURSE Often in television we have to hire items because of budget and time restrictions, but if we’re able to splash out and buy, Sunbury is always my first stop. Every style of furniture under the sun can be found here – from Victorian to mid-century; industrial to shabby chic and country cottage.

Before you go write a list of what you want (and try to stick to it) and set yourself a spending limit. If I’m here buying for work I have to ban myself from making personal purchases – there’s too much temptation.

Take plenty of cash too and make sure your car is empty so you can fit your finds inside. Even better, befriend someone with a van!

Start by having a very quick scoot around to get an overview of what’s on offer – it’s such a massive sale space that if you stop to look too closely at every stand you won’t make it all the way round. Vendors tend to group together with others selling similar wares so you’ll find, for example, a few stalls of beautiful rustic French garden furniture and accessories in close proximity and elsewhere, perhaps, a cluster of

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You can find every style of furniture under the sun at Sunbury Antiques Market.

sellers with antique mirrors and frames. And smaller, finer items – ceramics and textiles for example - are often in the indoor section.

Don’t be afraid to talk to the sellers – they are extremely knowledgeable and usually very chatty! If there’s something in particular you’re looking for but can’t find chances are they’ll know where to head.

Expect to barter over price too – it’s all part of the game.

It’s also worth knowing that some sellers will deliver or put you in touch with a man with a van. So, if you’ve fallen in love with a giant French farmhouse table but can’t fit it in the back of your Toyota Yaris don’t despair.

Look out for: anything French or industrial.

My best buy: a white ceramic lamp in the shape of a pineapple for £10 – you’d barely get something from Ikea at that price!

Top tip: get there at 6am – this sale requires commitment.

Then treat yourself to a cheese toastie (or two) from the toastie van mid morning. » Sunbury Antiques Market, Kempton Park Race Course, Staines Road East, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, TW16 5AQ, sunburyantiques.com The market takes place every second and last Tuesday of the month and opens at 6.30am – free admission and free car parking is available.

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Pitches here are highly sought after with some sellers – there’s a mix of traders, dealers and folk having a clear-out – queuing from the early hours of the morning to bag a top spot. The dealers don’t sell their wares cheap – we are in

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Often I’m asked to track down pristine period door furniture (knobs, locks, fingerplates etc) for work and I always visit Below Stairs of Hungerford. It’s a totally different experience to the markets and car boot sales but the quality of the stock is exquisite and all the items are beautifully restored. What’s particularly useful is that the shop often stocks runs of matching items – finding a set can be tricky with period hardware so this is a godsend.

Again, if you’re after something specific but can’t see it on display it’s worth asking – the owner, Stewart Hofgartner, has a treasure trove of items squirrelled away. Also check out the website – a good selection of the stock is listed there with clear pictures and detailed descriptions.

Look out for: beautiful bell pulls and doorknockers.

My best buy: a matching set of 12 reeded brass finger plates for the set of Mr Grove’s house in ITV1's Mr Selfridge. They looked brand new!

Top tip: make a day of it and explore Hungerford – there are several other excellent antiques shop in the town and a good little tea shop called the Tutti Pole where I had a delicious ice cream! » Below Stairs, 103 High Street, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 0NB Tel: 01488 682317, belowstairs.co.uk

(top) Below Stairs of Hungerford shop. (left) Lucy sources brass door knockers, such as this one, from Below Stairs. (above) Brass and glass interior bell pull, also from Below Stairs. © BELOW STAIRS

London, after all – but the stuff is certainly less expensive than in the vintage furniture shops in the capital. Your best chance of a bargain, though, is from local residents having a clear out – Chiswick is a well to do area so you often can pick up some good quality items for a good price.

Look out for: ceramics and decorative pieces.

My best buy: a set of old dentists’ drawers. The piece was a bit rough around the edges but it was made of beautiful solid oak and is perfect for storing make-up and toiletries.

Top tip: arrive early – parking is limited and I have spent many a morning driving around seeking a space and cursing myself for not getting out of bed earlier! » Chiswick Car Boot Sale, Chiswick School, Burlington Lane, London W4 3UN, chiswickcarbootsale.com The sale takes place on the first Sunday of every month (excluding January) from 8am to 1pm. Entrance fee £1.

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(left) Sunbury Market. (below) Lights at John Moncrieff Ltd.

For lighting and adding that finishing touch to a period home my go-to place is always jmoncrieff.co.uk. It has a huge selection of original and reproduction glass shades, all manner of bulb holders, galleries, ceiling plates and colourful cables. The team at John Moncrieff are always incredibly helpful over the phone if I’m ever unsure of the part/shade I need and deliveries are always made promptly.

When dressing a set I love to pay attention to the lighting as it can really be the crowning glory to a room and helps create mood and texture. If we’re able to dress in a good range of ‘practicals’ (what we call lamps and light fittings on set) it also gives the Director of Photography lots more options to light the shot as he or she doesn’t have to rely solely on the huge film lamps shining in from off camera.

The same applies in the home – it’s so much nicer to sit down for a cosy evening with the warm glow of some gorgeous table lamps than the glare of a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Look out for: every style of glass shade imaginable and the Art Deco style glass shades which are magnificent.

My best buy: competitively priced fabric flex in a lovely range of colours from browns and golds to create a period look to pops of colour for something more modern.

Top tip: if you pick up a bargain light fitting at one of the markets but it needs a bit of TLC, this is the place to come to buy the parts to restore it to its former glory. Do always get a qualified electrician to help update and rewire a lamp, though – it’s not worth chancing it where electricity is concerned! » John Moncrieff Ltd, Unit 5 Clashburn Rd, Bridgend Ind Estate, Kinross, Perthshire, KY13 8GB Tel: 01577 864870, jmoncrieff.co.uk

©JOHN MONCRIEFF LTD

JOHN MONCRIEFF LTD

CHARITY SHOPS – EVERY HIGH STREET AND EVERY TOWN! With all of the auction programmes on television these days a lot of people are rather savvy to the value of their unwanted items and put them straight on eBay but it’s still always worth a good old rummage in the charity shops as there may be a gem. Outside of London, in particular, there are still bargains to be had – I always enjoy charity shopping in rural villages and seaside towns as their stock tends to be more interesting. My boyfriend’s mum now helps out in the sorting office of a charity shop in Plymouth and that’s excellent news as she keeps an eye out for things I might want to buy!

Look out for: the larger charity shops that sell furniture often stock some good 1960s stuff – even the odd bit of G-Plan!

Top tip: if you’re into shabby chic there’s usually pine furniture aplenty that can be sanded, painted and distressed.

My best buy: I once found a vintage Burberry handbag for £6 in a charity shop in Goole!

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WITH THE POUND AT AN ALL TIME HIGH AGAINST THE EURO, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO HOP ACROSS THE CHANNEL AND ROOT OUT VINTAGE ITEMS TO BRING BACK HOME FOR A FRACTION OF THE PRICE. TEMPTED, BUT DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START? FLISS HOAD GIVES YOU THE LOWDOWN ON WHEN, WHERE AND HOW TO UNLOCK FRANCE’S TREASURE CHEST

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ingling with the locals at a flea market in the grounds of the imposing Château de Nexon in Limousin, the sun on my back and the scent of wood-smoke in the air, it’s easy to see how vintiquing has become a French national pastime. They certainly ‘broc and shop’ in style and it’s a trend that is fast catching on.

Due its sheer size, France has deep vintage pockets which make it easier to source treasures than in our own backyard, so what’s stopping you taking-off for a few days vintiquing, pausing for some fine food and wine along the way?

While Paris is a shoo-in for all sorts of antiques, the Luberon in Provence and the Perche in lower Normandy also have a reputation for brocante and are ideal destinations for a short break. As a rule of thumb, the north is best for industrial finds which can be transformed for the home (metal items, enamel signs, old industrial fit-outs, tools etc) while in the south, French country chic is more visible (think large wardrobes and jaunty tablecloths). But treasures are often found in places you least expect them, so keep a healthy appetite for browsing.

