Most successful summer yet for IBS Reclaim

Above: IBS Reclaim Ltd in Oakley, Bucks

Oakley, Buckinghamshire UK - IBS Reclaim Ltd has announced that summer 2009 was the most successful yet; there was a 400 percent increase in sales in July compared to 2008. Contracts ranged from the supply of reclaimed York stone flagstones to Sykes & Son Ltd for a prestige refurb of John Keats House*, London, to the the purchase of nearly 600sqm of reclaimed flagstones and 200 tonnes of rare Denner Hill setts from the most expensive UK house outside London. The reclaimed flags sold in record time due to advertising on SalvoWEB, to building contractors and private individuals. Some flags even went to Austria. There was a major interest in reclaimed doors, again due to adverts on Salvo, with a stock clearance of some forty doors at £40 each, and a resulting increase in reclaim sales as well as enquiries for IBS made-to-measure service. This year IBS use of the SalvoWEB enhanced listing and build-a-button system is first out of 37,770 registered users.

David Marlow, manager of IBS Reclaim Ltd, said, "The development work at IBS continues this year with an antique and reproduction fireplace and radiator centre opening on the first floor of our new warehouse, a new section of both made to measure recraft doors and reclaimed doors is underway, and on the ground floor an area of Mike Corbett's cast stone products is displayed along with more reclaimed items. We also have a new paving section. During the 2008 video interview with Drummond Shaw**, he said that the future was towards new products. IBS agrees and tries to mix reclaimed and new products to complement each other."

Apart from its sales and redevelopment, IBS has also donated old stone samples from its reclaimed stocks to Dr Nick Cutler of Oxford University's Centre for the Environment who was making a study of biodeterioration which includes the effects of algae and lichen on stonework. He was fascinated by David Marlow's knowledge of Sarsen stone and Denner Hill stone history especially the story of the snipers***.

David, who is by trade a street mason, has fond memories of using Denner Hill at Pinewood Studios in 1985 aged 22 and his father - who trained him and has just retired after laying York stone for 46 years - built the Little Shop of Horrors film set which filled the 007 studio, at the time the largest sound stage in Europe. The stone used included Denner Hill kerb reclaimed from near Aylesbury. "I laid two eight-wheeler lorryloads of Denner Hill setts and kerb. Working from 400 photographs I recreated a genuine street scene of Skid Row in downtown America within the studio, working for construction manager Michael Redding of James Bond fame, alongside David Geffen, producer for Warner Brothers. We constructed everything at foot level in stone instead of the usual hardboard and cardboard imprinted and painted, due to the rain scenes and high level drop takes for rain, the full scale set was three stories high with a $30m budget. I was there for about four months," he said.

IBS are currently looking to buy reclaimed items especially stone surrounds.

Telephone 01844 239400
IBS Reclaim Ltd

* John Keats, the poet, wrote Ode On A Grecian Urn at the Grade I listed Keats House, a regency villa on Hampstead Heath, and it was from there that he set out for Rome, where he died prematurely aged 25.

** Video interview of Drummond Shaw in 2008


Above: Denner Hill setts
*** David Marlow writes: Denner Hill stone was once the source of a flourishing local industry, dating back to at least the mid nineteenth century and earlier. The best deposits were to the north of High Wycombe - Bryant's Bottom, Denner Hill, North Dean, Naphill and Walter's Ash. The blocks or boulders of hard sandstone were found at depths varying from six to sixty feet and were located by workers probing the ground with long instruments known as snipers. The boulders varied in size, one at Walter's Ash was reported to be around twelve feet in height and weighed over three hundred and fifty tons. These blocks were split to produce cobbles, kerbstone, setts, building blocks, river stepping stones, cottage door steps and gateposts. Building blocks were used in the repair of Windsor Castle. Some streets in both Windsor and Aylesbury are paved with this stone. Denner Hill Stone quoins were also used with local brick and flint within the High Wycombe area known as Chepping Parish.