RESHAPING THE PAST

In a warehouse, in 2013, reclamation expert Anthony Reeve came across something extraordinary, even to this veteran salvage hunter – huge Georgian railings with anthemia panels. Built in 1790 to front an asylum for deaf and mute children on London’s Old Kent Road, they had survived right through both World Wars and the mid-century slum clearances until the flyover, built in 1970, saw them taken out and put into storage. After Anthony wrote a blog post about the railings, sign language historian Peter Brown, a former pupil of the asylum’s successor school, got in touch. Within the deaf community, he said, there was a great reverence for the asylum. He duly bought the railings for the community. ‘It was quite moving,’ reflects Anthony. ‘Things have an uncanny ability to find their way into the hands of the right person if you wait long enough, and the railings