Open-air vide-greniers are a relaxed place to start and take place around the country over ‘le weekend’. They literally mean to ‘clear out your attic’, and since French family houses tend to pass down through generations there are some fantastic treasures to be found. Typically, whole families will set out their stall and by lunchtime share a picnic with a few glasses of wine to lubricate the affair. Dealers rub shoulders with amateurs selling all manner of antique books, quirky glassware and porcelain items such as espresso cups and saucers. Generally best for smaller household items, recent finds include eighteenth century wooden locks (EU5), a 1950s murano vase (EU10), armoire (EU20), croquet set (EU10) and a daybed (EU15).

Vide-greniers season runs from May to October and it is best to start early (often open from 7am) and get there first to snap up the bargains. There are several online listings for when and where they take place (see resources), and each commune is allowed to host two per year, which means good quality items are likely to be found. As with anywhere you travel, try to speak at least a few words of French (in the French countryside not much English is spoken) and brush up particularly on your numbers, as haggling is de rigour. A smile goes a long way.

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vide-greniers - a family affair

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A feast for the eyes, Isle-sur-laSorgue in Provence is one of the biggest centres for the antiques trade in France, with antiques markets, interior decor shops and art galleries to peruse.

Look out for decorative curiosities to transform your home or invest in bigger furniture items and courier them home.

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‘ I t pay s t o g e t l o s t i n t h e wa r r e n o f a l l e y s a n d pa s s ag e way s . t h e d e e p e r yo u g o t h e m o r e l i k e ly yo u a r e t o s t r i k e v i n tag e g o l d .’ different corners of paris

French flea markets, Marché aux Puces, are a treasure trove, and the biggest takes place year-round in Saint-Ouen, Paris (marcheauxpuces-saintouen.com). The best way to get there is to take Metro line 13 and dismount at Garibaldi, then head to the rue des Rosiers – once there, it pays to get lost in the warren of alleys and passage ways, the deeper you go the grittier it gets and the more likely you are to strike vintage gold. Around a dozen specialist markets converge at Les Puces (Serpette for quality antiques, Vernaison for bric-àbrac) and dealers trade on Fridays and Mondays, while Saturday and Sunday is open to everyone. The ambience is Notting Hill meets Camden market, and visitors range from high rollers to local families. You can find virtually everything from designer fakes through to period pieces, garden furniture, retro posters, antique maps, vinyl records (more Edith Piaf than Aerosmith) and sellers will courier purchases back home for a reasonable price.

Outside Les Puces, Paris is swimming with antiques from high-end dealers in the Carré Rive Gauche to more modest 1950s and 1970s furniture outlets. Don’t be put off by the array of choice, there are some great finds if you take your time. For maritime treasures Antic Navy (anticnavy.com) sells pieces direct from the ship breaker’s yard, while there are eclectic curiosities at E&C Antics (ec-antics.com).

During the off-season antiques and brocante shops are a better bet, and the Perche district of Orne in Normandy, (normandy-travel.co.uk), just an hour west of the capital, has a good selection serving the frequent Parisian weekenders. La Maison d’Horbé (lamaisondhorbe.com) in the picturepostcard village of La Perrière mixes tea room, restaurant and brocante under one roof, serving up delicious seared scallops alongside tisane (herbal teas) and theatrical objets d’art. A visit here is like walking into the drawing room of your favourite aunt. In the village of Bellême there are several specialist outlets including Broc’hanteuses which opened this summer selling mainly 1950s and 1970s pieces (an armchair in good condition will set you back around 200 Euros). The Saturday morning market at nearby Mortagne is ideal for people-watching while provision-hunting, and the black pudding made in the town is second to none.

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the little-known perche

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PARIS Hotel Saint Bevue (hotelsaintebeuve.com 00 331 45 48 20 07) is centrally located on a small road on the left bank, and within walking distance of the Jardin du Luxembourg and Boulevard Saint Germain. Rooms from 165 Euros per night based on two sharing.

NORMANDY Antiques expert Pietro Cossu owns Domaine de la Louveterie (domainedelalouveterie.com 00 33 233 731 163) in Moutiers au Perche which has two cottages and five rooms styled in different periods.

B&B from 99 – 185 Euros per night based on two sharing.

LIMOUSIN The 18th century Manoir la Croix de la Jugie (lajugie.co.uk 07739 413835) is a stylish eight-bedroom house (sleeps up to 21) in Saint-PriestLigoure and a good base for exploring, with vintage upcycling retreats hosted by owner and interior designer Clio Wood. Seven nights from £3,000, and upcycling weeks are £900pp (two sharing).

PROVENCE Le Moulin de Lourmarin (moulindelourmarin.com 00 33 4 90 680 669) is the luxury option in this charming outpost of the Luberon: rooms from 95 Euros per night. Or try the delightful Villa Saint-Louis (villasaintlouis.com 00 33 490 683 918) with B&B from 65 Euros.

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Where to stay

(above, left and below) The picturesque villages in the Perche district of Orne in Normandy are great for antiques and brocante shops. (far left) Chandeliers, antique chests and drawers sit beside 1950s dresses and quirky crockery in French flea markets, Marché aux Puces, held in Saint-Ouen, Paris.

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‘ Th e b r o c a n t e c a p i ta l i s I s l e -s u r-l a-s o r g u e , home to an impressive selection of antiques, art galleries and i n t e r i o r d e c o r s h o p s .'

lille and limousin

The 24-hour Lille Braderie (braderie-de-lille.fr) is a key event in the vintiquing year, and takes place annually on the first weekend of September. Over two million people visit the 10,000 stalls from 2pm on Saturday, and throughout the night bargain hunters rummage by torchlight to pick up the best finds. More carnival than carry-out, the Braderie is a great excuse to feast on moules frites washed down with a crisptasting beer. Those planning to go should book early, as accommodation sells out fast.

Further south, in the delightful backwater of Limousin, interior designer and upcycler Clio Wood offers vintiquing courses twice a year from the 18th century Manoir Croix de la Jugie, teaching guests where and how to spot a bargain and restore it. Pieces which have been stored in attics, basements, and outbuilding for years can suffer from rot, loosening of joints and woodworm (more frequent in France due to the climate) so it is important to check carefully before you buy.

One of Clio’s favourite addresses is the depot-vente Moulin de la mie (moulindelamie.com) in Saint-Priest-sous-Aixe, where people donate old items to be sold on; here she picked up a retro enamel lamp for 15 Euros, while other items range from garden tools to oil paintings, wardrobes and highquality electricals.

Further south still, if you’re keen to vintique while chasing the sun, Provence is not to be missed and the Luberon, famously written about by Peter Mayle, is a delight. The brocante capital is Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, home to an impressive selection of antiques, art galleries and interior décor shops grouped in several ‘villages’. Every weekend, a large flea market converges along the banks of the river bursting with fine fabrics, rare china, local art and vintage furniture. Take time to explore the small surrounding villages, particularly the cobbled alleys of Lourmarin which has a Friday market held under the plane trees where you can pick-up Provencal tableware alongside honey-ripe Cavaillon melons. Take coffee in the hilltop town of Gordes while admiring the views, or pop to the nearby Senanque Abbey in July to smell the acres of lavender fields.

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Useful resources brocabrac.fr Brocabrac has a mixture of local fairs, brocante and flea markets by department (the French equivalent of a county). Often there are themed markets (a cider fair, or a pig fair) to coincide and is a great day out as much as a chance to nab a bargain.

(above) Upcycler Clio Wood offers vintiquing courses at the Manoir Croix de la Jugie, an 18th century manor house, Limousin. (main image) Markets are held in the village of Lourmarin, Provence, every Friday. (below) A stall in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the brocante capital.

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vide-greniers.org To check which videgreniers are held in which area, this includes location details, times and who to call for more details.

© ORNE TOURISM

agendadesbrocantes.fr Agenda des Brocantes is a small, yellow book in most local stores which will provide a list of local markets and is a great online resource for events and listings, and can help you to plan before you go – it’s in French but easy to follow.

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‘ There’s something enchanting about reclaiming tiles and putting them to use in a new project, ready to give pleasure to a new generation.’

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BRING THE COLOUR, PATTERN AND HISTORY OF GORGEOUS VINTAGE TILES INTO YOUR HOME

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here’s something wonderful about v i ntage ceram ic ti les. They’re decorative, traditional and often intricately made, plus they hold a sense of history in their shape, design and pattern. Despite the age of many vintage and antique tiles, there are still plenty of pieces in a good condition, just waiting to be found and given a new lease of life in a home today.

