LASSCO Three Pigeons

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/feb/23/stadtgeschichtliches-museum-spandau-berlin-exhibition-statues

A***n homoeroticism and Lenin’s head: the museum showcasing Berlin’s unwanted statues At the ancient citadel of Spandau, German history is redefined with rejected sculptures of figures ranging from Kant to Hi**er

Are you an Opercularist ?
Whilst Opercula may seem to be the most utilitarian of objects, and anachronistic at that, they have developed an enthusiastic following. Past Opercularists include Sir John Betjeman (who coined the phrase) and many others. Exhibitions of “Coal-hole covers”, a more descriptive term, have appeared in Mayfair art galleries; enthusiasts can be seen taking rubbings on the street.

As a collection they offer a fantastic opportunity to present them as a grid – whether setting them into a pavement  (perhaps an interior lobby or bar or boot-room), or perhaps a back-bar, bar-front or even bar top - Restaurant designers grab them quick!
The coal-hole cover was a functional part of Georgian and Victorian terraces. It rather neatly, enabled the coal-man to send coal through the operculum into a chute to the coal bunker in the basement level – the coal cellar either backing onto or underneath the pavement or entrance path – without traipsing coal dust through the house. The inventive geometric designs were amazing in their complexity – the different designs presumably helped the coal-man differentiate between clients as he went on his round.
Some bear the founders’ name, but not all. Some are “Hayward Bros”, others “Brooks Phillips” or “Matt’s of Paddington” - some are still sharp, others have worn quite smooth from the tramp of feet.

Of all the curiosities we’ve encountered in all these years, of all the extraordinary lumps we’ve heaved across the threshold here at LASSCO - this is one of the very best….

The Temple of Friendship Coade Stone Urns - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities

Robert Adam re-designed Bowood House in Wiltshire for Lord Shelburne (later Lord Lansdown) from 1761 to 71. These pilasters were salvaged from the tragic demolitions there in 1956. Whilst they are doubtless to the designs of Adam, we think these columns may have been installed during one of the series of later re-modellings, quite possibly those by Sir Charles Barry in Victorian times. Barry is credited with making what had become a somewhat disjointed interior into a more cohesive whole.
Famously Adam’s Dining Room from the demolished Bowood “Big House” was bought by Lloyd’s of London to form their board room at their “1928 Building”. Somewhat incongruously, by 1986, it was re-inserted on the 11th floor of Richard Roger’s replacement Lloyd’s Building there at 1 Lime Street. These pilasters 3.24m high and still with the shadow of the Bowood chair-rail and skirting in the sides, are associated to, but separated from, that room.
See our Latest Acquisitions to Read More, Make an Enquiry or Buy Them.
The delicate foliate ornament snaking down the front has been beautifully restored for us by of Welshpool all sensitively and painstakingly done by hand.

To any Architectural Salvage Dealer, “Del-Boy” from Only Fools & Horses is, of course, regarded as a Patron Saint and a Hero. So to have had a visit from Sir David Jason together with Jay Blades of Repair Shop fame for a photo-shoot to promote their upcoming new BBC series was both a pleasure and an honour!

Their visit here was photographed, they were interviewed, and the result was the Cover Story on this weekend’s “The Telegraph Magazine”. Luvly Jubbly.

Del-Boy comes to LASSCO - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities Sir David Jason and Jay Blades pay a visit to LASSCO Three Pigeons

Huge salvage of Reclaimed Flooring now Incoming from Piccadilly - from a site with quite a history…

Get these floorboards down ... and have an “Egyptian Hall” - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities Reclaimed Flooring from an historic site: Egyptian House, Piccadilly

A rare sighting of the LASSCO Three Pigeons team! LtoR:

Artur - Logistics, Yard & Plaster Casting workshop
Guido - Fireplace restoration workshop and shop display
Ant - General Manager & Buyer
Tom - Sales Manager
Grzeg - Flooring workshop

Photograph by 📷🎥

LASSCO Three Pigeons is now Closed for the Christmas week. We re-open at 9am on Tuesday 3rd January 2024. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you reading this on Instagram and to all our customers and suppliers and friends. See you in the New Year (we have some particularly good recent acquisitions to tell you about!)

