Reclaimed Victorian floor tiles

[Ceramico tiling]

Does any one have any information on suppliers of reclaimed Victorian pathway,hallway tiles in London etc? There is not a whole lot coming up on Google so I was wondering if anyone has seen any yards that have some?.

 

[borgie]

Hi there, we are a large stock of reclaimed tiles. We have many tiles, sizes & formats. Encaustic & geometric tiles including Minton & Co., Minton Hollins, Robert Minton Taylor, The Campbell Brick & Tile Co., T&R Boote, C.E.Edwards and more. Let me know what you are looking for and I will see what I can do.

Have a look at our FB page https://www.facebook.com/SandMInstallations and check out the photos. This will give you some idea of what we have in stock at the moment.

 

[Gazzer]

People such as Phil Hobson and Timeless John are the people I would be asking

 

[Ceramico tiling]

Cheers I have been getting a few calls recently for Victorian restoration where clients want reclaimed tiles to maintain the old look. I have heard this can get to be a nightmare and very fiddly work.,,anyone have experience in this? Is it worth it ?

 

[borgie]

It can be very very time consuming and also very rewarding at the same time. We have worked on a lot of old floors in the last 25 years. We also date and catalog every tile form every floor that we reclaim. We like to provide our clients some history of the tiles and the manufacturer. We spend our downtime cleaning and restoring old tiles. We also put in a lot of hours at our local library researching the local tile manufacturers. We buy and sell antique tiles to collectors all over the world. We provide tiles for clients who just have to odd one or two tiles missing, only last week we provided 20 small black triangles to Thorn House near Plymouth, to help them maintain a geometric floor.We design and install made to measure bespoke reclaimed geometric and encaustic floors. We also do repair and restoration work too.

We have project coming up where we could not get the right reclaimed tiles to continue a floor on from an original geometric floor and we could not do it in reproduction tiles as they do not come in a compatible format. So we are going to make an exact copy of the original floor from scratch, out of 6x6 inch coloured reproduction tiles by hand. We can not use an electric cutter to do this the thickness of the cutting blade would alter the finished dimensions. After cutting each tile will need touching up a sander to ensure a true fit.

As pointed out by sir ramic, Timeless John and Phil Hobson are very well known on this site for their work with geometric and encaustic tiles. They have been in the business longer than we have, and therefore, have a lot more experience. I know John supplies and designs some fantastic mosaics. I am not sure that he supplies reclaimed tiles, though and I'm pretty sure Phil doesn't too. But I maybe wrong. I have also seen some very bad work by tilers who have know idea of how to fix geometrics. It's not for everyone. It can be very expensive if it goes wrong.

I am personally a member of The Tile & Architectural Ceramics Society and always look forward to their publications. They have a great database too. http://www.tilesoc.org.uk

We also work with the large format porcelain too 3x1m. We are one of the hand full of tilers in the country who have been trained by the Italian manufacturers in every aspect of installing this format and have certificate to prove it.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Victorian & Geometric Flooring by www.philhobson.co.uk - YouTube This is one we did using reclaimed tiles from ten different floors, all different ages/ manufacturers, all different thicknesses. 25% of the floor was manufactured on site by Macten and I, take a look see what you think.

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

I never was one to blow my own trumpet, but here goes, I was the first tiler in the UK to be awarded CSCS Heritage gold card. This allows me to work on listed buildings. There are as far as I know about ten fixers in the UK that hold this card.

I love this work and although I am quite old, I was not around when most of the original floors were laid. I do hope these skills can be passed on to the next generation, it would be a crime to loose them. So many trades have been lost over the years, so many dying arts gone, please let this art form continue.

These floors are a thing of beauty and the skills should not be allowed to vanish. I'm sure folks like TJ, Tenchman, Tommyzoom, Andrew, and many others would agree.:sofahide:

 

[borgie]

Nice work on you tube there Phil. My business partner, Mark, and I were both taught by his father. We are just starting to take his 14 year old son in with us at weekends & school holidays. He's very keen to keep the tradition going.

 

[Ceramico tiling]

Victorian & Geometric Flooring by [url]www.philhobson.co.uk - YouTube[/URL] This is one we did using reclaimed tiles from ten different floors, all different ages/ manufacturers, all different thicknesses. 25% of the floor was manufactured on site by Macten and I, take a look see what you think.

Phil that video is amazing. Very inspirational.

 

[DJS]

Hey Borgie,

I am currently trying to source some cracked glazed victorian tiles 4"x2" in claret (red) and green. Don't suppose you have anything like that in stock? Can probably get pics or a sample on request.

Cheers
Denis

 

[borgie]

Hi Denis,
sorry it has taken me so long to reply. Been busy over the last few days. I don't have any of the tiles that you are looking for. I tend to only have fire hearth and surround tiles that are glazed. It's not very often that we reclaim wall tiles, due to the difficulty of removing them in one piece when they have been fixed for over a hundred years in sand and cement. I will keep my eye out for you and Ill pm you if I do.
Cheers
Simon

 

[DJS]

Cheers Simon, sorry I didn't notice your response for last 6 days!!

These are fire surround tiles, but I guess you would know if you have anything that size. I may re-approach the customer to see if still interested and get some pics.

 

[Plumbing Tiler]

Victorian & Geometric Flooring by [url]www.philhobson.co.uk - YouTube[/URL] This is one we did using reclaimed tiles from ten different floors, all different ages/ manufacturers, all different thicknesses. 25% of the floor was manufactured on site by Macten and I, take a look see what you think.

Phil that is quite simply amazing work!, it looks stunning!, what a fantastic achievement to take a random selection of reclaimed tiles and create what is nothing short of a masterpiece!, hats off to you for your skill and patience, as you say certainly challenging and definately rewarding!

 

[The Legend; Phil Hobson RIP]

Phil that is quite simply amazing work!, it looks stunning!, what a fantastic achievement to take a random selection of reclaimed tiles and create what is nothing short of a masterpiece!, hats off to you for your skill and patience, as you say certainly challenging and definately rewarding!

Thanks for the kind words, Macten a fellow TF member was 50% of the effort, nice to have feedback from people who appreciate this type of work.