(above) Patterned tiles from The Vintage Floor Tile Company.

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Ceramic tiles have a long history attached to them and have been used in a variety of eras and cultures. In the past, the use of such tiles was often associated with important buildings or structures. For example, the Egyptians used specially designed tiles to decorate the inside of pyramids. In the 13th century, monasteries, abbeys and royal palaces all had tiled floors and, similarly, during the Ottoman Empire in Turkey brightly coloured tiles with geometric style designs were commonly used to adorn the inside of highly regarded buildings, such as churches.

Decorative tiles fell out of favour from around the 16th century, but started to make a comeback in the 18th century when craftsmen began to be inspired by old medieval designs.

But it was in the 19th century when tile making had a revival and encaustic tile making became popular for decorative flooring. As new methods of tile making were developed, the Victorian era became a time of great success for the tile industry. The Minton factory in Staffordshire and Chamberlain and Co in Worcester were both hailed as being particular forerunners in the development of new

manufacturing processes for encaustic tiles.

As the popularity of tiles grew, so did the number of companies producing them. William Godwin of Hereford was another key player and, in the 1860s, a collaboration with William Boulton led to the patenting of the first machines to make dust-pressed encaustic tiles.

Encaustic tiles are characterised by inlays of different coloured clays. They originally had just two colours, but thanks to the improvement in manufacturing, makers were able to include up to six different clays.

Geometric style ceramic tiles were widely used in Victorian villas, large public buildings and churches during the 1860s.

And as tile making progressed, by the 1890s they became commonplace in Victorian terraced houses, gracing the floors of entrance halls.

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‘The history and craftsmanship is one of the reasons why people like vintage tiles so much,’ believes tile fan and interior designer Rebecca Reed. ‘You’re not just getting something that’s been made on a production line. Where tiles have been reclaimed from an old building or church, they often have a fascinating story behind them. There’s something enchanting about reclaiming tiles and putting them to use in a new project, ready to give pleasure to a new generation today.’

The use of reclaimed tiles is definitely not something that can only be enjoyed in old or period properties, though.

Reclaimed tiles can be put to use in similar ways to their original purpose. For example, tiled floors or walls, or beautiful decorative tiled fireplaces. Or you can be more creative with their use, creating pieces such as tiled tabletops, tiled wall art or even simply using favourite tiles as coasters.

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TILES

‘Where tiles have been reclaimed from an old building or church, they often have a fascinating story behind them.’

Sourcing tiles The Reclaimed Tile Company (reclaimedtilecompany.com) prides itself on stocking the largest collection of reclaimed tiles in the UK. Their antique floor tiles are sourced from Europe and the Mediterranean and they specialise in encaustic tiles. Their Yorkshirebased reclamation yard boasts a collection of ceramic glazed and terracotta tiles. Prices typically start at £7.50 per tile.

Bert & May (bertandmay.com) based in London, make original flooring but also scour Europe for reclaimed and salvaged tiles. They have a lovely collection of reclaimed tiles in a variety of designs. You can expect to pay from £8 per tile.

If it’s antique European floor tiles you’re after, then try The Antique Floor Company (theantiquefloorcompany.com).

They have some excellent examples of 19th and 20th century European floor tiles and, although they’re based in France, can help with supplying whole floors in an array of eye-catching designs.

‘Depending on the type of tiles you’re looking for, it can be tricky finding suitable numbers for large projects,’ explains Rebecca. ‘But this needn’t be an issue.’ Instead, she suggests mixing old with new – picking out the best patterns and designs from reclaimed tiles to act as the key features in tiled projects, then filling in with reproduced versions.

Some reclaimed tiles need restoring before use, but if you’re purchasing the tiles from a specialist company, they are often able to provide this service for you. They can also advise on the best ways to lay or install your tiles to produce a professional and long-lasting effect.

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Nothing beats the joy of finding, reclaiming and re-using decorative ceramic tiles and bringing history back to life. If you’re not lucky enough to have chanced upon a stash of tiles hidden behind a bricked up fireplace, or lurking underneath old carpet, don’t panic – there are plenty of specialist salvage and reclamation yards that stock reclaimed tiles. Looking online is a good starting point, great for getting an idea of the types of tiles available and who stocks what.

If possible, and especially if you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for, it’s fun to head off to visit a tile specialist or salvage company in person to see for yourself what’s on offer. You can handle the tiles and get a better idea of their weight (something that is essential to know if you’re going to be using them on a floor or wall), see what condition they’re in and get an accurate idea of the colour palette. If you can’t visit in person, some companies are happy to send various samples by post.

The Vintage Floor Tile Company (thevintagef loor tilecompany.co.uk) is based in the south Cotswolds and specialises in British geometric and encaustic floor tiles, cement tiles and quarry tiles. ‘We offer a complete service to our customers,’ explains owner, Andy Triplow. ‘Customers can come to us with a design and we’re able to supply every tile, cleaned and restored, ready to use in their project.’

Prices vary depending on the type of tiles you’re buying and they can be priced per tile, per m2 or by the number of tiles required for a repeating pattern. You can expect to pay between £7.95 and £35 per tile for encaustic tiles from The Vintage Floor Tile Company.

(above) A selection of art nouveau tiles. (left) Attractive blue and green encaustic floor tile, from The Vintage Floor Tile Company.

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RESTORATION

SETTING THE

BENCHMARK

ORIGINAL COALBROOKDALE BENCHES HAVE, OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS, BECOME SOME OF THE MOST COVETABLE PIECES OF ANTIQUE GARDEN FURNITURE AROUND. MARTIN SMITH IS RESTORATION SPECIALIST AT IRONART OF BATH AND REGULARLY REVIVES OLD COALBROOKDALES. HE TELLS �eclaim WHY THEY AREN’T JUST ANY OLD IRON AND TALKS US THROUGH ONE OF HIS FAVOURITE PROJECTS

BY JANE COMMON

What’s your background – how did you get into restoration?

I’ve been restoring stuff since I was about 14 years old.

I started off with old British motorcycles in the back garden, learning soldering and skills like that. Then, after a stint as an engineer, I studied Silversmithing at Camberwell College of Arts and as part of that we did forge work, which I really enjoyed.

Since then I’ve had a pretty varied career – I worked at Liberty for a year as a sales assistant in ceramics and spent weekends at my workshop in Peckham. Whenever the guys in my concession at Liberty wanted display cabinets I’d make them and I used to restore random things for people who had antique stalls at Greenwich market too – a sword, one day!

Then my wife Karen who I’d met at art college and I went off on the whole travelling to Australia bit and I did a lot of metal work out there. And when we returned I did some shop fitting – making bespoke stuff for upmarket designer clothes shops – and working for a blacksmith in Hammersmith. That was great – we did ironwork in the Royal Parks and at Downing Street and we restored the gates halfway up The Mall.

When we started a family, though, we moved down here to the West Country, where my wife is from, and I built a workshop in the garden and had various blacksmithing jobs. I worked for Kevin McCloud for a

while and had a job restoring vintage Aston Martins – well, it’s all metalwork isn’t it? And it was fun driving down to the chip shop in them on a Friday! Then the job at Ironart came up. Initially I was mainly forging railings and staircases but then all this restoration work started to come in and that’s my passion, really – restoring – so I was thrilled. And it’s not just cast iron – it’s lanterns, sculptures, umbrella stands, stoves and all and sundry.

So every day is different.

What did you do with the workshop in the garden when you had the studio at Ironart?

Well, there’s a thing – my job is also my hobby and I’ve spent the last 15 years recreating the instrument panel and the fuselage of a Short Stirling bomber. The Short Stirling was a plane that was used in WW2 – it’s the unsung hero and the ugly duckling of all those war planes and there are no complete examples in existence today so I’m attempting to remedy that. I was brought up in Lincolnshire – Bomber County – and spent many of my formative years exploring old airfields and that’s where the interest stems from.

