NARRATOR: On Salvage Hunters, craftsmanship fit for royalty...
This job here, I made for King of Spain.
A staircase out of bronze.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You made the king of Spain a bronze staircase.Yeah.
...salvage mystery solved...
Don't ask me what it is because I don't know.
Four pieces.Are they hollow? Yes.It's a chimney.
...and vintage objects to blow your socks off.
Whoa, what's this? This was when Martin was planning
on invading Wolverhampton. (BOTH LAUGH)
Drew Pritchard is one of Britain's
leading antique and decorative salvage dealers.
It's a great-looking thing, isn't it? Fab thing.
Joined on the road by queen of the haggle
and quick flip, Viki Knott...
£275 the lot.Yeah. Yeah, I'll take them.
...and lover of all things weathered and wonderful
Alister Dryburgh...
Just needs a load of cleaning. You clean it, I'll sell it.
Can we do it the other way round? (LAUGHS)
...Drew is sharing the knowledge...
What are those over there, Drew? They're great little mill carts.
...and the expertise... Three-step Anglepoise.
Rare as hell. God, it's an education already.
...he's gained over the past three decades.
Would have to be a really buy-me-now price,
but I don't think it will be. £550, Drew.
(ALL LAUGH)
Okay, so we're off to AD Castings today to see a man called Tony...
Yeah....in Blackburn. Yeah.A foundry.
Good. One of my favourite places. Yeah, not been to one.
Going back, small villages would have their own.
Anything to do with metalwork would be done.
You would take your spade to be fixed. You'd take your cart in to be fixed.
Your sledgehammer, your axe, you take all these things in to be fixed.
There was one next to the pub in Capel Bangor.
No.A foundry. There was. Next to the pub, mate.Really?Yeah.
So like you said, every village had one.Well, I love them.
Now Al's regularly joining him on the road, Drew's keen to pass on
what he's learned about buying from locations
that are off the beaten track for most antique dealers.
So today the boys are heading 100 miles northeast into Lancashire.
So what do you expect to buy today?
Patterns. Crucibles.
Any sort of ornate castings can be really profitable.
The one-offs, but also filthy dirty.
But that's all right. We're not dealing in fine antiques today, all right.No. (LAUGHS)
It's dirty, great lumps today.
Metalwork began to thrive in Blackburn
during the 19th century, partly driven
by the need for textile machinery in the factories,
which were powering the town's growth
into one of the world's most important exporters of woven fabrics.
And for the last 15 years, the city has been home to a foundry
continuing metal crafts which date back millennia...
...making everything from heavy-duty castings for steam trains
to intricate ornamental bronze.
These days the furnaces at AD Castings
are kept burning by third-generation founder Tony Duxbury.
TONY: My granddad started the foundry after the World War II.
Basically what I do here, I get a block of metal called an ingot,
which I place in the crucible.
When it melts, take the metal out of the furnace,
pour it into the mould.
It's quite a wide range of work that I do.
I make parts for ships for Ministry of Defence,
right through to sculptures
in between making parts for people with motorbikes, old cars.
They'll bring a piece into me and say,
"Tony, can you replicate that?"
"Yes." (LAUGHS)
Tony. Hiya. How are you? Hello, Drew.Nice to meet you.
How are you doing, Tony? Can we have a look around?
We can indeed. See what you're up to.
Well, I've just actually poured some bronze
before you came through the door.
I'll be able to pick it up now.
They're one-armed bandits.Oh, yeah.
Stock-in-trade has been this sort of factory for a long time.
There's a few things that you'll find in these places.
It's the oddball pieces. It's the strange and the weird
the wonderful that you really wanna try and walk away with.
It's just dust, dirt, grime.
But then when you look, you see things.
And there's stuff here.
Coming with Drew, who's been to these places before,
is brilliant because he knows what he's looking for.
With what you do, there's no substitute.
You just got to do it this way. That's it, isn't it?Yeah.
And it hasn't changed for nearly 2,000 years.
(LAUGHS)Fascinating.
But I do quite prestigious... This job here...
Well, that...
I made for the king of Spain, a staircase out of bronze.
Every piece of railing had one of those in the middle, front and back.
Hang on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You made the king of Spain a bronze staircase?Yeah.
That's no idle boast. In bronze.In bronze.
There was a ton and a half of bronze in this tiny room.
