Reclaiming architectural heritage

Published by Salvo. Tel: 01890 820499. ISBN 0951758322. £9.95.

IN THE 1950s and ’60s the reclamation business was all but abandoned because the government discouraged the use of old materials in the design of new buildings, so when Bath Council announced it was knocking down 2000 early Victorian and Georgian houses Thornton Kay and his company Walcot Reclamation set up one of the first direct action groups to save the buildings. Thus was Salvo born – now a three-person partnership that networks information about the trade in architectural salvage and garden antiques. They promote the trade, run a code for dealers, publish information on stolen pieces and publish the very popular regional guides, the quirky SalvoNews – 100 Art Deco cinema seats and a double bread oven for sale – not together – and the informative SALVO magazine.

The Salvo Guide 2000 is written and edited by Thornton Kay in association with Solopark plc (purveyors of the unusual) and is a 250-page handy Barbour-pocket sized price guide in three sections. First up are photographs: 900 photographs of garden and architectural lots with prices of pieces sold at auction from 1995 to 1999, arranged by sculpture type, then alphabetically by item type with brief details and prices. Then there is a listing of 500 makers and artists with auction results and section three is an A-Z of topics... a random selection of features from SalvoNews and the magazine and some other witty snippety pieces “Wattle’s a Disaster, says
Vitruvius”. Excellent value, even if the book is set in 7pt!

Incidentally, such is the wave of success for the reclamation business, some of the fireplaces which Bath Council smashed up/melted down could now be worth £50,000.