Church salvage and the law

Some aspects of the law on dealing in architectural salvage, antiques and artefacts from churches by Thornton Kay

See the complete article 'Church salvage' and all the reference documents here

Removing antique, reclaimed and salvaged items from churches in England and Wales is governed by the 1990 Planning Act and the Ecclesiastical Exemption order of 1997.

Ecclesiastical exemption for the six named denominations covers works to a listed ecclesiastical building whose primary use is as a place of worship, and which is for the time being in use as such, works to an object or structure within such a building, works to an object or structure which is fixed to the exterior of such a building (unless the object or structure is itself listed), and works to an object or structure within the curtilage of such a building which, although not fixed to that building, forms part of the land (unless the object or structure is itself listed). In the case of the Church of England, although the exemption ceases to apply once a church has been formally declared redundant, it comes into effect again should a scheme for demolition arise under the Pastoral Measure 1983 (as amended).

The exempt denominations are:
the Church of England
the Church in Wales
the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales
the Methodist Church
the United Reformed Church
the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the Baptist Union of Wales

There are three types of listed status (in descending order of importance and difficulty to obtain planning permission):
Grade I: buildings of outstanding architectural or historic interest.
Grade II*: particularly significant buildings of more than local interest.
Grade II: buildings of special architectural or historic interest.

Conservation areas protect groups of buildings, for which an individual building may require listed building consent for alterations which affect its character, but not for demolition. Article 4 Directions can be imposed by a local authority to further control works in a Conservation Area but compensation is payable to any owner who is adversely affected. The demolition of all or part of a gate, fence or wall, the removal of a chimney stack, and changes to roof coverings may be affected by Article 4 directions.

Government general policy is to list all buildings erected before 1700 which survive in anything like their original condition and most buildings of 1700–1840. More selection is exercised among buildings of the Victorian period and the 20th century. Buildings less than 30 years old are rarely listed, and buildings less than 10 years old never. Although the decision to list may be made on the basis of the architectural or historic interest of one small part of the building, the listing protection applies to the whole building. De-listing is possible but rare in practice.

The total number of churches and chapels in the UK has been estimated at 75,000 of which 45,000 are still used for religious purposes. But this picture is changing. The first mosques in Britain opened at the end of the 19th century and by 1961 there were seven mosques, three Sikh temples and one Hindu temple in England and Wales, compared with nearly 55,000 Christian churches. By 2005 the number of churches had fallen to 47,600. According to the organisation Christian Research, another 4,000 are likely to go in the next 15 years. The Church of England still has 16,000 churches, and 1,700 have been made redundant since 1969. In 2009 Islamic website Salaam records a total of 1,689 mosques.

Covenants attached to redundant Anglican churches make it difficult for them to be used by another faith. The Church of England has opened more than 500 new churches since 1969. Redundant Anglican churches tend to be developed into houses, offices or restaurants. Methodist churches, down from 14,000 in 1932 to 6,000, and closing at the rate of 100 a year, are often sold with no restrictive covenant attached.

Apart from the fabric of the building itself, items covered by a listing are defined in the Act as any object or structure fixed to the building or any object or structure within the curtilage of the building which, although not fixed to the building, forms part of the land and has done so since before lst July 1948. These might include flagstones, walling stone, doors, gates, railings, gravestones, memorials, windows and stained glass, panelling, pews, radiators, pulpits, altars, fonts, paintings and tapestries, and lighting.

There are two types of items which can be taken from a church - fixtures which are considered to be part of the building, such as pews or windows, and chattels which are not fixed to the building such as candlesticks and vestments. There is a grey area on things like hanging light fittings and paintings, which may sometimes be fixtures and sometimes not.

If the church is still in use or owned by a religious body then its permission must be sought by the person wishing to sell or dispose of the items. This permission is known as a 'faculty' in Church of England and Roman Catholic churches and may be given as part of a scheduled change to the church which might be known as a 'reordering'.