Pictured: A plaster cast of the Madonna and Child by Antonio “Rossellino” Gamberelli (1427-79). The original marble overlooks the Tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal at San Miniato al Monte in Florence. The entire sculptural series at the memorial chapel (1461-66), by Antonio and his elder brother Bernardo, was moulded by a team from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum (now Bode Museum) Berlin in around 1905. This sculpture 82 x 62cm (h x w) was doubtless made from those moulds. LASSCO unearthed this casting in a warehouse clearance in Berkshire earlier this year.

https://www.lassco.co.uk/lassco-news/2023/12/21/opening-hours-christmas-2023/

Opening Hours - Christmas 2023 - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities Check the Opening Hours at LASSCO Brunswick House and LASSCO Three Pigeons over the Christmas week.

We don’t do (ew) but we do do which is merely to remind you about our fabulous workshop with a superb range of decorative plaques, sculptures and architectural ornament. They make wonderful gifts. Make it a etc. etc. 🎅🏽

The Plaster Stockroom.
At LASSCO Three Pigeons we have long been in cahoots with Peter Hone and, under his watchful eye, have built up the plaster casting operation. If you missed the opportunity to buy at the Peter Hone auction yesterday - don't despair! we're very much in production of many of the castings that you may have been coveting (whenever you want ...and cheaper!). See the link to our website in bio.


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JUST IN! … A truly authentic old Road Mender’s Living Van. A bit bigger and more industrial than a “Shepherd’s Hut” this would have spent its days, probably being hauled by a steam-roller, moving from job to job mending the highways. Inside still has the rickety fold-down bed and a cast-iron stove. We bought it from a scrap-man in Warwickshire who, for the last few decades, after a long day, would repair to his waggon for a glass of cider. Now on our website.

We’ve got an elegant two-tier fountain ⛲️ tinkling away in the sunshine at the moment … on website (but we’ll be sad to see it go!)

JUST IN!
The Porters’ Lodge from The Queen’s College, Oxford. The entire glazed facade of this lodge, familiar to students and visitors alike for over a century, has been salvaged by LASSCO. Find it in our Oxfordshire shop and on the website

B&W Photo (c) David Olds

The Hay-on-Wye literary festival kicks off tomorrow so it seems apt that we’ve just catalogued this set of carved Bathstone Library keystones and they come, we are told, from Leominster: just down the road from Hay.
We were told they were originally from the Minster School in Leominster (long demolished). However we suspect this isn’t quite right because surviving photos of the school show there was nothing there of this size and calibre (and the same goes for the adjacent Grammar school as well as the sadly demolished Corn Exchange and Free Library on South Street). But we suspect they are from Herefordshire or thereabouts - any suggestions do get in touch.
Set of five Victorian Carved Bathstone Library Keystones - selling singly on website: Search “Keystone”:
History Fiction Theology Travel Biography

May Day
In these parts the early birds, the party animals and the enthusiastic, head to Magdalen Bridge Oxford for dawn. May Day is greeted by the choir atop Magdalen tower who sing-in the Spring sunrise amid the Dreaming Spires of Oxford. At street-level, the fool-hardy attempt to evade the authorities and hurl themselves from the bridge into the all-too-shallow river below in the hope their impact is a splash in the river water rather than a sickening splunch in the river mud or a leg-breaking crunch onto the deck of a passing punt.
At LASSCO we stay in bed (we’re closed today) but if you’d like to buy a dreaming spire - rather than sing among them - or hurl yourself into the drink beneath them - get in touch…
This spire was removed from the Walter Bodmer building- part of the Oxford inter-collegiate science buildings demolished c.2006 (at the back of the Pitt Rivers). It has been on holiday in Cambridge since - LASSCO has brought it home and, if you’re dreaming of a spire, it is now for sale. Happy

Two recent acquisitions side-by-side in the shop - both Edwardian, and bizarrely they both share exactly the same timeline:
On the right - the enormous Portland stone chimneypiece was carved by Abraham Broadbent and installed in the new Egyptian Museum at Eton College in 1905. And on the left some of the run of magnificent mahogany panelling - made by Mellier & Co and installed on the newly launched RMS Mauretania, the then biggest ship afloat, at her Tyne moorings at exactly the same time.
Thirty years later at Eton, the Egyptian Museum was moved and the Memorial Buildings were reformatted - the huge stone fireplace was slid down under the floorboards of the School Hall. It was entombed for 88years.
And, at exactly the same time, RMS Mauretania, at the end of her peerless career, was being stripped-out, dockside in Southampton, prior to her final voyage to the scrapyard in Rosythe. The panelling ended up being stored in a Wiltshire barn for 88years.
All until at LASSCO in Oxfordshire, in entirely separate acquisitions, we bought them both in the same month. Spooky.

