The annual Salvo Fair at Knebworth has been bounced off its long-established spot at the Hertfordshire estate this year by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in concert. So organisers Thornton Kay and his daughter Ruby Hazael have moved their three-day show to the Stubbings Estate, just off the M4 at Maidenhead in the neighbouring county of Berkshire.
There, about 70 dealers will be selling 1000-plus tons of
architectural salvage, garden antiques, urban industrial, steam
punk and reclaimed building materials, much of it to the trade,
from Friday to Sunday, June 22-24.
The crossover of architectural antiques into mainstream antiques
and interior design is now seamless as a look at the exhibitor list
for this year's Salvo shows.
Salvo on the move
This year a pop concert at Knebworth Park has meant a move to
Maidenhead but Salvo organiser
Ruby Hazael is confident of success and busy handling exhibitors up
to the last minute.
"The Old Radiator Company who are in the process of buying
Minchinhampton Architectural (MaSCo), are threatening to bring an
old showman's wagon," she says. "And Dirk Dijstra from Holland has
just told me he is booking again - he had some really beautiful
doors and windows last year."
Another attraction at Salvo comes courtesy of Guildford-based
auctioneers Wellers,
one of the show's sponsors, who will be holding a traditional
man-with-a-bell auction on site every day of the show.
Salvo is
at Stubbings Estate, Henley Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire from
Friday, June 22 (trade day, set up from 6-9am, kids banned on this
day). Opening hours on from Friday to Sunday are 11am to 5pm. Trade
day admittance £15, Saturday or Sunday £8 per adult and £4 per
child aged 4-16. Free car parking.
Here is a taster of what's coming to the fair…
Take a pew
Ecclesiastical antiques specialists Lawrence
Skilling and Steve Williams of Antique Church
Furnishings, based at their farmhouse in Surrey, will bring
masses of chapel chairs and pews to Salvo selling from £25 upwards
and maybe a few organ pipes.
Plenty of churches are modernising now, says Laurence, which is
where much of his old stock comes from. That is from the ones that
are closing (Anglican) as well as opening (Pentecostal).
Sadly one piece from their Gothic stock which Lawrence and Steve
won't be bringing to the fair is a wonderful, heavily decorated
Baroque-style stone font (£395 if you're interested).
Casting light on Victorian streets
AS to be seen on TV… the handmade black Victorian-style
lamp-posts and lanterns which cost £799 from new Salvo exhibitors
Black Country
Metalworks will also star in an upcoming BBC drama.
The Oswestry company have been commissioned to produce such
street lighting for a dramatisation of Emile Zola's 1890s novel
The Ladies' Paradise.
Billed in BBC-speak, as 'Larkrise comes to the city' and set in
a department store in a Northern city, it is due to be screened
next year.
Sweet dreams from France
The popularity of Salvo extends to France, Holland and Germany,
and two regular Salvo dealers coming across from France this year
are Kevin Green of
Reclamation Warriors and
Keir Lewis. Kevin did so well with his antique French iron and
brass beds at Salvo last year that he's bringing a load more at
prices from £225 to £2500, including a sweet 19th century Moses
basket at £225.
Keir, meanwhile, has some suggestions about how to recycle a
large old calvados still from Normandy. Measuring 3ft x 7ft (91cm x
2.13m and weighing 1220lbs (100 kilos), it could look a stunner in
the right garden.
Or, says Keir, it could be ideal for an owner of a cider apple
orchard keen to make intoxicating apple brandy. Keir has more
calvados stills available.
Talk to him about prices.
New angles on mangles
Recrafting lights is Guy Trench's obsession; he
has 230 of them for sale on his website at Antiques by Design.
At his Essex workshop there are few old objects that Guy hasn't
made into table lights: taps, propellers, tennis rackets, snowshoes
and my favourite, a cavalry boot. In time for his stand at Salvo,
Guy has now turned his attention to industrial machinery and, in
particular, the humble mangle. From this he's created: a mirror
from the wheel, hanging lights that were once the cogs that ran the
rollers and a wall light from the guard that protects the cogs.
After the ballroom was over
Long-term Salvo exhibitors Nadine and Jason
Davies of Architectural
Forum in North London are among the prime movers in the
architectural reclamation business.
The company has been involved in some major salvage removals,
including the sale of what remained of the Baltic Exchange in the
City - seriously damaged by an IRA bomb in 1992 - to two Estonian
businessmen in 2006 for £800,000.
This year they are bringing a mighty, eight-panel, 14ft (4.62m),
19th century mahogany doorway, a detail of which is shown
right.
Embellished with an urn, cherubs and garlands, it was once in
the ballroom of a Hampstead, North London, mansion owned by the
pill-manufacturing millionaire industrialist Sir Joseph
Beecham.
The magnate spent vast amounts of money lavishly restoring the
property, around which he liberally dotted the Beecham coat of arms
Nil sine labore (Nothing without Labour) - rather an irony
as the house was the ASLEF headquarters from 1921 until last
year.
The Beecham door is not expected to sell at the show, says
Nadine, but is more of a publicity focus. The price is up for
negotiation by someone who likes a bit of 19th century excess.
The vintage iceman cometh
A year ago, John Bodrell bought 240 unrestored
original iceboxes - hardwood cupboards with zinc or tin linings
insulated with materials such as cork, rice husks or even seaweed,
which were the food cool-storage option before the spread of
electric refrigerators in the 1920s and '30s. He then founded The Vintage Fridge
Company.
John's restored 1930s Brazilian and French fridges are finding
plenty of buyers; he sold 20 at the Battersea Decorative Arts Fair
this year.
He's bringing a selection priced at £10,000 to £14,000 to Salvo.
From John's website comes this picture, left, of a trader selling
ice in Michigan in the 1920s.
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