What can be sold and when?

For a person from a church to sell chattels from a working church the following permission is needed:
• A faculty or church authority under a reordering scheme

For a person from a church to sell fixtures from a working church which is not listed and not in a conservation area the following permissions are needed:
• A faculty or church authority under a reordering scheme

For a person from a church to sell fixtures from a working church which is not listed but is in a conservation area the following permissions are needed:
• A faculty or church authority under a reordering scheme
• Listed building consent if an Article 4 direction is in place, unless the removal of the fixture does not affect the buildings historic character or significance (such an item might be, for example, a 1980's display board).

For a person from a church to sell fixtures from a working church which is listed but has ecclesiastical exemption the following permissions are needed:
• A faculty or church authority under a reordering scheme
• Listed building consent for a separately listed building in the churchyard
• Planning permission if there is a change to the exterior of the church but please note that it is also encumbent on the church authorities to have notified the DLTR or its current equivalent (See more here).

For a person from a church to sell fixtures from a working church which is listed but does not have ecclesiastical exemption the following permissions are needed:
• A faculty or church authority under a reordering scheme
• Listed building consent to remove, alter or demolish the item, unless the removal of the fixture does not affect the buildings historic character or significance, for example a ten year old notice board (unless perhaps the notice board itself was made using reclaimed wood from the church pews).
• Planning permission if there is a change to the exterior of the church

For the owner, or authorised agent of the owner, to sell fixtures from a deconsecrated church which is not listed nor in a conservation area the following permissions are needed:
• Planning permission if demolition of the whole is being carried out, unless the structure is dangerous.

For the owner, or authorised agent of the owner, to sell internal fixtures which cannot be seen from public ground outside, from a deconsecrated church which is not listed but is in a conservation area the following permissions are needed:
• Listed building consent if an Article 4 direction is in place
• Listed building consent for any pre-1925 gravestone
• Listed building consent for the demolition of any principal internal element of the structure including any staircase, load-bearing wall, floor structure or roof structure.

For the owner, or authorised agent of the owner, to sell fixtures which can be seen from public ground outside, from a deconsecrated church which is not listed but is in a conservation area the following permissions are needed:
• Listed building consent to remove, alter or demolish any item (unless the item is being replaced without listed building consent - such as roof slates being replaced during a re-roofing job) unless the removal of the fixture does not affect the buildings historic character or significance
• Listed building consent for any pre-1925 gravestone
• Listed building consent if an Article 4 direction is in place
• Planning permission if there is a change to the exterior of the church

For the owner, or authorised agent of the owner, to sell any fixtures, from a deconsecrated church which is listed the following permissions are needed:
• Listed building consent to remove, alter or demolish any item (unless the item is being replaced without listed building consent - such as roof slates being replaced during a re-roofing job) unless the removal of the fixture does not affect the buildings historic character or significance
• Planning permission if there is a change to the exterior of the church

Germans resist EU bulb changeover

Every light bulb's phasing out and banning explained in the link below

GERMAN consumers (and, one suspects, plenty of others in Europe) are hoarding traditional light bulbs before the phase-out starts with 100-watt bulbs, according to Der Spiegel. Some Germans have bought enough light bulbs to last them for the next two decades and retailers have joined the craze by stocking up on the energy-wasters as the bulbs on the shelves or in stocks are still allowed to be sold until they run out. Ironically, this has boosted the profits of companies manufacturing the product. According to GfK, the sales of incandescent light bulbs in Germany were 20% higher between January and April this year compared to the same period in 2008. Consumers argue that CFL bulbs cannot match the light quality of incandescent bulbs, saying that they are two dim and distort colours. Moreover, concerns have been raised that the flickering fluorescent light could trigger migraines or epilepsy seizures.

Some also question the greenness of CFLs, which contain mercury and require proper recycling facilities. However, as coal-fired stations emit mercury, incandescent light bulbs indirectly emit more mercury by using up larger amounts of electricity, experts noticed.