The guys here made a bronze spiral staircase for the king of Spain.
You can eat out on that one, can't you?
Blackburn to the king of Spain. Why not?
That's a great sign. That yours?No.
During Storm Deborah or whatever she was called,
my sign fell off revealing that underneath.Oh.
That was the original sign for this place.For this foundry.Yeah.
"E.S. Binns, brass founder." It's just cool, isn't it?
The font is really good on it.
It's got different colours coming through.
I think it originally had a green background.
It's been overpainted,
and it's just aged in that right way to give it that look.
Would you have just chucked that?
Was it ready for that? I'm not telling you that.(LAUGHS)
It was leaning on the skip.(LAUGHS)
You did give the game away by having it leaning on the skip. (LAUGHS)
£100.Absolutely sold.
That's very fair.That is, isn't it? That's fair.Yeah.
It's a cracking-looking thing.
I'm not gonna get rich-rich on that sign.
Maybe £200 when it's all done.
You might be interested in these letters, Drew. I don't know.
Oh, God. Look at those. I've seen that design a lot of times.
Can I have a look at one, please?
So what happened with this job,
the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital was being knocked down,
and they were building houses on it, but they still wanted to put up
some sort of a board that said what had been there previously.
So they came to me and said, "Can you replicate the ones that have gone missing?"
And it got lost in translation, and I just replicated them all. (LAUGHS)
So what metal is that now? That's aluminium.
I've got quite a few of these.
I quite like them. Do you? Yeah, these are great.
I love how stylised they are. The A and the H are just great.
They're in a very particular font,
which is the English Gothic Revival.
And you could really highly polish those if you wanted to.
You can paint them, you can stick them on the wall. They're always fun.
These are a bit of you, I think. Yeah, definitely.
You know what's best? What's really good?
A rude word, right?
If you get these lettering and then do a rude word in your shop,
it's gone the same day. It's gone. It's true, innit?
We're all looking down to see what we can make now.Yeah.
£24 there.Tenner a piece.Yeah.
A tenner a piece and I'll throw all those little ones in for free. I'm happy with that.
But what I normally do with these in the shop,
I just scatter them all over a table.
Maybe I'll just make one little word up
just to give an idea in somebody's head,
and I'll just price them individually.
These crucibles are something I've bought. Yeah, you've got a few of them.
So what are they made of? They're made of a mix of silicon and carbon.
There's aluminium in there, bronze in there, brass in that one. (CHUCKLES)
They've all got their own surface patination.
They've all got their own colour, their own gnarliness to them, almost like a bit of moon rock.
They're the weirdest volcanic, oddball things,
but it's all man-made,
and you're never gonna get two that are the same.
Great. It's part of the charm.
Crucibles have to be strong enough to withstand temperatures
from 900 degrees to melt copper
and up to 1,500 degrees to melt steel.
Archaeological examples were made of stoneware or ceramic.
Each with its own unique character,
these modern silicon and carbon versions
could now be repurposed as decorative pieces or planters.
Sold in Al's shop, they could fetch around £150 each.
Which ones can go?
That one. That one. That one. So those three.
Are they £50 each? Yeah, that's very fair. Good.
Thank you.Thank you.
Drew was probably the first person to buy these and make them popular.
I've never bought them in situ before.
I've had them in fairs. I've sold them.
But it's nice to get them from the foundry.
There's some big patterns in here.
Do you ever sell your patterns off? Yeah.
Oh, look, this is what you were talking about.
Oh, now you're talking. Right, young man.
One thing I knew we were gonna find. Patterns.
People call them wooden moulds. They're not, they're patterns.
It's a real art form. It's a real art form.
Right. Educate me.Okay.
So, patterns.BOTH: Yeah.
The ones that are the most saleable.
See those ones there like cogs and gears and valves and whatever,
that are on a backboard, which you can already screw them to the wall,
they're your easy, low-hanging fruit, right?
They do look like little art pieces when you hang them on the wall, particularly in groups.
They are technically amazing things.
The guys who make these patterns, they blow my mind.
They're so beautifully done.
That's the pattern maker.
The skill to do that.
The pattern maker is the skilled guy in this game.
To create an intricately cast object,
a pattern must be constructed first,
which is then pressed into sand to make the mould.
