This cottage in Parkend is, I believe, known these days as 'The Nook'. Certainly this is the name given to it by John Stretton in 'The Dean Forest Railway, a Past & Present Companion', Volume 2 (Silver Link Publishing).

 

This cottage, plus the house to it's left (the former Police House and Police Station for Parkend and currently known as 'Hazledene') are very close to the end of the Marsh branch at Parkend, which is the subject of Re6/6's current P4 project - 

However, for the purposes of this blog and all subsequent entries, I will be referring to it as 'The Other House'.

 

Both cottages are required for John's layout, although the Police House will need to be cut down slightly, to fit with the backscene and the rear edge of the layout.

 

I agreed to build both cottages for John and am hoping to get them finished in time for the 'mini-Scaleforum local show for local people' type event that is taking place at our Area Group's (aka 'D.R.A.G.') normal venue near Teignmouth on the Saturday of what would have been the Scaleforum weekend (25th September coming).

 

There aren't a whole lot of published photos of either cottage, although the Police House does admittedly feature in rather more photos than 'The Other House'.

 

We know that the Police House had a rendered cement-coloured finish for much of it's life (and certainly during the period that the layout is set in). Apart from modern Google-type photos of The Other House, there is hardly anything published. What would have been a good view in the above John Stretton book, taken in the 1960s, is mostly hidden by a rather inconsiderate pannier tank.

 

As such, the best we can do is to decide that The Other House was built of local stone, in a style that more or less matches other stone dwellings further up the Marsh branch, opposite The Fountain Inn, including the famous 'half house' that does feature in a number of contemporary photos.

 

I was then given a free hand to decide on the exact materials to use and the colour scheme.

 

Being a fan of the Scalescenes range of downloadable printed brick papers and building kits, I decided to use their 'TX48' sheet 'Squared Rubble' for The Other House - https://scalescenes.com/product/tx48-squared-rubble/

 

The first thing was to produce a scale drawing to 4mm scale. As this was started when pandemic restrictions were still in place, the dimensions had to be estimated from what photographic evidence was to hand. A drawing was produced and a few copies taken. One of the copies was used to cut out the main wall elevations and lightly tape to a piece of Dalerboard (stout card, coloured on one side and 1.5mm thick):

 

 

A 4mm 'plinth' was left, so that the building could be slightly sunk into the ground.

 

The outline of the elevations and the window and door apertures were then carefully drawn around with a sharp pencil:

 

The five wall sections (including the end wall of the 'lean to' were then cut out.

 

At this point, I forgot to take any photos for a while.

 

I had the stone paper printed off by a local printer on his fancy laser jet, not trusting my aged ink jet to produce the kind of quality I was looking for.

 

The stone paper was then cut approximately to size and glued to the respective Dalerboard components and the resulting wall sections placed together for a photo:

 

The stone paper is overlapping at the corners and would be carefully trimmed back and coloured with a soft pencil, once the wall sections were glued together.

 

Next was to fit windows and doors. We had planned to use York Modelmaking products, but we couldn't find anything that matched the necessary window and door dimensions, so I made up window frames and sash units in the same way that I have for the Callow Lane cottages, namely individual strips of painted plasticard, which are glued in place behind the window openings and individual sash sections, with the glazing bars applied using a Bob Moore lining pen and enamel paints.

 

Some flat sections of plastic strip were primed and sprayed with a dark green:

 

A front door and also a side door to the 'lean to' were made up from plasticard:

 

In reality, the 'lean to' of 'The Nook' these days appears to function as a garage, with an entrance slightly lower than the front door, but for the sake of a quiet life, I have kept everything on the same level and assumed that in the 1950s and 1960s, the 'lean to' was simply a store of some kind.

 

Window frames and front door in place:

 

Sash window sections being prepared:

 

Windows and doors now glued in place. Front wall is still not attached to the rest of the building at this time, to aid fitting the windows and doors:

 

Now it's all glued together:

 

 

 

Next, a 'false roof' was glued between the various wall sections. At 1.5mm thick, Dalerboard is really too thick to stand proud of the walls:

 

Top roof sections were then cut out of much thinner card ('postcard' thickness) and parallel lines drawn on, 5mm apart:

 

Scalescenes individual slate strips (from one of their terraced cottages kits, which I already had) were cut out, the edges coloured with a grey felt tip pen and glued in place, using Prittstick, one at a time. When each roof section had all it's slate strips in place, they were placed between two sheets of clean paper and left overnight under a pile of heavy Ian Allen railway photo albums (other publishers will also do):

 

 

The finished roof sections are then turned upside down and the slate strips trimmed very carefully along the edges, using a very sharp scalpel and are then glued to the 'false roof' sections using Evostick Impact adhesive:

 

 

Guttering was made up from Wills half down pipes (finer section than their actual guttering) and spigots of 0.5mm brass rod epoxied in place. Also chimney pots were made up from Wills components and left overnight to harden off:

 

Down pipes were then made up from 0.8mm brass rod, with fuse wire wrapped around in a couple of places and soldered on. This and the guttering was sprayed the same green and holes drilled in the Dalerboard to match the spacing of the respective spigots and the whole lot then epoxied in place:

 

At this stage, I popped over to John's and posed the cottage in it's planned location on the layout:

 

 

 

John then posed some of the resin walling that he's going to use, in front of the cottage:

 

I then took the cottage back home to finish the roof flashing. The building then had the windows and the front door blanked off and the whole thing was given a light waft-over with Humbrol Matt Acrylic varnish, to take the printer's sheen off the stone paper.

 

I then posed the building for some arty shots in the garden:

 

 

 

 

 

It's just about done now, a little light weathering with some powders will be done in due course, particularly around the chimneys, but it's now time to think about making a start on the Police House.