The economic and environmental argument against incandescent lights is nevertheless convincing as they convert only around 5% of the energy they use to light, wasting the rest as heat. Fluorescent lights use up to 75% less energy than incandescent lamps, while efficient halogens that match the light quality of conventional bulbs save somewhere between 25-50% of energy.

NEXT STEPS:
Sept. 2009: Incandescent light bulbs of 100W and above will be phased out.
Sept. 2011: 60W incandescent bulbs phased out.
Sept. 2012: 40 and 25W incandescent bulbs phased out.
By the end of 2012: All inefficient light-bulbs phaced-out.

The complete picture for every kind of light bulb (courtesy of the EU)

How does the Baroque grab you?

Above: Ewer depicting the Triumph of Neptune. Vase, Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (1656-1740), Florence, About 1721, Bronze, Museum no. A.18-1959 The vase was a typically Baroque form of decoration. This example is one of a pair of ornamental bronze ewers on a marine theme. It borrows elements from earlier printed designs, but combines form and ornament so that the figural decoration seems to form the structure of the ewer itself.


Above: View of the interior of a shop selling export wares. Possibly the Netherlands, 1680-1700, Gouache on paper, mounted on a wooden panel, Museum no. P.35-1926. Intended as fan leaf, this shows a shop dealing in export wares. More fantasy than fact, it combines objects from all over Asia, including Japanese lacquer furniture, Chinese porcelain and red wares, small ivory devotional sculptures, Indian chintzes and Turkish or Persian paintings. Europeans were clearly fascinated by these exotic goods.


Above: Red stoneware coffee pot Meissen porcelain factory, Meissen, 1710-13, Red stoneware ('Böttger' stoneware), Inscribed '132 R' (an inventory number for the 'Brown Saxon' wares at the 'Japanese Palace'), Museum no. C.261&2-2006. Rulers all over Europe established special manufactories with the aim of discovering the secret of true porcelain. Johann Friedrich Böttger, working in Dresden for Augustus the Strong, first managed to produce this red stoneware in 1707, but it took him another two years to create porcelain. His stoneware is similar to Chinese redwares.


V&A London UK - A NEW exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum celebrates the baroque, the word itself stemming from the French for a pearl of irregular shape. Nigel Llewellyn notes in the V&A catalogue, the baroque church – with music, paint, sculpture, architecture, vestments, metalwork, sacred lighting and incense – was, the spiritual and temporal setting for what was a multimedia performance, intended to appeal through all the senses to the intellect, the heart and the very soul. Even secular baroque was endowed by the hand of God through papal, royal and noble patronage.

Joanna Norman, the curator, concentrates on trade, technique, theatre and materials, at the expense of passion, patronage and art. Considering the amount of baroque art in the V&A and throughout Britain the exhibition is, I felt, a bit sparse on the exhibit front. I was expecting to be knocked out by heaps and heaps of bling. Baroque means overwhelming bling. Decoration which does not merely passively ooze ostentation, but reaches out, grabs you by both ears and rubs your senses in it. Does this exhibiton do that? Not really. Perhaps it is too tasteful, too intellectual, too restrained - not enough of a visual feast. Baroque is the most sensual of all art styles, but I did not feel blown away by baroque sensuality when I visited.

Here is what the V&A web site notes:

The First Global Style
Baroque was the first style to have a significant worldwide impact. It spread from Italy and France to the rest of Europe. Then it travelled to Africa, Asia, and South and Central America via the colonies, missions and trading posts of the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and other Europeans. The style was disseminated through the worldwide trade in fashionable goods, through prints, and also by travelling craftsmen, artists and architects.
Chinese carvers worked in Indonesia, French silversmiths in Sweden, Italian furniture makers in France. Sculpture was sent from the Philippines to Mexico as well as Spain. London-made chairs went all over Europe and across the Atlantic. The French royal workshops turned out luxury products in the official French style that were both desired and imitated by fashionable society across Europe. But Baroque also changed as it crossed the world, adapting to new needs and local tastes.