Ingenuity is required to ensure the pattern can be removed,
leaving the sand perfectly intact
and ready for molten metal to be poured in.
Originally created for a Ministry of Defence contract,
these late 20th century wooden patterns
are now extraordinary decorative items.
Sold as a collection, Drew thinks they could be worth around £650.
These are my favourite types.
The one you can sit on a desk.
Just have that on your desk, just cleaned up and polished.
Just looks really cool, I think.
That's off a steam train.
Axle box off a steam train. Off a steam train.
I'm thinking might be doing a deal with you if we buy them.
Yeah, yeah. So how many is there?
One, two, three, four, five, six.
Seven.Seven. Do you want me to do it?
Yeah, you can buy them, yeah. £280 the lot.
Drew's giving Al a crash course on what to look for
amongst the dust and grime of a traditional Lancashire foundry.
Oh, look, now you're talking.
Right, young man.Right. Educate me.
And the boys have decided to go halves
on a batch of wooden patterns.
Originally made to create sand moulds for casting metal objects,
they now have strong decorative potential.
So how many is there?Six.
Seven.TONY: Seven.£280 the lot.
Let's round it up. 300 quid. That's absolutely fine.
So what we've done with the patterns
is a very common thing in the antiques trade.
We've buddied up on them, we've gone halves.
So they'll get shipped down to Al, he will do the work and get them ready,
and he'll sell them and we'll split the profits.
Right. Are you done? I think... (LAUGHS)I'm really done.
Hosepipe?We've been worse.Hm.
Erm, thank you very much.
A really good day with Tony at AD Castings.
Just great fun.
And once again, to see a small British business
doing so well and doing such beautiful work.
Slim pickings for me today, but I went in with Al
on the patterns which will pay for the day
cos they'll sell quick, and that's all right with me.
Believe it or not, it is good to come to these places with Drew,
because again today I've looked at things differently,
and I've learned from the guy.
I've learnt from his experience,
and that's what it's all about, learning.
So to come here today, it's been brilliant
to see how the place works, to meet Tony,
and to get stuff that no one else has had their hands on.
Tony, thank you very much, mate. Much appreciated.No problem.
Really enjoyed it. Thank you. Nice to meet you.Take care. Cheers, mate. Ta-ta.
Right, well, that was good. Enjoy yourself?Very good. Yeah.
I love going to any industrial thing.
I've been to hundreds, right, and I'm still not bored.
Love it. Today was really good. Really good.
After a day of new experiences for Al,
it's around 110 miles south into Derbyshire
where Drew wants to introduce an important contact
and offer Al another chance to learn,
this time about the world of antique lighting,
one of Drew's specialist subjects.
Today we're off to see Martin and Rachel
at Ashby Lighting, family business.
I met them about six years ago. Right.
Martin's expertise is in late 19th century
into early 20th century English lighting,
and particularly Benson.Benson.
That's one of his great loves. He seems to be more and more obsessed with Benson.
Every time you go there. But it's his background as an engineer for Rolls-Royce
and all of those design skills and manufacturing skills
he's brought into his own business. Okay.
Is it just lighting he deals in, or are we gonna see other stuff?
He's got all sorts of things.
When I first met him, he was doing aviation and military
and lots and lots and lots of guns...Right.
...and, erm, rocket launchers. Really?Yeah. Missiles.
All sorts of crazy stuff, so he might have a bit of that lying around.
People buy that, do they?Yeah.
The origins of the Derbyshire town of Melbourne
may have been as a settlement to service a royal manor,
visited several times perhaps for the local hunting
at the turn of the 13th century by King John.
Many centuries later, it's now a hunting ground
for connoisseurs of antique lamps as well as other rare objects
collected by specialist lighting restorer Martin Ashby
and his wife and business partner Rachel.
MARTIN: When we started off, we were called Ashby Interiors.
That was because we had a mix of lighting,
we had aeronautical antiques and general antiques.
But you cannot replace the aeronautical pieces.
So obviously that's now wound down,
and then we've wound the lighting up.
RACHEL: We do sell a broad range of lighting.
We start off with the Arts and Crafts period,
and Martin is a collector of William Benson.
He restores a lot of the William Benson
and sells that worldwide.
We also have a range now that we manufacture,
which takes inspiration from the Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts period.