I now have a rebuilt control column, rear undercarriage and instrument panel and I’m working on the side panels and fuselage. My wife – yes, she’s thrilled with it all, naturally! I’ll probably be working on it for the next 15 years too but I’m determined.

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© VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON.

‘EVERY COALBROOKDALE BENCH HAS A CODE SOMEWHERE IN THE DESIGN ANNOUNCING THE DAY, MONTH AND YEAR WHEN IT WAS PRODUCED. THAT MAKES EACH BENCH UNIQUE – IT’S A BIT OF HISTORY, ISN’T IT?’

This cast iron garden bench, made by Coalbrookdale Company in the late 19th century, is on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Ironwork room.

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Restoration specialist, Martin Smith at work.

Martin’s restoration of a Coalbrookdale Nasturtium bench:

What’s your favourite part of your job?

I love bringing stuff back to life. People come in and they’re totally despondent, saying: ‘Can you actually do anything with this?’ And then when they return to collect the piece they’re so happy – ‘Wow; that looks great!’ sort of thing. And I enjoy that aspect of it.

What makes Coalbrookdale benches so rewarding to work on from a restorer’s point of view?

I’d never seen a Coalbrookdale bench until about nine years ago and now they’re being brought in all the time – they’re so popular. I love them and I enjoy restoring them because of the variation – each one is individual. And the casting is so sharp – there’s beautiful detail in them all.

We did a field trip up to the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron in Shropshire a couple of years ago and that was interesting.

The ironwork that foundry produced back in Victorian times was incredible. It had a massive stand at the Great Exhibition in 1851 where it not only showed off benches and arches but also starred with an incredible fountain as well as the main entrance gates to the site, which are now in Hyde Park. Lots of the fountains we see in public squares today were actually built by Coalbrookdale.

We’re lucky, too, because down here in the South West we know a chap called Mike who’s such a Coalbrookdale enthusiast that he’s been researching its products for almost twenty years. He has all the original brochures and that’s a godsend to us because when we’re restoring the benches Mike can show us what the original looked like.

The only trouble is that people are making fakes. They’re pretty easy to spot for someone in the know as they have such poor casting definition. Still, having to tell a customer: ‘Something isn’t right about the bench you’ve paid all this money for,’ isn’t much fun. » Ironart of Bath, Upper Lambridge St, Bath, Banes BA1 6RY Tel: 01225 311273, ironart.co.uk » We’ll be featuring Martin’s restoration of the Short Stirling in a future issue of Reclaim. Watch this space! » The National Heritage Ironwork Group (NHIG) is an organisation, established in 2009, which is dedicated to advancing public awareness and knowledge of heritage ironwork and the promotion of professional standards of care.

It holds regular events and welcomes new members for more information log on to nhig.org.uk

The guy who brought this bench in was having a nightmare. The bench had been in his wife’s family since it was made and for their wedding anniversary he had it powder coated as a surprise. (In my opinion powder coating of Coalbrookdales is a no-no but that’s another story.) Anyway, he had it coated but, afterwards, while he was loading it on the trailer, it tipped off and smashed into somewhere between fifty and eighty pieces. When he came in to see us – well, it’s fair to say he was more than a little concerned about destroying his wife’s lovely bench but sixty-seven hours later it was as good as new!

STAGE ONE: We roughly reassembled the bench – a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle – to work out how long it would take to rebuild. Then we took photos and did a bit of cross-referencing with other benches to make sure we had the right pattern – and we cross-referenced with Mike’s brochures too. Some of the smashed up pieces were so tiny that they were still lying on that roadside so we told our client that we might have to remake those bits. They’d be too small to be recast so I’d carve them by hand and refit them.

STAGE TWO: Then the bench went to the blaster’s where a copper slag was used to take the paint off – it isn’t too abrasive and won’t damage the patterns on the metal surface. And when the bench came back to us that was a joyful day because without paint all this beautiful detail comes through. We could see the patent mark then – every Coalbrookdale bench has a code somewhere in the design announcing the day, month and year when it was produced. That makes each bench unique – it’s a bit of history, isn’t it?

STAGE THREE: With some benches, when the paint has been stripped off, as well as showing the good stuff like the patent mark, the bad stuff is also revealed – often there’s a lot more damage than appeared at first sight. So to show the client the danger areas we put gaffer tape or white dots with correction fluid on the stress points. Every area that is damaged is generally weld repaired – a process that needs to be undertaken methodically and with great care as inappropriate welding procedures can easily cause further damage.

STAGE FOUR: If we have moulds of the larger bits we’ll fill them with resin and send them off to the iron foundry to be cast in iron – then we’ll marry them back in to where they have broken off from.

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RESTORATION

1

2

3

4

The vital thing is that any new bits are cast iron – it’s good conservation practise to always use the original material where possible.

The biggest sections we make like that are six inches square – the smaller bits are more of a fiddle as I’ll hand carve them. A lot of the time I’m dressing the detail back in – filing the metal down to continue the pattern.

5

STAGE FIVE: Here’s the finished product and it’s beautiful. We use hard-wearing paint products from a company in Bristol but what we can also do for clients – and what I love doing – is taking a flake of the original paint and sending it away for spectrum analysing to get a colour match. People always assume these benches were originally black or white but they weren’t – they were lurid bright greens and rustic browns. Everyone’s taste is different and this client wanted the bench repainted in white but personally – because I’m a bit of a history buff – I prefer to see the benches in the original colours.

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STORAGE

A STYLISH

SPACE IN AN EXTRACT FROM HER NEW

BOOK, EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE, REBECCA WINWARD EXPLAINS HOW VINTAGE-STYLE STORAGE SOLUTIONS ARE BEAUTIFUL AS WELL AS PRACTICAL IMAGES © EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE BY REBECCA WINWARD PUBLISHED BY RYLAND PETERS & SMALL

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Vintage style gives you plenty of scope when it comes to finding suitable storage solutions.

Anything goes, to a certain extent, and there’s no need to have deep pockets either, since tired and even fairly battered pieces of furniture can be granted a new lease of life with a coat of paint.

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STORAGE

(left) Vintage style doesn’t always have to be about colourful painted furniture and pretty accents. This kitchen storage has a simper aesthetic that goes well with modern minimalism, including mid-century style panel doors (some of which slide open) and understated metal handles.

W

hen it comes to planning storage, laidback vintage style is one of the easiest looks. Not only is it a very practical option, but repurposing and customizing are an integral part of the look, and as the vintage look is perennially popular there are a multitude of style-appropriate solutions to be found in stores, flea markets or on online auction sites. Generally speaking, almost any modest piece from the 20th century can be deemed suitable, and there’s a little crossover with retro too (though without the sleek Scandinavian influence of trendy designer pieces from the 1960s and 1970s). Wooden furniture might be painted or waxed, while metal detailing or accessories have a patina rather than being highly polished. Mix in a little institutional chic (think along the lines of salvaged medical cabinets or post office pigeonholes), an industrial influence (hardware cabinets and factory trollies), or even repurpose shop fittings and office furniture.

The vintage look can be achieved on a shoestring by trawling online auctions, junk shops, charity shops, flea markets and antiques fairs – though it can take time to find just the right piece, especially if you’ve got specific requirements in terms of dimensions. Look out for multiples of small storage solutions – three vintage canisters can look more put together than singles – and for any type of furniture with either a capacious storage space or lots of compartments.

Chests and trunks, wall cabinets, old suitcases, tins and boxes, wicker baskets and hampers, and small display cabinets are all worth having on your shopping list.

Don’t shy away from something just because it’s a bit dusty, rusty, or needs some kind of a makeover – often all that’s needed is a quick clean (shabby chic is all part of the vintage look), and if you’re not keen on DIY refinishing then you could always find someone to restore it for you.

(above) Many different glazed cabinet designs were produced in the mid-20th century, so, if you have collections to display there’s choice. However, you can always place fabric or paper inserts behind the glazing if you have clutter to conceal.

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READER OFFER

Everything In Its Place by Rebecca Winward, published

by Ryland Peters & Small, is available to Reclaim readers for the very special price of £13.99 including postage & packaging (rrp£19.99) by telephoning Macmillan Direct on 01256 302 699 and quoting the reference GLR DZ9.