Art & Performance
Baroque art did not stand shyly by, hoping to be noticed. Paintings, sculpture and decorative arts swirled with vigorous action and strong feelings. Figures have a sense of realistic immediacy, as if they had been stopped in mid- action. Facial expression, pose, gesture and drapery all played a part in the drama. Human figures played a leading role in all the various art forms, from painting and architecture through to sledges and tableware. Allegorical, sacred and mythological figures took over the whole work, turning it into a drama in which the actors strove to convey particular messages and to engage the emotions of the viewer. These figures were put into the service of both faith and dynastic ambition - in emotionally wrought religious paintings, and in heroic portraits of rulers, their heads held high above a mass of billowing drapery.

Architecture & Performance
Baroque buildings were dynamic and dramatic. They used the language of ancient Greek and Roman architecture but broke its strict rules. Facades were full of movement, columns were twisted, and ground plans were composed of curves and ovals. Inside, painted ceilings seem to open to the sky, and hidden windows illumined domes and altars.
All these devices were meant to convey particular meanings and emotions. The great curved colonnades outside St Peter's in Rome made actual the church's embrace; the repeated elements on the endless facades of Baroque palaces signalled absolute power. Baroque architecture was pioneered in papal Rome by Pietro da Cortona, Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. The new style was vigorous and imaginative but never out of control. Borromini's oval ground plans were based on a dynamic geometry of triangles and circles. The same geometry lay behind the city plans of Baroque Rome.

Marvellous Materials
A fascination with physical materials played a central role in the Baroque style.
Virtuoso art objects made of rare and precious substances had long been valued. They were often kept in special rooms or cabinets, alongside natural history specimens, scientific instruments, books, documents and works of art. But in the Baroque period - with the birth of modern science and the opening up of the world beyond Europe - there was an increasingly serious interest in the nature and meaning of these exotic materials. Rarities such as East Asian porcelain and lacquer became fashionable in interior decoration and were imitated in Europe. Some of the rarest materials were believed to have the very useful capacity to detect poison. Among them were the newly invented ruby glass (which contained real gold) and rhinoceros horn, which also had the sexual connotations it still carries in some cultures today.

From 4 April to 19 July 2009

V&A Baroque exhibition

Battersea Fair

Battersea Fair, Battersea Park London


Above; Recrafted salvaged items into various lighting features, on the stand of Antiques by Design, Guy Trench



Above; Reclaimed poison bottles transformed into lights by Guy Trench



Above; Salvaged Patent Office shelving and a selection of lighting on Retrouvius's stand at the fair


Above; Ernest Race rockers commissioned by Retrouvius



Above; Car plant lights and reclaimed underground signs


The Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair has over 130 exhibitors, and takes place three times a year in January, April and October at the marquee, Battersea Park. The recent Spring event seemed to be full of browsers and hopefully buyers. Guy Trench said the "First day was extremely popular, and by the third day alot of the fine examples of stone garden statuary had been snapped up". Perhaps this indicates that the Spring fair is the time to sell garden statuary and furniture?

For inside the home, Retrouvius showed their impressive salvaged Patent Office shelving, which looked extremely attractive on their stand and in the entrance hall to the fair.

Battersea Fair

Lightbulb ban threatens antique lights

Another example of the law of unintended consequences seems to be looming up for the antiques trade. If the government persist in their proposals the phase out energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs there will be serious repercussions for those specialist and general dealers handling antique lighting. In a bold and laudable move, Ireland has just announced plans to ban the sale of incandescent light-bulbs by the year 2009.

Tiffany and Lalique lights would be among those effected, as most are unsuited to new fluorescent candle and golf-ball shaped bulbs are far too big to fit into most antique glass shades. Also, at present it is impossible to fit most chandeliers with suitable low-energy bulbs.


incandescent light bulb ban

Salvo Fair guide (pdf download)

Knebworth, Hertfordshire UK - The Salvo Fair 2007 guide (inc SalvoNEWS 265 Friday 22 June 2007) is now out.