I particularly love lighting because you can turn something
that's old and not looking very good in lots of people's eyes,
you turn something back into a gem.
And I think that's really what I enjoy.
Hello.Hi.Hello.How you doing? Nice to see you again. Hey, how are you?
Good to see you. How are you? Very well, thanks.
I'd love to see inside. This is gonna blow you away.Is it?Really.
That's a nice thing to say. After you.
Look at that.Wow.
From the outside, it doesn't look like much.
But as soon as you go in through those doors, it just hits you.
The quality of the lighting
and just seeing that mass of light, it takes your breath away.
How long ago did I meet you? MARTIN: Nearly five years.
You were doing all sorts of stuff, lighting was a big part.
But now it's taken over, hasn't it? Yeah.
So you were a dealer before? Just a general dealer or...
No. So I worked full-time at Rolls-Royce
and then I was doing this part-time.
And then because I was Rolls-Royce, I was into the aircraft stuff,
and then lighting was just a natural progression.
What you've got here,
I can see a combination of originals
and the ones you're making, but it's difficult to tell.
It's difficult to tell what's what,
so I'm presuming most of that is you.
Yes.Just cos they're so clean. Yeah. (LAUGHS)
I've copied these. I bought an original.
So I now replicate these, and they're identical.
And I'm not trying to say that they're Bensons.
I say they're Bensons made by Ashby, and I stamp them.
You make that, and that's £795 retail?Yeah, yeah.
And how much is the original?
So I paid £3,500 for the original one.
The name Benson was coming up a lot.
I'll be honest with you. I've heard of Benson Lighting.
But today is gonna be a learning day.
I'm gonna listen to what Drew and Martin
have to say to each other, and I'm gonna take it all in.
Known for the quality and beauty
of his metalwork, especially lighting,
William Arthur Smith Benson became a key figure
in the 19th century Arts and Crafts Movement
inspired by his mentor William Morris.
Both a skilled craftsman and talented designer,
Benson was fascinated by electrical engineering.
And among other projects,
installed the lighting in Saint Paul's Cathedral.
These are Birmingham Guild.Yeah. What do you think that's worth?
So we've got a price tag of 12K on it.Yeah.
I'm learning about things
that in the past, I've probably walked past, dismissed.
I've been walking past good things.
But coming to these places today, seeing all these lights,
seeing all these different styles of lights
by different makers, I'm learning.
That one at the back.
So there's a pair of those. Oh, is there?Yeah, I like those.
Thumb screw's missing on this one.
I'll probably have a thumb screw though.
Or I could make one to match.
Those are really interesting.Yeah.
I like the look of those. Yeah, they're a resto job, aren't they?Yes.
Table lamp about yay big. Very narrow in its form.
And at the centre, very cleverly,
has been made for it to rise and fall, to lift, to heighten.
And then Martin says, "Oh, there's a pair." Bam. Yeah.
This pair of brass lamps is by Osler,
a British company which began in 1807
as a humble glassmaker shaping droplets for chandeliers.
But within 50 years was supplying elaborate lighting
to Queen Victoria and Indian maharajahs.
The Osler 4-tonne cut glass crystal fountain
was one of the talking points of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Dating from around 1910,
this adjustable model is particularly unusual.
Once restored, Drew believes the pair could be worth
around £1,150.
I think they need to be about £250 each.
Oh, look, it's missing the drip tray.Yeah.
So you want £500 as they are.
If I said to you I'll give you £750, but can you do the work?Yeah.
Yeah?Yeah.
Nice sort of dark brown cable on them.
One of your little inline switches. Yeah.
Deal. Thank you very much.
£750, done. Great.
So I'm getting them restored for that.
In my world, that's a gift. That's great news.
So I'm gonna get a pair back,
restored by Martin, by Ashby Lighting, ready to rock.
As you can see, this is mostly table lamps.
Yeah. Love that.
That's cool, isn't it? There's a pair of those.Fantastic.
What manufacturer would you put those down to?(EXHALES)
Tricky, aren't they?Yeah.
Cos that's not as graceful as a Benson.No.
They aren't a pair. They're completely different.No.
But they're really good, aren't they?
They're sort of atomic.Yeah.
Yeah, they are probably 1910 though. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They look all the world in their manufacture,
like a cross between a Benson and an atomic lamp.
They're a real oddball, and I've never seen them before.
