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Hi everyone.
What a discussion about the 'Victory' Columns! I can shed some more light on them for you.
In our garage in N Devon there were originally 12 columns. They had been bought by my father, the late Henry Williamson, in Portsmouth I think in the late 20's. They were all painted the same 'Battleship Grey' ( now please refrain from immediately correcting the term - its the best I've got) in Lead paint (some of which I stripped with torch and knife, but more of that later) . Under the lead paint were various finishes, all coming back to Teak.
There was a white finish on some, a light blue on others and some had some different colours around the turned decoration at the ends of the central turned column. There were two diameters, one being ( from memory) about 8 inches and the other more slender, about 5 - 6 inches. Each piece had a full length tongue about 1 1/2 " wide and maybe 1 3/4" deep at either end. The teak was flawless when revealed, no turning marks, no knots and the grain was straight except of course for the bent ones which were presumably turned green and steam bent.
Some of he jointed ends had rather obtuse Roman looking Numerals on the bottom beside the tongues.
One or tow had old handmade tack - nails in them, hammered home
Henry always hoped they would be incorporated in his house he wanted to build. In the end, the architect used RSJ's instead of the Teak as supporting members, though I would imagine the teak under compressive load would far outperform steel. The result was the next owner of the house took the columns with him when he moved!!! Now we know why . . .I emigrated to Australia in '82 and using the retrospectroscope should have freighted them out and stored them, but I didn't. I sold two to a close friend ( who showed them on AR) for beer money and gave two more away. The ones in the house have long gone, and . . .thats all I have for the moment.
Hope this is of some interest to you, glad to be of service.
Harry Williamson
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