Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

Looking good!

 

K

[Caley Jim]

Lovely job, James. You've captured the character of the guano tank very well!

 

Jim

[corneliuslundie]

Glad to see the wagon building bug has got you. Remember to stop before 200.

The dropside wagon has a sort of Midland look about it, though no idea if the buffers and axleboxes are correct -though the latter look pretty acceptable. The Midland just loved three plank opens. And of course they were very popular with the civil engineers for ballast etc.

Who is going to provide the loco coal? You might think about Moy or one of the other East Anglian coal companies such as the Peterborough Coal Co.

And you really need something dumb buffered. There are a few cast metal kits occasionally available, but it could be a first scratch building project - just get some plastic sheet, etched axleguards and appropriate axleboxes and springs and you are away.

Jonathan

[mullie]

Great to see some progress on rolling stock.

[Compound2632]

I feel the want of liquid, Mek-Pak-style, poly cement.  

 

Finally I include a picture of the wagons either side of a RTR Dapol wagon, which presumably represents 1923 RCH. 

 

Once you're hooked on Mek-Pak you'll never look back...

 

The Dapol wagon looks like nothing - 10' wheelbase for starters. The only thing putting your wagons either side of it tells you is just how horrible it is. The Bachmann 7-plank wagon is a good representation of the RCH 1923 wagon, though not as good as the Parkside kits, which are a joy to build. Aren't the Hornby wagons an amazing mixed bag though? There are some like that 3-plank (also 4-plank and 6-plank) that at are perfectly proportioned for the pre-grouper and others such as the coke wagon that are still straight out of the Triang catalogue - I've got one in a box somewhere that I was given as a cast-off from my cousins c. 1973. (Though there are some rather odd goings-on below the solebar on the 3/4/6-plank wagons - that V-iron for instance...)

Edited November 6, 2016 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

Lovely job, James. You've captured the character of the guano tank very well!

 

Jim

 

Is it definitely a guano tank? somehow fish oil seems more likely - more liquid. I hope it wasn't used for both...

[Nearholmer]

That wagon is strange, isn't it? It has many tank-like characteristics, yet seems to have side doors of some kind, and quite large loading hatches, so I'm guessing that whatever it carried wasn't a conventional, free-flowing, liquid. I'm thinking more of a sort of horrible slimy ooze of guts and offcuts, slopped into it somewhere at the waterside, and slopped-out at the processing plant. And, maybe it could carry guano too, being used like a lime or salt wagon.

 

Not one to get downwind of!

 

Kevin

[Caley Jim]

Is it definitely a guano tank? somehow fish oil seems more likely - more liquid. I hope it wasn't used for both...

It was almost certainly used for guano - solidified bird poo, probably gathered from cliffs and stacks around the coast.  The Bass Rock is one of the largest gannetries in the world and is practically white with the stuff!.  I have a photo of the wagon in the 1950's by which time the top hatches had been removed and sheet cleats fitted to the sides.  Presumably the hatches gave problems and a sheet was easier to remove for loading.

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

While googling for something else, I came across this photo, which I'm fairly certain shows part of the Wolfringham Branch, near to where it crosses the GER. Notice the church in the background, close to which is the WNR station.

 

(or perhaps I'm just foisting this picture upon the CA thread because I like it)

[Donw]

While googling for something else, I came across this photo, which I'm fairly certain shows part of the Wolfringham Branch, near to where it crosses the GER. Notice the church in the background, close to which is the WNR station.

 

(or perhaps I'm just foisting this picture upon the CA thread because I like it)

 

Now that is really shouting Model me Model me

 

Don

[wagonman]

While googling for something else, I came across this photo, which I'm fairly certain shows part of the Wolfringham Branch, near to where it crosses the GER. Notice the church in the background, close to which is the WNR station.

 

(or perhaps I'm just foisting this picture upon the CA thread because I like it)

 

 

That's a lovely photo... of Wrington on the Blagdon branch. Wrong sort of stonework!

[Nearholmer]

Well spotted!

 

I was hoping to get away with it for just a bit longer, and expecting that a somersetonian would identify the real location.

 

K

[wagonman]

First couple of wagons built.