They've got that little tripod base with the ball feet. Super cool.
So I just wondered what are you asking for those?
I could probably do a couple hundred pound each on them.
Thank you very much. I'll take those.
I think they're too interesting not to.
They're just such an oddball piece.
These are on me all over.
Absolutely, 100% purely the thing I like to buy.
Great design, very original. Just great things.
So, aircraft stuff,
that there is a propeller from a B-17.
So a lot of history with that one.
So that's probably one of the last aircraft pieces we've got left
apart from this piece here,
which is a rocket motor from a Blue Steel nuclear bomb.
Wow.Good God.
He's still got bits of guns and sort of aviation antiques
that he had when I first met him about five years ago.
Still bits of that lying around. A jet engine for a nuclear bomb or something.
Crazy that you can buy these things.
Well, what's this? I like that.
This was when Martin was planning on invading Wolverhampton. (LAUGHTER)
And he was setting up a small army out the back.
That is a .50-cal cutaway model.
.50 cal? The thing on top of tanks? Yeah.
Well, they had them on all sorts. Tanks, warships, aircraft.
I'll be honest with you, I paid £750.
It's not my problem you paid too much.
I'd want a grand for it. Oh, come on.
Come on, Martin. I'd want a grand for it.
It's a scaled model of a machine gun.
It's made of wood, and it's cut.
So it shows you the workings inside the gun.
This is very, very good. It's saleable.
And that's got to be a grand, has it?
I'll take a little hit on it, but it's really nice, isn't it?Mm.
Drew shaking his head. I'm thinking, "I can't pay £1,000 for this gun."
His wife wants to get rid of it. She's probably sick of seeing it hanging around the place.
But he's got that love, that military background.
He's worked for Rolls-Royce, and he's been clinging on to it for years.
800 quid?700 quid.Oh, no, I paid that for it.700 quid.
But the bullets must have cost me 50 quid.
It's been sat on top of my rack.
He's trying to make us feel sorry for him.700 quid.(SIGHS)
£750, because of the bullets. And then I'm not losing money then.
(BREATHES DEEPLY)
On an enlightening trip to a specialist restorer in Derbyshire...
This is gonna blow you away. Wow.Look at that.
...Al's in a battle to seal a deal
for an extraordinary model machine gun.
800 quid?700 quid.Oh, no, I paid that for it.700 quid.
But the bullets must have cost me 50 quid. It's been sat on top of my rack.
He's trying to make us feel sorry for him.700 quid.(SIGHS)
£750, because of the bullets. And then I'm not losing money then.
£750?
Good lad.Oh. (LAUGHS)
I love it. It's a really, really nice piece.
As a dealer, when you go around, you're looking at things.
Some things just stand out.
You get that gut reaction, and I don't know what it is.
Just something goes (CLICKS FINGERS) in you and you've got to buy it.
That little helicopter aircraft. Yeah, that's nice.
Bought from a model aircraft flying club at Rolls-Royce.
There's a helicopter on the table.
It's got its own engine, and it's made of wood.
And it's from the '50s.
Just imagine that hanging in your shop window.
It's gonna look a million dollars.
What price have you got on that? Probably 150 quid or something.
Mm. Yeah. Are you...
No, go on.Yeah?Yeah, yeah.
I'm not gonna knock you on that. Thank you.
It's from the '50s, and it's got a Rolls-Royce background.
£150. Couldn't get my hand out of my pocket fast enough.
That's coming home with me.
Coming back to see Rachel and Martin at Ashby Lighting has been great.
It's really nice to see them.
Very happy with what I've bought. Really, they are wow.
The quality in them is wonderful.
For want of a better expression, they're pure me.
They were me when I started buying things.
They're still me now. Bang on.
Every day's a school day, but we're in it to make money.
But I didn't think I'd be going away today
with a machine gun in the back of my van.
How random is that. Brilliant.
Right then. Thank you very much. RACHEL: Ah, thank you.
Another interesting day. Yeah. Pleasure, mate.
Lovely to see you again. Thank you very much.
Give us a shout when the other ones are ready
and we'll get them picked up.Super.
Thank you, mate. Thank you. RACHEL: Bye-bye.
That was good seeing Martin.
I didn't expect to find a machine gun there today.
That, I was... Did you wanna buy that?Yeah.
I loved it.It's good.I loved it.
