Salvage for The Three Pigeons

AFTER years of decline at the hands of lap-dancers and then ravers ? the nadir being a stabbing incident in October ? The Three Pigeons at Milton Common has new owners.
The freehold has been bought by LASSCO (The London Architectural Salvage & Supply Co.) who, with a thirty year history of buying and renovating dilapidated historic buildings and putting them to use, has been tackling the immediate problems on site; fly-tipping, rat infestation and serious flooding being foremost amongst these. A spectacular architectural salvage shop is soon to welcome its first customers.

LASSCO deals in architectural antiques with an internationally celebrated shop on the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge in London – in the Duke of Brunswick?s Georgian mansion ?Brunswick House?. Saving elements from London?s most interesting demolitions and strip-outs ? be it the stone portico, the fireplaces, floorboards, radiators or railings, the garden ornament or doorknobs, LASSCO has been the pioneer in the restoring and selling of these ?Relics of Old London? for thirty years. Recently the BBC followed the company for their series ?The Reclaimers?.

The purchase of The Three Pigeons and continuing refurbishments in Brunswick House, has realised enough space to enable the company to relinquish its original headquarters at St. Michael?s Church in Shoreditch, East London, and centre its activities in Vauxhall with its grand eighteenth century spaces and central location on one hand complimented by the space and accessibility offered by the Milton Common site on the other.

Latest clearances, all on offer at ?LASSCO Three Pigeons? include a wide selection of marble and scagliola sculpture pedestals from The National Portrait Gallery and numerous display cabinets as well as Victorian plaster casts and further marble pedestals from The Victoria & Albert Museum. In the gardens, currently undergoing landscaping, can be found a series of enormous relief-carved stone plaques ? an half-ton each ? depicting the old signs of The City. These remarkable sculptures, the work of Sir Charles Wheeler, President of the Royal Academy in the 1950s, were commissioned for the Lombard Street home of Barclays Bank. A delightful panelled room of nineteenth century Chinese wall-papers laid onto mahogany panels has just gone on display having been removed from an huge demolition underway next door to St. Paul?s Cathedral. You can buy large chunks of Piccadilly stonework for the garden or perhaps the staircase balustrade from the Royal Albert Hall? the list goes on.

LASSCO, characteristically, has committed wholeheartedly to the Three Pigeons project. Anthony Reeve who has managed the Shoreditch shop for a number of years has moved to Great Milton and enlisted the help of Amanda Garrett to run the shop and numerous Oxfordshire tradespeople have already been involved in the project.

Anthony and Amanda are researching the history of The Three Pigeons and are keen to track down source material and any records of the site ? particularly its early days: How soon after the intersection of the turnpikes were buildings first erected? Was ?The Hutte? located on the Three Pigeons site? Did the ?Three Pigeons? name come from a precedent in Thame or was it Tetsworth? Does anyone have references to the gibbet at Milton Common and the hanging-in-chains of John Price in 1785?! ? or of his victim Thomas Knight who lived in Great Milton.

The opening of the shop will soon be announced ? all are welcome to come and marvel at the latest discoveries. Readers of the Thame News are welcome to come to a preview if they telephone prior.

or more information see: www.lassco.co.uk
Contact Anthony or Amanda on 01844 278328 or 3pigeons@lassco.co.uk