 

1. The first is to be the local Castle Aching coal merchant's wagon.  This is a straight build of Cambrian Kits Wheeler & Gregory type.   I chose this because it gave me a traditional 9' w/b 15' wooden underframe coal wagon, which, though I suspect is based upon RCH 1907, should be fairly representative of coal wagons built either side of 1900.   I chose the Wheeler & Gregory style because this body has raised, round-cornered, ends, which adds variety and lends a more archaic touch.   

 

Built with brakes one side only.

 

This will be the business of one Israel Turner, because this gentleman was noted as a "coal dealer" at Castle Acre according to Kelly's 1904 Directory of Norfolk.  The livery will be brown with white shaded lettering; I have just ordered some transfers from HMRS, though I suspect these will take a while to arrive.

 

2. The second is my take on the Scottish Fish Oil wagon that Caley Jim alerted us to some time ago, for which I am most grateful.  I have adopted the 9' w/b and 3' wide doors assumed by Caley Jim and then built by eye from his pictures.  It's a rather amateurish affair and not as neat as it should be and I feel the want of liquid, Mek-Pak-style, poly cement.  Riveting, which, frankly, could have been neater, was accomplished with a little ball-headed punch from the art shop (Darlington). I think the imperfections will show up once undercoated, but it's a start. 

 

The u/f is modified from the same Cambrian Kits Gloucester pattern as that of the coal wagon.  As per prototype, built with brakes one side only.

 

Fortunately I did not need an exact replica, as this is my take on the wagon, for the Norfolk Fish Oil & Guano Company of Bishop's Lynn.  I think the livery will be a blue-grey and the lettering white shaded black.  Again, there will be a bit of a wait for the transfers.

 

Finally I include a picture of the wagons either side of a RTR Dapol wagon, which presumably represents 1923 RCH.  The point is to show how much larger this modern, steel framed, wagon is, making the pre-WW1 wagons look "HO" in comparison.

 

Small is beautiful.

 

I should mention the pleasure of ordering from the jovial proprietor of Cambrian Kits, whose kits fall together like a dream, and the enduring image he conjured in my mind of Mrs Cambrian Kits being sent down the garden to a shed to slave over a hot moulding machine just for me!

 

 

I doubt Tom Gregory ever took his wagon order book east of Devizes, but there were other builders producing similar vehicles – the Birmingham C&W Co for one. The wagon was built to the 1887 'New Specification'. Many of the wagons built to the 1907 specs were not that different from the later 1923 design  (a few inches here and there) but had grease boxes and, up to 1912, one set of brakes. So nothing like a Dapol wagon then. 

 

Young Mr Parks of Cambrian Models is now living near Wisbech – very much your old stamping ground!

 

 

 

Richard

[Edwardian]

Glad to see the wagon building bug has got you. Remember to stop before 200.

The dropside wagon has a sort of Midland look about it, though no idea if the buffers and axleboxes are correct -though the latter look pretty acceptable. The Midland just loved three plank opens. And of course they were very popular with the civil engineers for ballast etc.

Who is going to provide the loco coal? You might think about Moy or one of the other East Anglian coal companies such as the Peterborough Coal Co.

And you really need something dumb buffered. There are a few cast metal kits occasionally available, but it could be a first scratch building project - just get some plastic sheet, etched axleguards and appropriate axleboxes and springs and you are away.

Jonathan

 

If I could find a picture of an old MOY wagon, turn of the century, wooden u/f, that might be a very good idea; POWSIDES only produce a 1923 RCH version.

 

POWSIDES do Coote & Warren, Peterborough, but I don't think that merger had occurred by 1905.

 

POWSIDES do a Birmingham C & W Co wagon for J I Dennick of Lynn, nicely ambiguous for my purposes as to whether that is King's or Bishop's (!), so that can come down the GE tramway to Castle Aching.

 

I do think that there is some scope for dumb-buffered stock, both for WNR's 'internal user' wagons and, perhaps, for coal traffic to and from Wolfringham staithes?

 

 

Once you're hooked on Mek-Pak you'll never look back...