You did pay. You paid up for that, I've got to say. You called me tight.
You are tight.Wasn't today. I wasn't today.
To keep the customer happy,
Martin's taking Drew's pair of Osler lamps
straight into the restoration workshop.
This is the most complete one.
So this one has the thumb screw and the candle drip tray here.
And then this one has the thumb screw
and the candle drip tray missing.
And then it's been drilled at some stage
for the cable to go in there, but that's not correct.
Having carefully dismantled
the century old lamp into its components,
Martin has a plan to repair the hole in the base.
So I will have to redrill that. I will tap it,
and then I will find a piece of threaded brass bar,
and then put it in there, cut that off,
and then turn it over,
and I will solder it in from the back.
I'm a Rolls-Royce engineer.
As an engineer, you try and make these things
so that they'll never, ever come back.
You'll never have a problem with it again.
So now we've got the brass plug in it,
I'm gonna then solder it from the back end.
And then once that's soldered and cooled down, I can dress it back.
This has now been dressed back flush.
Next step is to take it into the polishing booth,
and I will coarse polish it.
Mask back on.
Once polished, the new base will need to be treated
to simulate an aged finish.
But first, Martin needs to replace the missing drip tray
by delving into his giant stash of spares.
So all of these accessories, we have literally thousands of them.
It's a bit plainer, but it's not a bad match.
Bit more detail on this one as compared to that one,
but we can put that on the lathe, and I'll try and do something with it.
So there's two pieces of detail missing
on the one that I found.
One, there's a tiny step there.
And then also, there's an internal radius.
With the new drip tray sculpted,
Martin dips each component in acetic acid,
a process known as acid etching, which adds patina to the brass.
What the acid is doing now, it's putting oxide onto the brass,
and then that's what basically ages. It starts to age it.
After I finish the patination process here,
I will use ammonia.
The use of ammonia will darken the surface
to create the aged brass look Drew wants.
And then the lead weight.
The aging on these now, I'm really pleased with it.
I think they look really natural and well-aged.
The oil drip tray that we changed,
if you didn't know that we'd done it, you wouldn't know.
I enjoy restoring these things.
And you'll turn something that was damaged, missing pieces,
and you turn it back into something that's really functional
and beautiful basically.
It's been an educational week for Al,
but in the antiques trade, the learning never ends.
Today the boys are heading southeast to investigate the possibilities
of a back garden salvage yard tucked away in the Cotswolds.
Where are we off to today, young man?
We're gonna see Francis Barber Architectural Salvage.Okay.
So I think Francis operates from home
with his wife in Kelmscott. I haven't heard of him.
Kelmscott?Yep. Made famous by William Morris.
It was the 19th century artist and designer William Morris
who put the quiet Cotswold village of Kelmscott on the map
when he rented a manor house on the edge of the village
as a retreat from the industrial grime of London.
In recent times, the village has also become a haven
for a new architectural salvage and antiques collection.
Gathered over years, it's the collaborative venture
of district nurse Sarah Barber
and her husband, landscape gardener Francis.
I do landscape gardening. Have done for nearly 40 years.
So, obviously, I accumulated lots of stuff from gardens I've cleared,
and I've bought stuff to do gardens and landscaping.
Now's the time to start getting rid of some of it.
We bought stuff because we thought
one day we might have a reclamation yard.
I like collecting things like the staddle stones and stone troughs
and then sort of decorative antiquey things.
We're looking forward to Drew and Al coming to see us
and get some of their opinions about what we've got.
Hello. Good morning. Drew. Good to meet you. Hi.
Hello, mate. Hi. Francis. How you doing?
You can sort of guess from the road what you do.(LAUGHTER)Yes.
Love the truck, the Thames. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice, isn't it?
Hello. Right then, okay.
I love those saddle stones. They're nice.Yeah.
First impressions. It's like going back to the 1940s.
Immediately, it's great fun.
I find architectural salvage yards and architectural antiques,
without doubt, the most interesting area for the antiques business.
And yards turn up stuff.
It's an area of the business I really love.
What's that?That's nice.
Don't ask me what it is because I don't know.
The pillar. Four pieces.
Are they hollow?Yes, yes.
It's a chimney.Is it?
There's no stain inside. Yeah. It's been cleaned out,
and it's probably had a liner or lead liners or something in it.