The current takes you to “LASSCO News” where both stories are told.

As far as Barn Finds go this has got to be one of our most spectacular! Swathes of beautiful panelling under 88years of dust - panelling removed from the Mauretania one of the greatest liners ever built. Read the story of the ship, the sumptuous interiors, and how the panelling came to be found stored in a barn

Panelling salvaged from R.M.S Mauretania - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities In our ceaseless trawling of the barns, attics, stables and out-houses of fusty institutions and country houses we get the opportunity to find and purchase the most extraordinary things. The year started with the discovery of a large stack of wooden panelling, thick with dust and leaning up in an ol...

It’s a thrill to get featured in “World of Interiors”! 🐜

Secrets of a salvage yard Behind the scenes at Lassco Three Pigeons salvage yard in Oxfordshire

Come and see our huge display-wall of Victorian frame-makers’ carved moulds - to get fully in the picture: Read On 👉-

The Tucker Collection of Frame-makers' Moulds - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities A huge collection of reverse-carved frame-makers' moulds are available to buy at LASSCO Three Pigeons.

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2023/03/22/lament-for-the-bell-foundry/

Lament For The Bell Foundry | Spitalfields Life What a pitiful sight this is. Six years after it shut, graffiti is piling up on the wood-grained fascia of the world-famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry, revealing nothing at all is being done to care for it.

Today’s Architectural Salvage Shaggy Dog Story involves the unlikely tale of a truly monumental stone fireplace, carved by one of Edwardian London’s best sculptors before being buried for 88years under the floorboards of the school hall at Eton. It involves the death of an Egyptologist on the first day of the Battle of Ladysmith in the Boer War and the generosity of a British Diplomat bibliophile after he’d worked on the Treaty of Versailles.
Anyway, the fireplace is a monster and we’ve built it at LASSCO Three Pigeons… To Make Any Sense Of It All, Read On:

The Eton College Museum Chimneypiece - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities Salvaged from under the floorboards of the school hall at Eton, where it had lain for 88 years, LASSCO has acquired a spectacular stone fireplace: In 1935, faced with the dismantling of a colossal stone fireplace in the Classical Museum at Eton College, the builders were clearly daunted. Even when d...

See “The Gates to Forgotten Metro-Land” now on LASSCO News quietly marking the 50th Anniversary of Sir John Betjeman’s “Metro-Land”

The Gates to Forgotten Metro-Land - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities In amongst the stock of ironwork at LASSCO Three Pigeons we have a utilitarian pair of iron gates for sale. We removed them from the yard at Verney Junction Station in rural Buckinghamshire. It is now a private house but still with an overgrown railway platform at the back. The small station, in a t...

John Craxton is a name that keeps popping up. An exhibition of his work in Cambridge a few years ago and then another retrospective (jointly featuring the work of Ghika and Leigh Fermor at the British Museum) were both brilliant. An amazing artist, very well connected and, it seems, had a bit of an eye for a bargain…

Rare Giacometti chandelier bought for £250 in London may sell for £7m Piece acquired by English painter in antiques shop in 1960s has been confirmed as lost work by Swiss sculptor

We’re now back to being open six days a week: M-F 9-5, Sat 9-1
We’ve created a new display wall for all those choice bits of carved and panelled doodads that together have a tremendous effect: all for sale! (not on website though).

A fabulous acquisition at the weekend - some old stained glass. . These beautifully painted tiny fragments have survived the centuries and the Reformation - rare and we’ve got faces. Stained glass has a certain something when you get a portrait - the twinkle in the eye perhaps. These fragile survivors looking back at us look to be very real and could have sat for the painter in the sixteenth century(?). Maybe earlier. Restoration continues and research follows.
Favourite thing in the shop right now! 🐜

Just Catalogued [ ] : A rare stoneware Eagle Vase 🏺 stamped J. M. Blashfield / Stamford / No.315” so dating to 1865 and here offered with a nicely matched plinth by Stiff & Sons. Fresh to market - salvaged from a garden in Surrey.

Snuck off for the day and lunched at the wonderful and newly refurbished . They’ve constructed a fabulous fountain ⛲️ in the courtyard - the hefty carved stone demi-lune, the corbels and the trough bought . The fanlight we salvaged from (see next pic). As with everything at Gee’s - great taste and attention to detail. Walked off our lunch with a snoop around - goggled at the fan-vaults.