SalvoFAIR: RAF Hendon and English Rose

Tom Donaldson of Source in Bath, who will be at this year's Salvo Fair, gives the English Rose kitchen units a final buffing . . .

. . . and Mark does his version of a fly-past in homage to the English Rose kitchen made by CSA Industries who made Spitfires during WWII, the photo by kind permission of RAF Hendon, north London




RAF Hendon, London, UK - THE story of Britain's war effort has many swords into ploughshares tales from wartime industries to peacetime production, but none quite like CSA Industries (CSA: Constant Speed Airscrews), who helped crucially in the production of the Spitfire propeller, and then went on to make luxury aluminium fitted kitchens in the 1950's.

In the 1990's these fabulous kitchens had no secondhand value and were simply thrown away until the late Hazel Matravers of Salvo started matchmaking disposers with possible users, which was written about in BBC Homes & Antiques magazine. A few dealers started rescuing the kitchens and restoring them, the prime mover being Source of Bath who will be putting a restored complete old kitchen on the back of a truck and bringing it to the Salvo Fair at Knebworth. You can buy it there if you are lucky!