Making a high street

[Phil R]

Kingsway models do a free download of a Wilkinsons shopfront, as well as some useful high street buildings

 

http://www.kingswaymodels.com/page27.htm

 

Fox Transfers also supply some useful 80s-90s style fascias - PO, Rumbelows, WHSmith, Boots etc, as well as some more generic ones.

 

Think I'm correct in saying that as time has passed the number of independents in whatever sector has diminished greatly.

If you want to give a sense of place, using a local chain might work, bakeries seem to be a constant for example.

Cynics like myself would say all you need for a modern day high street in any large town or city is several coffee shops, betting shops, charity shops and a few takeaways.

Many of the larger stores would be in the main shopping centres.

 

There are also a few stores that would fit in any decade - Ernest Whiteley in Bridlington for example - fourth picture down

 

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/analysis/stitches-in-time-the-shop-that-s-hardly-changed-in-114-years-1-7220744

 

Regards

 

Phil

Edited December 22, 2018 by Phil R

[nhdesigns]

Spar and coop (the blue and white one)!logos are almost unchanged since the 1980s so that covers off two. I have both on mine.

 

Independents also make sense. Even ‘central’ stations were almost never truly central. Think Piccadilly and Victoria in Manchester for example. And definitely all the ‘centrals’ on the GCR!!

 

Another thread could be for high streets that set an era perfectly.

By heck that's some craftmanship there. I especially like the advertising billboards there with things like cigarette adverts and beer. Where did you find them? If you don't mind me asking. I've been looking around everywhere for some but only closest I find are watermarked by the advertising agency.

[ianmacc]

By heck that's some craftmanship there. I especially like the advertising billboards there with things like cigarette adverts and beer. Where did you find them? If you don't mind me asking. I've been looking around everywhere for some but only closest I find are watermarked by the advertising agency.

Hi. Just seen this so apologies for my tardy reply. They are persistent image searches on google that’s all I have got about 30 from c1970 to 1990 for things like cigarettes, election campaigns etc.

 

Can send them for personal use so long as I don’t get inundated lol. Also would be poor form if someone used my hard work for commercial gain without letting me know first please.

 

The best ways to set an era without trains running are road vehicles, commercial logos and media.

 

I don’t have many pics of the adverts as they’re just incidental detail but here’s a couple.

[HillsideDepot]

Whilst this is a relatively modern photo, with spray can graffiti, it does illustrate the sort of "behind the High Street" lane which was mentioned up the thread which would be great fun to model.

Back streets of Bristol by Stephen Dowle, on Flickr.

 

Perhaps open up that wall into a couple of the yards so a Transit type van might get access (I think there might be an opening towards the corner). I'd also want to tidy the worst of the rubbish, and leave off most of the graffiti, but that probably more because of the era I model than anything.

[jonny777]

WH Smith have been around a long time, Beatties for a model shop, John Menzies (geographical area dependent). Tesco, Presto for supermarkets. BHS, C&A in larger towns. Local family owned butchers, greengrocers (there was a chain but I can't remember the name). Most banks have been around a long time too.

 

You can sometimes find pictures of a high street in the area you're modelling on flickr, if you do the advanced search and restrict the dates of the results too.

 

 

There were two large chains of butchers IIRC, and I think they merged eventually. One was Baxters and the other Dewhurst. 

 

Also a few competing mens clothing shops - Burtons, Hepworths and John Collier (the window to watch) could be found in many high streets, but they may also have merged later in the 1980s. 

 

Shoe retailers gave us Dolcis, Saxone and Freeman Hardy & Willis. 

 

Ratners and H Samuel would provide a choice of jewellers. 

 

 

You might get away with a Macfisheries, although they became part of International Stores in the early 80s. 

 

Oh, and I missed out Rumbelows for a less obvious electrical shop. 

Edited December 31, 2018 by jonny777

[ianmacc]

Kingsway models do a free download of a Wilkinsons shopfront, as well as some useful high street buildings

 

http://www.kingswaymodels.com/page27.htm

 

Fox Transfers also supply some useful 80s-90s style fascias - PO, Rumbelows, WHSmith, Boots etc, as well as some more generic ones.

 

Think I'm correct in saying that as time has passed the number of independents in whatever sector has diminished greatly.

If you want to give a sense of place, using a local chain might work, bakeries seem to be a constant for example.

Cynics like myself would say all you need for a modern day high street in any large town or city is several coffee shops, betting shops, charity shops and a few takeaways.

Many of the larger stores would be in the main shopping centres.

 

There are also a few stores that would fit in any decade - Ernest Whiteley in Bridlington for example - fourth picture down

 

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/analysis/stitches-in-time-the-shop-that-s-hardly-changed-in-114-years-1-7220744

 

Regards

 

Phil

I made the Wilkinson’s store. It is the earlier one before they went millennial with the ‘Wilko’ rebranding so it is good for the era of the recent past ie 80s and 90s. Possibly earlier as I think Wilkinson’s were founded in the 1970s.