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MARCH 2016 • ISSUE 1

www.reclaimmagazine.uk facebook.com/reclaimmagazine twitter.com/RECLAIMmagazine Uncooked Media Ltd, PO Box 6337, Bournemouth, BH1 9EH 01202 586035 // www.uncookedmedia.com

EDITORIAL Editor Amy Bratley Designer Ian Feeney Contributors Jane Common, Lindsay Calder, Andreina Cordani, Rachel Newcombe, Rachel Tompkins, Lottie Storey, Don Connigale, Tim Kent, Fliss Hoad

CUSTOMER SERVICES +44 (0)8453 306 540 customer service@uncookedmedia.com

ADVERTISING Advertising Manager Rob Cox 01202 586035, rob@uncookedmedia.com

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CIRCULATION Circulation managed by Select Publisher Services 01202 586 848

LICENSING To discuss magazine licensing or content syndication please email licensing@ uncookedmedia.com

Next issue:

THE BIG KAHUNAS Editorial Director Darren Herridge wonderdaz@gmail.com Finance Director Tim Harris tim@selectps.com

THE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL WORLD OF AYNHOE PARK

Distributed through the UK newstrade and overseas by Seymour Ltd, 0207 429 4000 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT Printed in the UK by Precision Colour Printing, Telford, Shropshire, UK Reclaim is published by Uncooked Media Ltd. All text and layout remains the copyright of Uncooked Media Ltd. Reclaim is a fully independent publication and its views are not those of any company mentioned herein. All characters and artwork shown in this magazine remain the © and trademark or their respective owners. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the express written permission of the publisher. Reclaim can accept no responsibility for inaccuracies or complaints arising from editorial or advertising within this magazine. All letters and emails received will be considered for publication, but we cannot provide personal replies. The publishers cannot be held responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, transparencies or artwork. Please do not call, email or write to enquire whether your unsolicited submission has been received, as our priority is the production of the magazine.

RECLAIM © 2016 Uncooked Media Ltd

ISSN: 2397-0413

©A MODERN GRAND TOUR

Cover image by Chris Taylor © christaylorinteriors.co.uk

PLUS: THE DYING ART OF SIGN-WRITING NEON DREAMS AT GOD’S OWN JUNKYARD CREATE A 1950s KITCHEN AUCTION ROOM ACTION

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SUNBURY ANTIQUES MARKET

Š SUNBURY ANTIQUES

The dedicated people at Sunbury Antiques Fair have been running the event for over 35 years and it’s now the largest and longest running twice-monthly market in the country! Favoured by props buyer, Lucy Haley, featured in this issue, Sunbury is the place to go for every style of furniture, from Victorian to country cottage. Have fun perusing the stalls and look out for antique mirrors and frames, vintage suitcases and gorgeous ceramics.

Events are held every second and last Tuesday of the month.

Kempton Race Course, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, TW16 5AQ sunburyantiques.com

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EVENTS

e � a d e h t e v a S SHARPEN YOUR ELBOWS IN PREPARATION FOR

UNEARTHING TREASURES AT THESE BRILLIANT FAIRS AND EVENTS THROUGHOUT 2016

© ASFAIRS

LINCOLNSHIRE INTERNATIONAL ANTIQUES & HOME SHOW An Arthur Swallow creation, this impressive event is held six times a year at the Lincolnshire Showground, with indoor and outdoor stalls. A visual treat, it’s easy to lose track of time when looking at the eclectic mix of stalls. From enamel signs and vintage birdcages, to jugs, apothecary bottles and textiles, you won’t leave empty-handed.

Check the website for a calendar of events Lincolnshire Showground, nr Lincoln, LN2 2NA asfairs.co.uk

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KNEBWORTH BENTLEYS DECORATIVE SALVAGE & VINTAGE FAIR Hope for sunshine at this glorious annual outdoor event in the grounds of Knebworth House, a picturesque stately home set in hundreds of acres. Expect a fantastic mix of decorative and architectural salvage, architectural antiques and vintage to inspire your interior design.

Think about your garden too, as this is the good spot to pick up quirky items for your outside space.

25th & 26th June 2016 Knebworth Park, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2AX bentleysfairs.co.uk

© OLYMPIA ART & ANTIQUE FAIR

© BENTLEYS FAIRS

EVENTS

OLYMPIA ART & ANTIQUES FAIR The elegant champagne bar on site sets the tone for this sophisticated event, when over seven days hundreds of the world’s leading art and antiques dealers congregate at the Kensington Olympia Exhibition Centre to show their antiques, art, furniture and collectors’ pieces. Walking through the doors is like entering a treasure chest and a great opportunity to shop, discover more about the antiques and art world with expert talks, or sup champagne while spotting celebs. Last year Sir Bob Geldof, Pharrell Williams and Sir David Attenborough were among the crowds.

17th June to 3rd July 2016 Kensington Olympia Exhibition Centre, London, W14 8UX olympia-art-antiques.com

THE SALVAGE RENOVATION & PERIOD HOME SHOW

© JOS EVENTS

If you’re looking for reclaimed and salvaged building materials that are reasonably priced, this show is a great find. Traders and dealers sell a substantial selection of salvage and reclamation, period home fixtures and fittings, decorative and architectural antiques, plus restored furniture.

Get there at 8.30am for the best discoveries.

16th, 17th & 18th September 2016 The Greenhous West Mid Showground, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1 2PF josevents.co.uk

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THE MIDCENTURY MODERN SHOWS

© MODERN SHOW

What better way to spend a Sunday than lusting after beautiful, original midcentury furniture, at the Midcentury Modern Shows? Running since 2001, the Midcentury Modern Shows held in various London venues, are highly respected events, which have attracted the likes of Orla Kiely, Stephen Merchant, Jimmy Carr, Mary Portas and many more famous folk, as well as people from all over the UK looking to buy quality, collectable furniture for their homes. Dealers congregate to showcase either mid century and modern wares, while designers sell their original furniture designs.

28th February, Midcentury Modern at Dulwich College, London 13th March, Midcentury East at Erno Goldfinger’s Haggerston School, London 15th May, The Midcentury Show at The Oval, London 9th October, Midcentury East at Erno Goldfinger’s Haggerston School, London 20th November, Midcentury Modern at Dulwich College, London modernshows.com

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NEWARK INTERNATIONAL ANTIQUES & COLLECTORS FAIR

© IACF

Perhaps you’d like a vintage crockery set, club chairs for your living room, a gramophone, antique telephone, chandelier or a giant wardrobe? With thousands of stands selling every imaginable item, you could decorate your entire house here. Featured in the book ‘1000 Places To See Before You Die’ the International Antiques & Collectors Fair (IACF) in Newark is the flagship event, but the IACF have fairs in six other locations at various weekends throughout the year.

4th & 5th February 2016 7th & 8th April 2016 2nd & 3rd June 2016 18th & 19th August 2016 13th & 14th October 2016 1st & 2nd December 2016 Newark & Nottinghamshire Showground, NG24 2NY iacf.co.uk

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© ASFAIRS

EVENTS

© DECORATIVE ANTIQUES & TEXTILES FAIR

DECORATIVE HOME & SALVAGE SHOWS Located in three stunning venues over various weekends throughout the year, Arthur Swallow Fairs have created the impressive Decorative Home & Salvage Shows, where you’ll find an incredible selection of quality reclaimed and salvaged materials such as Belfast sinks, garden furniture, restored and upcycled furniture, period home fixtures, fittings and furnishings. With the beautiful backdrops of Loseley Park, Ripley Castle and Cheshire Showground, the fairs make an amazing day out, as well as a chance to buy unique and unusual items.

Ripley Castle 13th, 14th & 15th May 2016 9th, 10th & 11th September 2016 Ripley Castle, near Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG3 3AY Loseley Park 15th, 16th & 17th July 2016 Loseley Park, Surrey, GU3 1HS Cheshire Showground 10th, 11th & 12th June 2016 5th, 6th & 7th August 2016 Cheshire Showground, Tabley, Knutsford, WA16 0JE asfairs.com

THE DECORATIVE ANTIQUES & TEXTILES FAIR If you have a penchant for chairs, book yourself a ticket for this event, where there’ll be more chairs than you can shake a chair leg at. ‘Take A Seat: Three Hundred Years of Chair Design’ will be the foyer feature, with examples drawn from various exhibitors of chair styles through the ages, and the good news is that all of the chairs on display will be for sale. With more than 140 exhibitors from Europe and the UK you’ll also find decorative antiques, accessories such as lighting and mirrors, and works of art.