 

The Dapol wagon looks like nothing - 10' wheelbase for starters. The only thing putting your wagons either side of it tells you is just how horrible it is. The Bachmann 7-plank wagon is a good representation of the RCH 1923 wagon, though not as good as the Parkside kits, which are a joy to build. Aren't the Hornby wagons an amazing mixed bag though? There are some like that 3-plank (also 4-plank and 6-plank) that at are perfectly proportioned for the pre-grouper and others such as the coke wagon that are still straight out of the Triang catalogue - I've got one in a box somewhere that I was given as a cast-off from my cousins c. 1973. (Though there are some rather odd goings-on below the solebar on the 3/4/6-plank wagons - that V-iron for instance...)

 

Yes, the Peterborough Co-Op wagon and a few others were by way of supporting the Nene Valley railway's shop and providing goods stock, bizarrely, for my son's Sudrian train set.

 

I have an idea for a micro-layout plan that would use a number of privately owned drop-sides, and second-hand Hornby wagons are not a bad idea.  This one is, however, for a different purpose, for use on CA, and the lesson so far learnt is the need to replace the wheels with Gibsons.  

 

If there are other examples of RTR wagons - 9' w/b or shorter and wooden u/f - that are reasonable models, that fictitious POs or the WNR might use, I'd be grateful for any suggestions. 

 

It was almost certainly used for guano - solidified bird poo, probably gathered from cliffs and stacks around the coast.  The Bass Rock is one of the largest gannetries in the world and is practically white with the stuff!.  I have a photo of the wagon in the 1950's by which time the top hatches had been removed and sheet cleats fitted to the sides.  Presumably the hatches gave problems and a sheet was easier to remove for loading.

 

Jim

 

Which, of course, begs the question from whence comes the guano to supply a guano processing plant at Bishop's Lynn!

 

Perhaps we should not enquire too closely.

 

 

 

While googling for something else, I came across this photo, which I'm fairly certain shows part of the Wolfringham Branch, near to where it crosses the GER. Notice the church in the background, close to which is the WNR station.

 

(or perhaps I'm just foisting this picture upon the CA thread because I like it)

 

Brilliant.

 

And could be Norfolk-ised in flint with brick quoins, which is no doubt what you will do when you build your 7mm layout of Wolfringham in the 1930s! 

[Edwardian]

That's a lovely photo... of Wrington on the Blagdon branch. Wrong sort of stonework!

 

It did remind me of old photographs of Grimston, Norfolk.  The stone is wrong for Norfolk, of course, but, I suppose the pan-tiles are supposed to suggest Norfolk.

 

This brings me to a theory I have been developing.

 

It's all to do with the fact that steam-powered slate lines in Wales really got going in the 1860s.  This tempts me to suppose that the out-put and national distribution of Welsh slate was really a phenomenon of the late Nineteenth century, and would have taken a while to reach all corners of the UK. 

 

So, from c.1870s there is more likelihood that new buildings are clad in Welsh slate, the replacement of older materials with Welsh slate must have been gradual.

 

I grew up in Leicestershire, where the 'pre-industrial' roofing material was "Swithland Slate", which is a tick stone slate.  Move to Rutland/South Lincs and we find "Collyweston", another local stone-slate.

 

Here, in the land of the Prince Bishops, we have thick stone slates, but very different from the East Midland examples I grew up with.

 

All this begs the question of, in areas where there was not locally quarried roofing materials, what were people using, particularly in towns, as an alternative to thatch? 

 

The answer could be fired-flat tiles or wood shingles.  I suggest that a very common answer is pantiles. 

 

Query whether these were made in quantity in Britain?  Northern villages on the East Coast are associated with pantiles coming via sea from the low countries.  Other places I have come across them are port cities.

 

As you may have gathered from my photo-splurge on Mikkel's Battersea Wharf topic, I have in the past dug up a few pictures of old London, before the extensive rebuildings of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.  The wood-framed and wood-clad houses typically sport pantiles.

 

Not a material particularly associated with the West Country, but see the picture below of Bristol in 1866. 

[sp1]

It did remind me of old photographs of Grimston, Norfolk. The stone is wrong for Norfolk, of course, but, I suppose the pan-tiles are supposed to suggest Norfolk.

 

This brings me to a theory I have been developing.