It's 18th century.Is it?Yeah.
We're here 30 seconds, and on the left-hand side,
something caught my eye. It's a carved sandstone pillar.
And straight away I think I know what that is.
That's a decorative chimney surround.
18th century, Cotswold stone.
And I was just pulled straight towards it.
It's the sort of thing you want to find in a salvage yard.
They're very nicely made. They're particularly well-weathered.
There's hardly any damage at all. I just love them.
I think they're very, very beautiful pieces.
These four sections of stone are marked with letters on the inside
to show the order in which they fit together
to form a hollow column of cladding for a chimney.
The size and material suggests they may have come
from a grand local house built in the 18th century.
Characterfully aged, these pieces now have decorative potential,
and Drewe thinks they could be worth around £1,450.
Would you wanna sell them?Yeah.
What do you want for them? I wouldn't have a clue.
It's a tricky one. Throw a figure at me.
Well, starting point, 500 quid.
Hm. I thought they was worth a lot more, but...There you go.
This is why we have this discussion.
You know what you want for them? I don't really know.
But you know what you don't want for them.I think £1,500.Do you?
Yeah.Hm, that's too much.
At a back garden salvage yard in the Cotswolds,
Drew's identified stone cladding from the chimney
of a grand 18th century house and is keen to buy.
You know what you want for them.I don't know.
But you know what you don't want for them.I think £1,500. Do you?
Yeah.Hm, that's too much.
That's all right. There's no money left in it for me.
So we can go £1,000.
Would £1,000 buy them?Yeah.
All right, sir.Thank you. That was easy.Sold.
Thank you.Thank you.Thank you. Let's keep going.Yep.
They make a really great pair of console table bases.
Just get two and stack them on top of each other against a wall.
Or get two sections, put them together as they should be,
put a top on them, you've got two small tables.
There's loads of different things you can do with them.
Just going into Fran's office cum collection room.
You like your toys, huh? I like my toys.Oh, my word.
(LAUGHS)God. Yeah.Oh, hello.
You've seen one of them before?I have, in your house. Yeah.
You collect them? Erm, I've got a couple.
Would you sell that one?Yeah.Yeah?
Francis invites us to his house, to his office,
and it's just full of toys.
Brilliant. What an office.
And on the bookshelf, there's this wooden man
called dancing jigs, wooden jigs. I've bought a lot of them.
I've got a particularly very, very good one at home,
which I will never, ever, ever sell. A local one.
Also known as limberjacks and clogging men,
loose-limbed dancing dolls like this
provided roadside entertainment in Europe and beyond
probably for many centuries.
In early 20th-century Britain,
buskers using them to raise cash in the streets
were often World War I veterans.
The aged paintwork on this example
suggests it probably dates from the early 1900s.
Al thinks it could be worth around £250.
They're good fun, these, aren't they?
They dance on a biscuit tin. You know how to do it?
Can you make him dance? Erm, what have we got? What about on your desk or...
Your turn.It's not much of a dance. How much is he?
£100?I'm not gonna argue with that.
Thank you.
Can we have a look at your other storage place?
Yeah.All right? It's just down the road.
You taking that with you? I'll bring it with me. Don't lose it.
They're good sellers because they're just tactile.
They're small, and they're boys' toys.
I've sold them to collectors who've got 20, 30, 40, 50 of them.
And they're all individual.
They've all been made by someone's grandfather,
in somebody's shed, and they're all different,
and that's what's good about them.
That very rarely is there any the same.
There's lots of sort of timber stuff in that one.
Blimey. Well, we ain't getting in there, are we? Easily.
They've got an old truck body over there
full of doors and bits of pine furniture and this, that and the other,
but Al and I spot the same thing at the same time.
Oy.Okay.
I like that.It's got to be about 60 odd quid, isn't it?
A little bit less than I thought, but not much.Yeah.
£60? Yeah, it's fine.
£60. Who's buying it? Me or you? I'll buy it.THere you go.
And it's just got that crude look with all those knife marks.
Clean it up, wax it,
and because it's only 3 to 4 foot,
it's a great, great size to put in the hall.
Put your shoes on or use it in the shop to display things.
This big unit you've got there...It's huge, isn't it?
Yeah. It's got to be 12 foot?
Possibly.
Where do you get it from?