19 to 24th January 2016 • 19th to 24th April 2016 • 27th to 2nd October 2016 The Marquee, Battersea Park, London, SW11 4NJ decorativefair.com

Brilliant for a good rummage, this huge international architectural salvage fair is held over ten acres, in the grounds of Fawley Hill, the home of Sir William and Lady McAlpine. Attracting thousands of visitors, it’s the UK’s largest architectural salvage fair featuring exhibitors selling an enormous range of architectural antiques, architectural salvage, reclaimed building materials, garden antiques, decorative antiques, retro, vintage, industrial items and upcycled products. Whatever you’re searching for, whether it’s a copper kettle or a fireplace, you’re likely to find it here and much more. Bring cash and an empty vehicle to fill with your finds!

18th & 19th June 2016 (17th June is for trade) Fawley Hill, Henley-on-Thames RG9 6JA Salvo-fair.com

© ANTIQUES-ATLAS.COM

THE SALVO FAIR

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INDEPENDENT

ReCycle!

SEABASS CYCLES SPECIALISES IN, AMONG OTHER THINGS, RESTORING HANDMADE MODERN AND CLASSIC STEEL-FRAMED BIKES DATING FROM THE 1960S TO THE PRESENT DAY. IT WAS OPENED IN CAMBERWELL, SOUTH LONDON, IN NOVEMBER 2013 BY FRIENDS CHARLIE ROBERTS, NOW 28, ZACH CHRISTMAS, 30, AND SAM LEWIN, 32. �eclaim’s DON CONNIGALE POPPED INTO TO FIND OUT HOW THE WHEELS WERE TURNING...

Charlie Roberts.

DON: So Charlie, what was the thinking behind SeaBass?

CHARLIE: The three of us have worked in bike shops for most of our lives - I got my first part-time job in a local cycle shop aged 13 - so we’re all experienced mechanics who love bikes. But the standard of bike shops varies quite a lot.

For instance, I spent a few years working in one of the big-name high-street-chain bike shops, which was pretty soulless.

They offer a big range of factorybuilt, generally aluminium frame bikes, which are of course fine, but there’s not much scope for individualisation. They don’t deal in secondhand stuff, and the level of customer service and advice on sales and repairs can be quite patchy. To be honest it felt less of a ‘bike shop’ and more just a ‘shop that sells bikes’.

Conversely some of the more specialist shops do offer really high levels of cycling expertise, but can sometimes be a little intimidating for ordinary commuters and recreational riders who just want a friendly conversation and down-toearth advice.

So Zach, Sam and I were having a chat over a few beers and we said: ‘Wouldn’t it be great to open the kind of bike shop that we ourselves would want to go to?’ And the idea just grew from there.

And you decided to go big on secondhand?

Absolutely, but there’s secondhand and there’s secondhand...

You get a lot of people opening bike shops who don’t know all that much about bikes. They basically just buy some creaky stock, clean it up and sell it on at a mark-up – whereas with well-chosen new components and careful work, a used bike can be restored into a great, reliable, maybe even better ride,

rather than just a cheap secondhand bike. That’s where we’re at now.

So once you’d come up with the plan, why did you choose Camberwell?

We’ve all lived in Camberwell for many years, and we love the area. It’s a great place with a real sense of community. Also, the main road through Camberwell is a popular commuting route for cyclists from south to central London, even more so now TFL have completed Cycle Superhighway 5 [a twoway cycle lane that has greatly improved cycling safety on the busy Oval to Pimlico stretch of road in south London], which was then at the planning stage.

I remember when we were considering this location, I went to a local cafe overlooking the main road, and sat with a coffee counting how many bikes went past in an hour… there were over 300. So that boded well.

And there didn’t seem to be too many other bike shops in the area for competition. Ironically though, another new bike shop opened just across the road from us at almost exactly the same time we did – by complete coincidence.

So much for planning! But fortunately we kind of have different specialities and we each have our own USP, so the unexpected competition hasn’t affected us as much as it potentially could have done.

Yes, I was going to ask about your USP. You guys specialise in steel-framed bikes. Why is that?

Most entry-level and mid-range new bikes you get these days tend to be aluminium framed. Aluminium has some advantages, notably that it’s lightweight and can be less expensive for mass production. But it’s stiff, so you tend to feel the bumps in the road. Steel weighs slightly more, although it’s stronger so the tubes can be thinner, which compensates to some degree. But the big advantage of steel is that it soaks up the vibrations so you get a smoother, more forgiving ride. It’s just more comfortable.

You might not notice much difference on perfectly

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‘SOME OF THE AESTHETICS ON THE VINTAGE FR AMES ARE SUPER COOL .’ smooth roads – but let’s face it, the roads in our cities tend to be pretty far from perfect, so most people really appreciate the improved ride quality on a day-to-day basis.

Also, steel is durable. If you’re commuting or touring and your frame takes a bad knock – say a fork gets bent – an aluminium frame can be pretty much a write-off. But steel frames can be repaired. They last.

Is that why you’re able to restore such old bikes?

Exactly – we can source classic frames from the early 1990s – which was roughly when mainstream frames started to move away from steel – the 1980s, the 1970s, even the 1960s, get them in the workshop, smooth out the dents, fit appropriate new or used components, re-spray as desired, and they can be fully restored to look fantastic and ride beautifully. Some of the aesthetics on these vintage

frames are super cool too. We sell new bikes as well, which some people prefer, but there are others who genuinely appreciate a bike with history and character that’s had a bit of love and craftsmanship lavished on it.

A Mercier Porteur bike from the 1970s.

Where do you find the older frames to restore?

We’ve got one contact in the south of France and another in Holland, so we take trips over there every few months.

There’s a rich history of frame-building in some European countries, but many cyclists there, as here, always want the newest model, so they may have old, perfectly serviceable steel bikes sitting in a shed gathering dust. But we pick up bits and bobs from everywhere. We’ve got a vast collection of old parts in our warehouse, which really helps when finding just the right thing to restore a quality frame without breaking the bank.

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‘A RESTORED BIKE CAN BE MADE TO LOOK AND FEEL BRAND NEW IF THAT’S WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANTS.’ Contacts SeaBass Cycles 62 Camberwell Church Street Camberwell London SE5 8QZ SeaBass Cycles Unit 2A.2 Copeland Park Copeland Road Peckham London SE15 3SN

Talking of the breaking the bank, what do your bikes cost?

Probably not all that different to a brand new bike with similar specs (it’s hard to compete with the industry behemoths like Trek and Specialized purely on price) but with a restored steel frame, which I think is just nicer.

The sky’s the limit with bikes of course, and top-end stuff can be several thousand pounds, but from say around £500 we can start to look at custom-building a bike for you. We’ll guide customers to pick out a suitable secondhand frame, fit individual components they want that suit their needs and their budget, talk about finishing, colour and decals and so on.

A restored bike can be made to look and feel brand new if that’s what the customer wants, plus they’ll have had some input into the design and the bike they’ll ultimately be riding will be unique to them. Some people really like that.

Do you have any personal favourite vintage frames that you like to restore?

They all have character, but I like the classic Italian frames of the 1970s and 1980s. Brands like Benotto and Rossin. They are really well-made and thoughtfully designed frames, nice to ride, great geometry and beautiful aesthetics.

Is restoring and respraying a frame something that people could do at home?

The watchword is patience; it takes time. It’s a three step process. You need to prime the metal carefully, smoothing out any imperfections so that the paint adheres perfectly.

Then spray in the colours of choice, then apply a good quality lacquer finish, for optimum visual impact and also for durability. It’s a mistake to rush it. Even with a professional workshop and all the kit, we’ll spend a full day restoring a single frame.

Your shop has a bit of a reputation as being quite laid-back – and for its resident dog.

Well, the laid-back thing is probably just a reflection of us.

