reimburse the sale price or item. Proof, of course, is helpful. Everyone should photograph all valuable items in their houses and gardens. Indeed, Walcot Reclamation and the Bath Auctioneers & Estate Agents Society have together sponsored a postcard with an important message for owners of empty houses: "Protect your property!" Walcot Reclamation only buys from reputable dealers and auctions. However, an item may change hands very quickly, even daily, and may soon become "reputable". The only solution is that every item should have an accompanying registration document so that its origin can be traced. While Walcot Reclamation would be happy with this, dealers would not wish to reveal their sources because others would soon find them and cut them (the dealers) out. For items bought from builders or developers, ownership can be questionable. If the owner puts a nosalvage clause in his contract, this makes the position clearer - the builder is selling on the owner's behalf. Very often, a builder sees scrap or salvage as an inalienable perk. This encourages the removal for sale of items that may otherwise remain or be reused in the property. Walcot Reclamation believes that it is much better that items are recycled than scrapped. Walcot Reclamation also believes that original material should always be available for re-installation in buildings. Many of the items in buildings A selectionof the stock at the depot. CONTEXT24 have been recycled more than once already and are not original to the building anyway. It also believes that the market in legitimate recycled materials should be encouraged by local authorities, and not looked on askance. The whole discussion leads to the need for a code of practice. Walcot Reclamation would be happy to cooperate in a voluntary association of architectural salvage yards giving "government health warning" reminders on invoices and other documents that would warn everyone that "removal of items of historical importance from your period home or garden may be constituting an offence under the listed buildings legislation. If in doubt please consult your Local Authority Listed Buildings Officer". Or perhaps more informally "we do not recommend the removal of any items of historical value from your home or gardens whether for resale or not". Walcot Reclamation goes about architectural salvage in a very business-like way. Its clear catalogues are a summary of its computer controlled stock list. It hopes that within perhaps two or three years it will be able to develop a project for the storage of images alongside its main stock list. And it is also trying to establish a small library of relevant books. A recent acquisition is Abraham Swan's Designs for Chimneys; and the Proportions. According to Howard Calvin's Biographical Dietionary of British Architects, Abraham Swan was a carpenter and joiner who published several books of architectural designs between 1745 and 1768. This particular book sets out a table for "Rules for proportioning chimneys the size to the respective rooms". Perhaps the way forward will be for architectural salvage yards to sponsor historians to research more fully the items that are being sold and so establish a more detailed base of building history knowledge. AFTERTHOUGHT I wonder just how much material is being deliberately taken out of our historic buildings, with or without the benefit of listed building consent, simply to become an architectural antique with the idea of profit being the main motivating force as opposed to rescue or salvage. In a way the idea of architectural salvage parallels the idea of an open air museum. Instead of complete buildings being "saved" to be stored and re-erected, the various elements of a building are being salvaged with the intention of re-use appropriately or otherwise. The existence of a museum of buildings is no bad thing in itself. However, sometimes the very fact that such an organisation exists, with the land to reerect the stored buildings on, provides a very convenient excuse for those who seek to remove a listed building completely. To use the bottom line, this means demolishing a listed building and re-erecting it elsewhere - all part of the process of getting rid of an inconvenient bit of history that stands in the way of the theoretical redevelopment value of a site. Does the existence of architectural salvage yards promote the disappearance of the very thing that they are supposed to be salvaging? DMcL 15
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