Bryanston School MR

[Nearholmer]

Hello,

 

I’ve just acquired two locos that were connected with a long-defunct 0 gauge model railway at Bryanston, a public school in Hampshire, one a c1930 item, the other c1950.

 

I’ve been able to find a tiny bit about this model railway by googling, notably that J B Snell, later GM of the RH&DR was a very active member of the group when he was a pupil there in the early 1950s, but the current school authorities seem to know nothing.

 

Does anyone know more?

 

I have a feeling that J B Snell, and possibly JIC Boyd, might have contributed articles mentioning it to railway modelling mags, but I only have odd copies (otherwise the house would collapse under the weight) and can’t find anything.

 

The “Holy Grail” would be a photo, of course.

 

Thanks in advance, Kevin

[MinZaPint]

Sounds interesting but Bryanston is in Blandford Forum DORSET. Wish you every success with your search

[Nearholmer]

Apologies, you are, of course, right ...... don’t know what brainstorm caused that error!

[bike2steam]

Sounds interesting but Bryanston is in Blandford Forum DORSET. Wish you every success with your search

 

Yep, just up the road from me, it'd be interesting to see.

Edited February 21, 2018 by bike2steam

[Nearholmer]

Well what I have discovered so far, which isn’t a great deal, comes from obituaries of JIC Boyd and JB Snell:

 

“James Ian Craig Boyd was born in Cheshire on July 31 1921. He completed his schooling at Bryanston, where he spent as much time as possible on the nearby Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway and founded the school's railway society, which visited engine sheds under the supervision of the history master.”

 

“I first met John a few days after my arrival at Bryanston in May 1946, very appropriately in the Model Railway Club located in an attic in the Portman roof. He had come in September 1945, together with Sam Cruikshank (C ‘50) and Christian Strover (H ‘50) and together with several others over the next five years we built a very extensive O gauge layout. John designed it and laid most of the track; unusually it had an overhead system to power the locomotives, some of which he designed and built himself.”

 

“On arrival at Bryanston he found a gauge one layout in the attic that had been built by J.I.C. (Jimmy) Boyd, a pupil in the early thirties. He, like John, later became an author and expert on the narrow gauge railways of North Wales. I remember the last vestiges of his layout being taken up in May 1946.”

 

This gives us a G1 layout succeeded by a G0 layout. All that I’ve seen that is linked to Bryanston is G0, but much of it is a great deal older than late-1940s, so possibly pupils brought old material from home, or possibly some of the masters contributed old material, as is often the way with school layouts. Apparently, the material was carefully stashed away, possibly as long ago as the 1960s, and only came to light recently. Some of it has suffered a bit of tin-worm, but the two locos that have found their way to my layout are almost “box fresh”.

 

As I said above, I’m sure that one of the two, I think Boyd, contributed articles to MRN or MRC during the 1930s, but blowed if I can find any, although I’m sure I’ve read one years ago!

 

Kevin

Edited February 21, 2018 by Nearholmer