 

It's all to do with the fact that steam-powered slate lines in Wales really got going in the 1860s. This tempts me to suppose that the out-put and national distribution of Welsh slate was really a phenomenon of the late Nineteenth century, and would have taken a while to reach all corners of the UK.

 

So, from c.1870s there is more likelihood that new buildings are clad in Welsh slate, the replacement of older materials with Welsh slate must have been gradual.

 

I grew up in Leicestershire, where the 'pre-industrial' roofing material was "Swithland Slate", which is a tick stone slate. Move to Rutland/South Lincs and we find "Collyweston", another local stone-slate.

 

Here, in the land of the Prince Bishops, we have thick stone slates, but very different from the East Midland examples I grew up with.

 

All this begs the question of, in areas where there was not locally quarried roofing materials, what were people using, particularly in towns, as an alternative to thatch?

 

The answer could be fired-flat tiles or wood shingles. I suggest that a very common answer is pantiles.

 

Query whether these were made in quantity in Britain? Northern villages on the East Coast are associated with pantiles coming via sea from the low countries. Other places I have come across them are port cities.

 

As you may have gathered from my photo-splurge on Mikkel's Battersea Wharf topic, I have in the past dug up a few pictures of old London, before the extensive rebuildings of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. The wood-framed and wood-clad houses typically sport pantiles.

 

Not a material particularly associated with the West Country, but see the picture below of Bristol in 1866.

What a fantastic building!

[Nearholmer]

How's about this for a guide to roofing types?

 

http://www.nfrc.co.uk/docs/default-source/heritage-register-docs/hr-list-of-heritage-roof-types.pdf?sfvrsn=2

 

Panties, I think we've discussed here before, and they seem to have originated with imports from the Low Countries to the 'eastern seaboard', starting in the mid/late C17th.

 

My impression is that, in areas where the clay is good, and relatively small local brick and tile works could keep up with house-building demand, Welsh slates didn't make huge inroads, except possibly for "architect designed" buildings, places like hotels, municipal buildings, institutions etc, where a remotely-based architect might be specifying the materials.

 

Anyway, I'm supposed to be doing DIY!

 

K

Edited November 7, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

What a fantastic building!

 

Indeed.

 

What a fantastic gas lamp, too!  Loads of period detail from the road surfaces to the guttering and chimney pots.

 

Another layout to be built on the back of a single photograph (must stop doing that!).

 

But what about putting this in a corner, with the line curving round to the rear of the buildings? 

 

Truncate the houses on each street, left and right, at the limits of the photograph and place the railway crossing them at those points.  So, enter rear left on a viaduct crossing the left-hand street, re-emerging right at road level, crossing the street of Georgian houses via a level crossing and continuing on to station?   

 

A great composition all round: A great change of levels and a building that really 'comes at you'.

 

 

How's about this for a guide to roofing types?

 

http://www.nfrc.co.uk/docs/default-source/heritage-register-docs/hr-list-of-heritage-roof-types.pdf?sfvrsn=2

 

Panties, I think we've discussed here before, and they seem to have originated with imports from the Low Countries to the 'eastern seaboard', starting in the mid/late C17th.

 

My impression is that, in areas where the clay is good, and relatively small local brick and tile works could keep up with house-building demand, Welsh slates didn't make huge inroads, except possibly for "architect designed" buildings, places like hotels, municipal buildings, institutions etc, where a remotely-based architect might be specifying the materials.

 

Anyway, I'm supposed to be doing DIY!

 

K

 

Useful link, thanks.

 

I have always assumed that Norfolk, like the Yorkshire coast, is part of that Low Countries pantile importation right along the East Coast, originally as ballast, so the story goes, but which must have pretty soon become a major import good!.

 

Elsewhere, both London and Bristol are port cities, and, of course, Bridgewater, mentioned in the link you sent me, was an inland port. 

 

In days when there was much coastal trade, and trade via inland water ways, it is easy to suppose that imported pantiles could have been landed at very many points on the coast, including points west, and worked inland via rivers and canals.

 

Welsh slate, once available nationally via rail, I like you, take to be something that initially comes with 'architect-designed', rather than vernacular, building, as was the case with Portland stone.

 

So, the question is by what time has Welsh slate become a national default choice for fairly modest buildings, and has come to dominate older buildings as a replacement material?   

