Scrapyard Heaven

I had driven past this place over a year ago in deepest Devon, glimpsed it and made a mental note to come back - it did not disappoint! This is my kind of heaven, I get so overwhelmed I cant look properly because it's such a feast for the eyes. I took along visiting sculptor friend Gloria Carlos; a fellow hunter of interesting objects.

I'm already looking forward to my next visit. I need a small heavy object to weight a table standing piece and there must be something here.

I wonder how many old family run places like this there are left. It reminds me of where I started out decades ago searching at the long gone Paramount Metals yard in Brixton, south London. Things I found there dictated how my chandeliers evolved; aluminium bar and ball chain, the latter they always let me have for free as it rusted, it was for pulling blinds and ended up there attached to the aluminium top frame and became such a useful component for me.

Being a countryside scrapyard there was plenty of old farm stuff, a huge plough, rabbit traps, saws, stirrups etc and we admired this handsome 'Perfect' root cutter which sliced beetroot and the like apparently, for livestock.

And this is some of the treasure I came home with; several circular, useful looking objects amongst other stuff and I was so happy to find lots of weathered chain, not too heavy duty. I don't like new shiny chain and it's hard to find old stuff just when I need it, especially the matt figure of eight links - they're so useful as I can open and close the links and use them as hooks and links. I think I shall be visiting this place regularly.