Contents: Salvo Fair exhibitor list (so far), 300 handy hints for buying and using salvage, talks and workshops sponsored by Period Living magazine, and the text and illustrations of the talk by Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the Art Loss Register, about the role of the ALR, garden statuary architectural salvage and good title.

The other talks scheduled for the afternoon of the trade day at Salvo Fair on Friday 29 June are Nicole Lazarus of BioRegional Reclaimed on carbon footprints and reclaimed materials, a round table discussion on fair trade led by Peter Weldon and Karen Glen - and should it be a part of the new trade association, an update on BigREc Survey and standards of supply by Thornton Kay, a report on Deco07, the USA Building Materials Reuse Association's conference by Steve Tomlin. There may be a discussion about a roadmap for the launch of the UK architectural salvage trade association.

Download the colour version in Acrobat pdf format (link below).

The print version will be mailed to SalvoNEWS paper subscribers on Fri 22 Jun 2007.

A UK SalvoNEWS subscription is GBP50 (free to Salvo Code dealers) and includes access to SalvoWEB Trade Ads, SalvoEMAILS and a complimentary entry on the online Salvo Directory. Subscribers can receive just the print edition, or the pdf edition, or both. Overseas print copies are sent by surface mail to save energy.

PLEASE NOTE: Update on Red Card training day, Thursday 28th Jun at Knebworth, followed by testing and accreditation on Friday 29th Jun at Knebworth:
So far four people have booked to go on the inaugural 'Red Card' certificate of competence for reclamation and salvage operatives course set up by Martin Morrell of CITB and Howard Button of NFDC. Please book now by phone (020 8400 6222 or 01225 422300) or email thornton at salvoweb dot com if you or your staff would like to participate.

Salvo Fair guide (2MB pdf download)

Retrouvius on Form

Adam Hills and Pippa Small (centre) of Retrouvius talking to customers on their stand at Form 07 at Olympia London, open till Sunday

Olympia, London UK - AMONG the art salvage stands at this new exhibition were Riviere (an offshoot of Robert Young antiques) found art whimsy, Rabih Hage salvaged wood uncomforatble armchairs, a stand of colourful Kyrgyzstan Felt shyrdaks or rugs, and Retrouvius who, at the opening last night, sold a load of stuff including a portoro gold and black marble bolection fireplace to a London antique shop.

Retrouvius used travertine slabs from Paul Smith's shop as flooring, lamps from the old Rover works at Longbridge, tables and stools topped with old enamel London underground signs, and old charts and maps hung on the walls. They also have a re-edition of a 1948 Ernest Race rocking chair looking contemporary but with a 50's vibe.

Shane O'Neill, top antique statuary dealer, was heard to say as he passed by, "This is so exciting - a breath of fresh air." Adam Hills of Retrouvius said, "This kind of fair is definitely the future. It needs refining a bit. There is some bad art which needs to be got rid of. There is also a lot of old stuff. I sold two armchairs Victorian chairs last night."

Retrouvius
Form 2007

Below: Polished and rewired Anglepoise lamp, £195. Canvas charts and maps from 1890 to 1950, French and German, £100. Industrial steel drawers, powder coated or lacquered steel, £895. Reclaimed wood table with enamelled steel Northern Line map, £1,234. Coated welded steel bar rocking chair designed in 1948 by Ernest Race of Race Furniture who have put these back into production exclusively for Retrouvius, £395.

Gaze modern design

Diss, Norfolk UK - Among the 600 lots of modern design at Gaze 10 Feb modern design sale this pair of Bernard Rooke table lamp bases with 1970's shades made £286 (est £45). Top lots were two still life paintings by Tony O'Malley of the St Ives school.

Archive catalogue