 

My supposition is that this might be fairly late.  Many of the pictures of old London with the pantile houses are 1870s-1880s and were taken at a time at which these "Dickensian" streets were soon to be swept away.  Absent mass demolition, pantiled London might have survived longer.  The turnover of demolitions and new-builds in any major city might have done more than just the ready availability of Welsh slate to eradicate pantiles.

 

I wonder when, in the pre-Grouping period, should we be looking at the predominately Welsh slate roof-tops familiar in the townscapes of many places?  1890? 1900? 1910? 1920?

 

The answer will often depend upon the region and date of the building, but take that picture of Bristol.  Pantiles might not be everyone's first thought for surviving pre-Georgian jettied housing.  I suspect that behind their parapets, those Georgian houses on the right would have been pantiled, too.  All the visible roofing texture in the picture is pantiled.

 

In the areas where pantiles took, they seem to have held out, even in the towns.

 

In my native Leicestershire, Georgian and mid-Victorian red-brick houses originally had Swithland stone slate, very different in appearance from the thin, uniformly sized, 'slate grey' of Welsh slate.

 

Here, in County Durham, the same is true with regard to our local roofing material.  In areas of rectangular clay fired tiles, the same was doubtless true.

 

The conclusion that I am coming to is that, other than railway and institutional buildings and new-built villas and terraces from, say, the 1890s, the pre-Grouping modeller probably needs to be quite circumspect concerning the use of Welsh slate over much of the country. 

Edited November 7, 2016 by Edwardian

[TheQ]

My house  here in North Norfolk, is almost certainly built with bricks fired at a brickworks that was on a canal within sight of the house. There is much Dutch influence In Norfolk in house styles http://www.waysidearteastanglia.me.uk/wpimages/wp0bc70033_0f.jpg  Pre railway days it was easier to get to Holland and Belgium than London or Leicester. There is a village called Ostend near me.

 

The was house built 1906, and  like many others round here had red pantiles, I note there is local practices of them painting pantiles with bitumen to reduce water absorption, they also did that to north and East walls for the same reason.

[Fenman]

... Panties, I think we've discussed here before ...

 

Forgive me: I think I may have missed that discussion. I'd be most grateful if you could point me in the correct direction...

 

Paul

[Edwardian]

Forgive me: I think I may have missed that discussion. I'd be most grateful if you could point me in the correct direction...

 

Paul

 

That's alright, Paul, to be quite candid, I had entirely forgotten that we had discussed it before!

 

A topic search suggests that the previous discussion started here, at Post 287: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/page-12&do=findComment&comment=2240467

[Nick Holliday]

 The Postcard Collectors' "Reflections of a Bygone Age" series of books could be a useful source of vernacular buildings.  They comprise about 40 pages of A5 size for around £4 each, with up to 60 photos in each.  The coverage is a bit random, some counties being very well covered, probably dependent on the interests of a few collectors, but I have found several of the Railway Station Collections very interesting, particularly where the area is unfamiliar, and in some locations, a small town, such as Horncastle in Lincolnshire, has an entire volume to itself (not necessarily the railway station).  The majority of the photos are from postcards of the classic Edwardian era, often focussing on the old and quaint, but some feature more modern subjects, and, unfortunately, it is impossible to tell from the website, but at the current price, if there is an album covering your selected town or area, and you cannot find it in a local bookshop, a small investment might be worthwhile.

[Fenman]

That's alright, Paul, to be quite candid, I had entirely forgotten that we had discussed it before!

 

A topic search suggests that the previous discussion started here, at Post 287: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/page-12&do=findComment&comment=2240467

 

I think you need to read the quote again, a little more carefully. It may surprise you what was apparently discussed before...!

 

Paul

[Edwardian]

I think you need to read the quote again, a little more carefully. It may surprise you what was apparently discussed before...!

 

Paul

 

Ah!

 

Sorry, that didn't get past my smut-filter.

 

This lady, on the other hand, clearly has discussed the topic before ....  

Edited November 7, 2016 by Andy Y
Copyright issue

[BG John]

Interesting. I got the impression that Edwardian ladies wore rather larger and less glamorous underwear.