Changes Start with... THE SPARK "at the heart of the alternative west country"

Posted by: Vicki on 14/02/2011

Where Bill finds himself in the wonderland of a reclamation yard.

The day we moved into our new house we found out that the shower didn't work. Our immediate instinct was to make do and mend, so we asked a plumber friend if he could fix it. He pronounced it well and truly defunct. It's a shame, but we really needed to get a shower installed as baths use much more water and are very wasteful. We decided we'd run the shower from the taps and not install an electric or gas unit, so we bought a new mixer tap and shower hose, sadly without thinking. It was only when we talked to a local carpenter who was giving us a quote for some shelves that we found out there is a reclamation yard only a couple of miles from our house, Minchinhampton Architectural Salvage Co (Masco), just by Aston Down airfield.

What greets you at the yard is the most amazing site: piles of slates, bricks, stones, statues, even miniature houses at Masco. It was a fantasy world: on one plinth there was a majestic stag. There were angels and cherubs all around. Suddenly there was a stone rotunda. I turned around to see sculpted Hindu gods and scenes of African emancipation.

A man we met on site in a forklift said the company clears out old houses before they are either demolished or refurbished. He said he had just managed to get the contract for a house in Devon that developers just wanted to level to the ground. He was able to save all the wonderful old fixtures that would otherwise have been pulverised and sent to landfill.

The first thing we found was some beautiful wood, our favourite being elm. We need to put up a lot of shelves and we'd prefer to use sustainable wood, which either means reclaimed like this, or new wood from managed forests. Next we found ourselves a replacement sink, a wonderful old Agate covered in a web of spider-fine cracks. We'll be using the old one to make a pond in the garden, so it won't be thrown out either. Of course, Masco had old mixer taps and shower hoses, many of which would fit better with our house. We could kick ourselves!

We've decided we'll go back to the reclamation yard for our garden furniture and possibly for some tiles. Otherwise we've got some porcelain tiles from an independent tile shop in Cirencester, Cotswold Tiles. We're hoping to get the shower, our new sink and the tiles fitted in the next couple of weeks. We can't wait to be able to shower again – I'm sure the Spark team feel the same, although they're too polite to say!

Please let us know about reclamation yards and independent tile shops near you.

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