We’re mates so we all have a similar kind of outlook. And I think it’s good that people feel comfortable in a bike shop – if someone commutes in to work by bike every day then their cycle is a big part of their life. But that doesn’t mean everyone necessarily wants to immerse themselves in jargon and technical details.

As for the dog, the shop’s actually named after him!

We were originally thinking of something obvious like Camberwell Cycles, but then we thought – optimistically –

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INDEPENDENT

The SeaBass shop.

the range of services we offer too. Specifically, in addition to the secondhand, new and restored bikes we already offer, we’re going to start providing a handmade framebuilding service. That means we’ll be able to build bespoke bikes from scratch.

If you like vintage bikes you’ll love this book ‘A Cycling Lexicon’ is a beautiful collection of photographs of bicycle headbadges through the ages, designed by Carter Wong Design.

Buy one for the cyclist in your life for £20 at carterwongdesign.com

what if we want to expand out of Camberwell some day. Then Seabass, Sam’s seven-year-old Staffie, came bounding up and we just thought: perfect. He used to drag Sam round on his BMX actually so he has an interest in cycling! He comes in most days now and he’s very friendly.

Do you plan to expand?

We opened another retail outlet in Peckham a year after we opened. It’s a large workshop space so let’s us offer a much wider range of services. I’m not sure there’s another shop in London that offers the same range of bike-building, frame workshop, restoring and spraying that we do all under one roof. In the next few months we plan to expand

How does that work?

You literally just start with high-quality steel tubing of various diameters, measured to fit, cut and welded and so on. It’s quite a skilled craft; I recently did a framebuilding course and there’s so much to learn. But it gives you enormous flexibility. There are infinite permutations of frame geometry – whether someone wants an aggressive, racing-type riding position, for instance, or a more relaxed and upright leisure ride, and a long wheel-base for stability or something a bit more nippy.

And of course every individual has slightly different proportioned limbs, so when hand-building the frame I can make it exactly made-to-measure for a customer, something that a factory-produced bike simply can’t match.

As well as that ultra-bespoke route – which is necessarily expensive – we’ll also be offering more affordable frames in set sizes, but adapted to suit an individual’s requirement. So commuters, for example, might want their frames to take pannier racks and mudguards, something that many road bikes traditionally don’t.

(above right) Amazing hand-painted Gillott head badge on a frame that was resprayed back to its original colour. Gillott’s master frame-builder Jim Collier used to operate out of a workshop about a mile from the SeaBass shop, in south London, where he worked from 1945 to the late 1960s.

Sounds a challenge?

It is, but all three of us love bikes and I’ve always liked to try out new things. I remember when I was a kid I used to sit on the kitchen floor, dismantling bike parts to see how they worked, breaking stuff and fixing it. And we’re still doing that really: taking things apart, building them up again, not just making them work again, but making them even better than they were before.

» Find out more at seabasscycles.co.uk

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TRAVEL

Antony Gormley’s life-size statues for The Landmark Trust can also be seen at: Clavell Tower, Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset Saddell Bay, Mull of Kintyre, Argyll and Bute South West Point, Lundy, Devon Lengthman’s Cottage, Lowsonford, Warwickshire

© THE LANDMARK TRUST

These are freely accessible at all times, until May 2016.

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TrAVEL TrEASURE WHEN IT COMES TO A

HOLIDAY IN A RESTORED RESIDENCE, THE LANDMARK TRUST’S MARTELLO TOWER ON THE BEACH IN ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK, IS A TRUE GEM

BY JANE COMMON

Defiant: the Gormley statue stands on the Martello Tower.

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© THE LANDMARK TRUST

Why book now?

The Landmark Trust turned 50 last year, an anniversary that was celebrated by a Channel 4 programme following the charity as it rescues buildings of historical importance – then, when they’ve been restored, allowing people to book these architectural gems for holidays to actually experience them. The Trust has about 200 buildings in its portfolio now but Aldeburgh’s Martello Tower was an early project. It hasn’t missed out on the anniversary celebrations, however, and was one of five Landmark properties selected to be adorned with an iron sculpture by Antony Gormley – a bit like a candle on the Landmark birthday cake. The statue has, rather romantically, been dubbed The Angel of the East.

(top) The Dining Room in the Martello Tower. (above) The welcoming Front Room. (right) The Martello Tower in 1974, in desperate need of restoration.

What’s the Martello’s history?

It was built between 1808 and 1812 as one of a chain of Martello towers along the south and east coasts of England – the Aldeburgh one is the most northerly and, consisting of a million bricks, the largest. The towers were built in response to fears that Napoleon was planning an invasion of Britain and these squat little structures held the fire power to repel him. In 1815 the Aldeburgh Martello possessed two 24-pounder canons ready to be fired from the parapet should Napoleon hove into view on the horizon.

Accommodation-wise, on the main barrack room floor there were double berths for eight soldiers and single berths for five non-commissioned officers while the officer in charge had the luxury of a private room partitioned off with a canvas screen.

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TRAVEL

‘THE SOUND OF THE SEA BREAKING ON THE SHINGLE MAKES IT INCREDIBLY ATMOSPHERIC - IT REALLY IS SPECIAL.’ CAROLINE STANFORD

Today the tower cuts a lonely figure a ten-minute walk away from Aldeburgh but it hasn’t always been so – it used to be in a village called Slaughden which has disappeared over time due to coastal erosion. By 1931 the tower was also looking in danger of vanishing – its military purpose over, it was derelict and abandoned – until it was sold off by the Ministry of Defence. In 1936, a Miss Debenham commissioned an architect to turn it into a studio and build a concrete penthouse at the top, but by 1971 when The Landmark Trust acquired the tower it had been ravaged by the weather and vandals and reduced to a sorry state.

How tough was the restoration?

A huge section of the moat had been washed away so the sea was lapping at the Martello’s base and large coping stones had dislodged from the parapet. The main floor inside the building had been ripped out and Miss Debenham’s lovely penthouse was cracked and ruined.

The Trust’s first priority was to make the tower stable. The main floor was replaced by the one from the basement and concrete mixed with granite aggregate was substituted for the missing coping stones on the roof. Thousands of bricks were used in the tower’s restoration with an ordinary lime and cement mortar mixed with a waterproof sealant.

By 2001, however, the tower was taking in water so the sealant was scraped out of the roof flags and they were repointed with a breathable lime mortar. Inside the tower, too, measures were taken to improve drainage and ventilation – plastic paint, for example, was stripped off the internal walls and swapped for lime wash, allowing water to evaporate.

A canopy was designed to protect the tower’s interior from drips as the building dried out – a lengthy process – which, says The Landmark Trust: ‘has an agreeable maritime resonance of sails and campaign tents fitting for this fine remnant of the days when Napoleon stalked the Channel.’

with Aldeburgh’s finest fish and chips and a bottle of Adnams for sustenance.

Antony Gormley says: ‘My sculpture stands on the battlements of the Martello Tower – its attitude is one of defiance and indifference to any potential invader from across the sea. With its arms folded and looking slightly to its right, there is a feeling of ‘well, what’s going on here?’ about it.’

Caroline Stanford, co-author of Landmark: A History of Britain in 50 Buildings, says: ‘It’s unique among Martello Towers because of its quatrefoil (four-leaf clover) form. I’ve stayed there and it’s fantastic – there’s a big central vaulted space but also the four lobes of the clover contain the bedrooms and sitting room and are so snug. The sound of the sea breaking on the shingle makes it incredibly atmospheric too – it really is special.’

Landmark A History of Britain in 50 Buildings £25, landmarktrust. org.uk/giftshop

The visitors’ book says: ‘We will remember the strange acoustics and the fishermen’s lights along the beach.’

How to book: The tower is so popular it’s already almost full for 2016 – to nab a remaining space and to book for 2017 go to landmarktrust.org.uk or call 01628 825925. Prices start at £536 for a four-night break (four people) and dogs are welcome. The Gormley statue at the Martello Tower is available to visit by appointment on the last Friday of every month until April 2016. Email bookings@landmarktrust.org. uk to secure a place on a half-hour tour.

What’s it like now?

