Tradco has been making restoration architectural hardware since 1982, when Graham and Denise Duff started producing fittings for Australia’s historical homes. It’s now one of three brands in Southern Design Group, alongside Iver and Bankston, and the range runs to more than 4,000 products.

The thing to understand before you start choosing is that the range covers a whole house, not a door. Levers on backplates and on roses, door knobs, centre door knobs, knockers, flush pulls and push plates. Rim locks with their keys and escutcheons, hinges, bolts, and casement and sash window fittings. Coat and robe hooks, cupboard knobs and cup pulls, and period light switches and sockets on their wooden blocks.

Most of it is forged and constructed in solid brass, with sheet brass, iron, zinc alloy and stainless steel used elsewhere in the range. The hinges are solid brass too, and they arrive with matching stainless steel screws.

The finishes are where the decision actually sits. There are twelve, each carrying a durability rating, and they run from polished and satin brass through antique brass and antique copper to matt black, chrome and three nickels. Whatever you choose has to repeat from the front door to the kitchen cupboards, so it’s worth settling before you pick a single lever.

Two of the twelve are unlacquered and they behave differently from the rest. With no protective coating, unlacquered brass takes anything from two days to two years to darken into its aged state, and it doesn’t stop there. If you want hardware that ages alongside the house, that’s the pair to look at.

Locking is the next decision and it’s simpler than it looks. A passage set suits a door that never needs to lock, a privacy set adds a thumb turn for a bathroom, and rebated locks are for french doors designed to interlock. Hinges come seven ways, from ball bearing for a heavy solid-core door to parliament for one that has to open flat against the wall, and the right choice depends on the height, the weight and the thickness of the door rather than on the look.