Came out of a farm kitchen, didn't it?
Yeah, back of the kitchen.
What is it? Pine with a pitch pine top, Drew? It's all pine, yeah.Okay.
That's a big project.
It's a load of money to be spent on that. But it's got potential.
The last container we go into,
and there's something really rather good in there.
It's a very large 19th century scrub top sideboard,
work table, dresser base, whatever you wanna call it.
Big deep drawers.
It's been in a kitchen probably all its life
or some working environment.
It's a belter.
What would you want for it? I thought £1,500.
In that condition, it's a bit of a stretch.
There's a figure springs to mind that I will pay for it,
which is £800. I don't wanna pay any more for it.
It'll cost £200 quid to shift it so I'm gonna be in for £1,000.
And that's me done. I can't give you any more money.
You're sure?Yeah. Sure?Yeah, that's fine.
Thank you.Thank you very much. Thank you.Thank you. Thank you, mate.
Be nice to see it all restored, actually.Yes.
My restorer is gonna absolutely hate me.(BOTH LAUGH)
It's going to need two grand spending on it
to get it to the standard where it can go into a house.
And that is two grand when it finally gets screwed to a wall.
You're gonna be into it for £3,000, but that will make your kitchen.
What a starting point for a kitchen.
It's fantastic.
Fab. Okay, I think we're done. Let's go and sort some money out.
Lovely.Go from there.Thank you.
I've had a great day today.
Francis Barber Architectural Salvage in Kelmscott.
Never been there before.
Just a good old-fashioned salvage yard.
Best thing of the day, honestly, that great big serving table.
That big work table. It's a great thing.
That one's got potential.
Right, guys, thank you very much. Thank you.
Really enjoyed it.It's been good. It's been a pleasure.
Our carrier will be in touch about getting that shifted.
We'll do the whole lot in one go.
Yeah, okay. Thank you. It was lovely.
Take care. Bye-bye. See you. Bye-bye.Bye.
Lovely people. Really nice. Really nice people.
What a beautiful place to live and work.I like that.
You've done all right, didn't you? The table.
There's a bit of a job on to do it,
but I think I've got a home for it already.
Another contact in the book. Always another contact.
And Kelmscott on the doorstep. Beautiful.
Before leaving the village, there's time for another educational stop
for Al at the nearby Kelmscott Manor,
the house which during the late 19th century
was the country retreat of Drew's design hero,
William Morris.
Wow.Isn't it just wonderful?
William Morris called it the loveliest place
of ancient peace and tranquillity. Something along those lines.
And Morris found massive inspiration from being here.
Imagine he'd have arrived here by carriage on the back of a horse
with his paints and his pencils.
It would have been amazing. It's a wonderful place.
Should we have some tea and cake? Oh, yeah.
It's been a big part of my life. I didn't know anything about it.
Came out of school. Nothing.
Never heard his name. Nothing.
And then when I started on my apprenticeship in '86,
scrawled on the wall near the phone.
There was a phone on the wall, the ones you did that with.
One of those. Scrawled in pencil on the wall, it says,
"Have nothing in your houses that you know not to be beautiful, believe to be useful."
I said, "Who's that?" He goes, "That's William Morris."Oh.
And that was it. Boom.
But his whole ethos is what got me.
His whole dogged refusal
to let the 19th-century industrialism
ruin Britain at that point,
and to remind us all that this can all be made by hand.
And it's better if it's made by hand for lots and lots of reasons.
And it caught on in a very, very big way.
And boom, we have the Arts and Crafts movement.
What a great place to be doing all that in.It's not bad, aye.
It's not bad. And the cake's good too.
Another great week on the road with Professor Pritchard.
Jokes aside, I do learn a lot from the guy.
Going into an industrial setting
and just looking at crucibles and patterns,
seeing them in a different light.
And then giving them a new life.
Putting them into the home, making them breathe again
when it could have just been chucked in a skip.
And then we went to see Martin at Ashby Lighting.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
It was just great listening to Martin and Drew
talking about different makers, different styles,
different eras of lights.
And that's what's good about going out with Drew.
He's been in the trade for so many years,
he's just soaked up so much knowledge,
and he's letting that knowledge seep out of him,
and I'm picking up that knowledge. I'm learning from him.
And every once in a while, he does learn something from me.
He won't admit it, but he does.
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