It’s super-swish with teak floors, a surprising abundance of light and two twin bedrooms. In keeping with all Landmark properties, the fixtures and fittings are of the highest standard – the Martello boasts pretty Cornish-ware which contrasts perfectly with its mustard yellow paint scheme.

Famous guests?

The Mitfords enjoyed camping holidays at the tower in the 1930s.

The best bit?

Walking up to the front door across your very own personal drawbridge!

You’ll find us: On the roof keeping watch over the waters for Napoleon –

Access over your very own drawbridge .

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5 of the best inspiring books Whether you’re seeking insider tips, practical home projects or simply something glossy and inspiring to curl up with, there’s a book to suit you...

BY ANDREINA CORDANI

STAr CHOICE Looking for vintage style inspiration? Upcycled Chic and Modern Hacks by Liz Bauwens and Alexandra Campbell is a 150 page pick ‘n’ mix of ideas. Featuring room-by-room photo shoots of real people’s homes the book blends those fascinating ‘where I found it’ stories (we particularly enjoyed the tale behind sculptor Tim Braden’s fish sign!) with hints and tips to take away and a handy glossary of suppliers at the end. The homes featured are colourful and gorgeous but ultimately achievable. Ideal for someone who wants to pull their vintage finds together into a comprehensive look – this is a must-have for every upcycler’s pallet coffee table. (£19.99, CICO)

In Vintage Home: 20th Century Design for Contemporary Living by Judith Miller, Antiques Roadshow regular Judith Miller gives a comprehensive buyer’s guide to the iconic designs of the 20th century, from classic modernist furniture to the throwaway items of our parents’ generation that we now fall on drooling if we’re lucky enough to find them in a junk shop. The book is crammed with great buying advice, how to spot fakes or find cheaper alternatives. But more than that, it shows how the vintage objects in our home tell the story of the 20th century – how the colossal changes brought about by mass production, social mobility, feminism and youth culture changed the way we live forever. (£30, Jacqui Small)

Featuring 25 thought provoking and often brilliant upcycling ideas from renowned designers, Upcycle: 24 Sustainable DIY Projects by Rebecca Proctor will have you reaching for your glue gun even as you flick through the pages. Some are simple and ideal for beginners (like the pallet window shelf) others have a higher difficulty rating (such as Henry Bauman’s mesmerising strawberry box bench) but all are modern, offbeat and a little bit different. And, unlike those Pinterest pipe-dreams, there’s a comprehensive step-by-step guide to achieving each one. Whether you’re new to hands-on upcycling or more experienced and looking for a challenging project – you’ll find something here. (£18.95, Laurence King Press)

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BOOKS

‘IDEAL FOR SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO PULL THEIR VINTAGE FINDS TOGETHER INTO A COMPREHENSIVE LOOK.’

Flea Market Secrets by Geraldine James is a love letter to flea markets and vintage fairs everywhere. The author, a passionate London-based collector, has travelled the globe picking up plenty of insider secrets along the way. The result is a mine of information on how to spot the treasure among the trash, how to take care of your find afterwards and most importantly how to bag that bargain. James lays out her invaluable 10 golden rules for flea market success. But the most fascinating part is the stories behind some of her finds – like the colourful ‘depression glass’ which American manufacturers turned out in the 1920s in an attempt to cheer us all up after the Wall Street Crash. A great book to dip into. (£19.99, CICO)

Appealing to the inner skip-diver and junk shop rummager in all of us, Furniture Hacks by Hester Van Overbeek is full of ‘ooh that’s clever’ type projects with simple hands-on instructions. The author focuses on the kind of raw materials we can all find easily – tatty chairs, old crates, scraps of fabric and soulless MDF furniture. Our favourite is the two-chair bench on the cover – a charming revamp of two bog-standard dining chairs. However, with some ideas (for example the bandana curtain) you might end up buying new to get the look you want. This book is perfect for lovers of shabby chic and a great introduction to the world of upcycling. (£14.99, CICO)

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STOCKISTS

Places to buy

Your guide to every stockist featured...

A A & B Glassworks 020 7254 4541 abglassworks.co.uk Alternative Flooring alternativeflooring.com Antikbar antikbar.co.uk Auro auro.co.uk B Below Stairs of Hungerford 01488 682317 belowstairs.co.uk Bentleys Decorative Salvage & Vintage Fair bentleysfairs.co.uk Bert & May 020 3744 0776 bertandmay.com Bouf bouf.com C Carter Wong Design carterwongdesign.com Chiswick Car Boot Sale chiswickcarbootsale.com CICO Books 020 7025 2200 rylandpeters.com D Decorative Fair decorativefair.com Decorator’s Notebook 0845 474 1747 decoratorsnotebook.co.uk Decorative Home & Salvage Fair asfairs.com Donna Walker Design donnawalker.org Dulux 0333 222 7171 dulux.co.uk E Earthborn 01928 734 171 earthbornpaints.co.uk

eBay ebay.co.uk Ecover 03451 302230 ecover.com Elemental 020 7247 7588 elemental.uk.com English Salvage 01568 616205 englishsalvage.co.uk Etsy etsy.com F Farrow & Ball 01202 876141 farrow-ball.com Folksy folksy.com G Green Woods Furniture 0117 942 8732 greenwoodsfurniture.co.uk H Humblesticks 07742 203002 humblesticks.co.uk Hand Of Glory Antiques 01249 447478 handofgloryantiques.com Hippo hippo-the-watersaver.co.uk I International Antiques & Collectors Fair iacf.co.uk Ironart of Bath 01225 311273 ironart.co.uk J Jacqui Small Books, quartoknows.com John Moncrieff Ltd 01577 864870 jmoncrieff.co.uk

K Kate Noakes 01440 783076 katenoakes.com Kiki Werth 020 7229 7026 kikiwerth.com

O Olympia Art & Antiques Fair olympia-art-antiques.com Original House original-house.co.uk Original Railway Posters originalrailwayposters.co.uk

L Landmark Trust 01628 825925 landmarktrust.org.uk LASSCO Brunswick House 202 7394 2100 Ropewalk 020 7394 8061 Three Pigeons 01844 277188 lassco.co.uk Laurence King Press laurenceking.com Leisure 0345 6004916 leisurecooker.co.uk Liberty 020 7734 1234 liberty.co.uk Lightbulbs Direct 01494 723 286 lightbulbs-direct.com Little Greene Paint Company 0845 880 5855 littlegreene.com Love Lane Caravans lovelanecaravans.com

P PET Lamp Studio petlamp.org

M Macmillan Direct 01256 302 699 Method methodproducts.co.uk Modern Shows modernshows.com Mullan Lighting +353 (0)47 86584 mullanlighting.com N Not On The Highstreet notonthehighstreet.com

R Reclaimed UK Ltd 020 8259 8504 reclaimed.uk.com Reclaimed Flooring Company 0207 250 1108 reclaimedflooringco.com Relic Interiors 07769 706484 relicinteriors.wordpress.com Re Rag Rug Company brieditis-evans.se Retrouvius Retrouvius.com Romo Designer Fabrics and Wallcoverings 01623 756 699 romo.com S Salvage Sister Salvagesister.co.uk Salvo Fair Salvo-fair.com Seabass Cycles 020 7703 3470 seabasscycles.co.uk Seed Pantry 020 7097 3819 seedpantry.co.uk Sheryl’s Art Deco Emporium 01883 620767 sheryls-artdeco.com Solus 0121 753 0777 solusceramics.com Sunbury Antiques Market sunburyantiques.com

T The Antique Floor Company theantiquefloorcompany.com The Rag and Bone Man theragandboneman.co.uk The Reclaimed Tile Company 020 3744 0776 reclaimedtilecompany.com The Salvage & Home Show josevent.co.uk The Vintage Floor Tile Company thevintagefloortilecompany.co.uk Thora-Design thors-design.com V Vintage Cushions vintagecushions.com W Wells Reclamation 01749 677087 wellsreclamation.com Willem Heeffer willemheeffer.nl Y Yinka Ilori yinkailori.com Z Zoe Murphy Design 01843 447 445 zoemurphy.com This directory is for reference and information purposes and should not be taken as a specific endorsement of individual companies and/or their products.

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The splendid Heinz Beanz can light by Willem Heeffer at willemheeffer.nl

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