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Guy Noble with the Venetian well head – a snap at
£2,000 |
Hospital furniture goes up for grabs
UCLH gets ready for grand Middlesex
clearance
IT’S a house clearance sale with a difference –
10 lots of antique furnishings ranging from a 14th century Venetian
wellhead to 1920s boardroom panelling are up for grabs in a
£20,000 hospital sell-off.
Antique collectors seeking a Victorian mahogany desk upon which
to scribe their letters or a garden sundial stand will have
the chance to make a bid for the pieces – owned by University
College London Hospital (UCLH) – as the hospital prepares
to sell off its Middlesex Hospital site.
The hospital, in Goodge Street, was put up for sale on Tuesday
and is expected to go for at least £100 milllion.
UCLH arts curator Guy Noble said he had personally chosen the
items because they were no longer in use, adding: “There’s
a Georgian breakfast table, which is not a practical item to
have in a modern hospital.”
He said the Venetian well head, dating from around 1380 and
valued by independent art experts at £2,000, had been
sitting in the grounds with a plant in it. It was donated by
grateful patient, a Mrs Ralph Price, in 1913.
He said: “The well head had originally been on a public
drinking fountain in Venice. Items like this were brought back
by people who had been on grand tours during the Renaissance
and wanted souvenirs from their European trips.” But lovers
of fine furniture and curios may be disappointed. Under NHS
rules, all the items must be offered to hospital employees before
the sale is open to the general public. However, Mr Noble says
he will welcome interest from non-NHS staff today (Thursday).
He added the hospital’s board had no qualms selling off
donated objects.
Mr Noble said: “The idea is to make more money for the
UCLH arts project. It’s my job to improve the hospital’s
environment through the arts. We don’t have a budget and
everything I do is through fundraising. No money is diverted
from patient care.”
Not everything on the list will definitely be sold. Certain
items, such as a lead Victorian fountain and the boardroom panelling
donated by former Middlesex vice president and philanthropist
Ed-mund Davies from around 1920, may be thrown in with the site
sale. |
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