 

Only modification I may make next time is to make the logo protrude rather than use the photo flat version supplied with the kit. It’s free so it is brilliant and no criticism necessary of course!

Edited December 31, 2018 by ianmacc

[ianmacc]

There were two large chains of butchers IIRC, and I think they merged eventually. One was Baxters and the other Dewhurst. 

 

Also a few competing mens clothing shops - Burtons, Hepworths and John Collier (the window to watch) could be found in many high streets, but they may also have merged later in the 1980s. 

 

Shoe retailers gave us Dolcis, Saxone and Freeman Hardy & Willis. 

 

Ratners and H Samuel would provide a choice of jewellers. 

 

 

You might get away with a Macfisheries, although they became part of International Stores in the early 80s. 

 

Oh, and I missed out Rumbelows for a less obvious electrical shop.

 

Maybe fine fare supermarkets. Kwik Save with the red and white logo. Before Lidl etc killed them off.

[RJL]

One main thing to remember when modelling a High Street is not to fill the road with cars and lorries, this can be easy to do with all the excellent diecast models around these days. Also the amount of members of the public on the street may be greater than you would first hint to make the scene look authentic.

[Mike Storey]

I had cause very recently to drive through parts of SW London, and parts of West Yorkshire and East Lancs, with which I have been very familiar over the past decades. What struck me is just how much the high streets have changed, just in the last five years or so, the last time I drove through the same areas quite extensively. They have, bar a few, gone very "twee", even Oop North. The advent of multiple bar/restaurants, specialist clothing shops, weird overpriced furniture/objets d'art shops, vaping shops, mobile phone outlets (differing markedly from the ones even a few years ago) and so on.

 

These have replaced the more traditional shops which we have cited above, with perhaps just the odd Tesco Metro, modernised Greggs or similar, as a taste of what went before. Even the charity shops have gone upmarket in their presentation.

 

It struck me that trying to represent a high street from the 1980's through to the present day, as the OP is trying to do, has become even harder than I imagined.

[BernardTPM]

One main thing to remember when modelling a High Street is not to fill the road with cars and lorries

My local high street (until 2013) was terribly full of cars, buses, lorries, vans and pedestrians. Quite mad.

 

Anywya, there's some interesting views of the smaller shops and businesses from 1980s London.here.

[ianmacc]

One main thing to remember when modelling a High Street is not to fill the road with cars and lorries, this can be easy to do with all the excellent diecast models around these days. Also the amount of members of the public on the street may be greater than you would first hint to make the scene look authentic.

True definitely up to the past decade or two. Few cars just commercial vehicles until post-war. Quiet apart from city centres until the 60s. Nowadays though town centres are very clogged with every parking place gone and snarled up roads so you can get away with excess cars.

 

People definitely. Some of the shops on our railway layouts would go bust if that’s all the footfall they got! I’ve packed my platforms and thoroughfares with people, overcoming cost by placing some key Preiser etc figures as a feature prominently and bulking out with those insanely cheap far eastern architectural figures from eBay.

 

If cars are your thing just have car parks or roadworks etc to allow a gathering of cars. A nice 50-space station car park or similar was my route of choice

Edited January 10, 2019 by ianmacc

[nhdesigns]

Thanks everyone for the great advice and discussion on the subject. I have to say that there's a lot of good advice being given here. I have begun to work on making my high street. So far I have mainly done some kitbashing, if that sounds right, by using the scalescenes High Street kit. Nothing much done, apart from taking a floor or two out of the buildings to make them more in line with what I have seen are standard heights for things like local shops with flats above them. I have also been doing some work too on some shop signs that tie in with the era I mostly model in. The last image is one of a building in Wolverhampton I stumbled across on google street view that I've managed to bring down to size and will be low relief along with the rest of the buildings on the street.

 

[Mike Storey]

I like it, and I love using Blockbuster Videos, which I used extensively in less connected times, but that will definitely date it! Keep it though - maybe Mike Ashley bought them out in your scenario.....

[nhdesigns]

I like it, and I love using Blockbuster Videos, which I used extensively in less connected times, but that will definitely date it! Keep it though - maybe Mike Ashley bought them out in your scenario.....

 

Hey thanks. I managed to do a lot of searching around on the web and managed to find fonts often used for high street signs among things like logos for brands such as the Midland Electric Board and so on. The next thing to look at doing is adding some details to the shops. I've been able to find printable things like fridges, video machines and so on, but only as 1:12 scale/dollhouse size(s). I might see about scaling them down to OO gauge if possible. Only because I'm looking to have more than just washing machines, ovens and televisions sitting in a shop window.

[ianmacc]

The free Wordsworth model railway downloads page has a set of 1:76 white goods

Edited January 21, 2019 by ianmacc