Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Good, as ever, to read everyone's thoughtful and thought provoking posts.  Shadow, I cannot thank you enough, and am sorry not to make fuller and earlier response.

 

I am Day 3 of a Man Flu' attack (the Mem's diagnosis) and in a quite pathetic state.  Will catch up once a little less utterly enervated.

[runs as required]

Added new photo's to gallery (here on RMweb)

Flitcham/Docking/Stanhoe/Burnham Market/Burnham Overy Town/Cley

What a wonderful resource you have loaded into your gallery, we should all be grateful to you. (what sort of camera do you use?)

 

A number of traits are interesting:

1

I wonder what the floor to ceiling height might be in that pair of knapped flint (painted white !) cottages in Docking - the one nearest the camera on the right, and the other in the middle/bacjground? It rather looks like the land has drained and settled lower than the road.

2

A number of the buildings still retaining their original windows (rather than pvc replacements) illustrate clearly how flush facades used to be. Modellers often over emphasise depth of reveal. The handsome 3 storey brick facade with the parapet gutter in Burham Market particularly shows this. Do we reckon the window tax persuaded them to brick up the narrower windows either side of the centre bay on the top two floors?

 

INDEX DRAFT (+ means more below; ++ means and on subsequent pages)

Edited September 3, 2018 by runs as required

[Shadow]

What a wonderful resource you have loaded into your gallery, we should all be grateful to you. (what sort of camera do you use?)

.........

Camera is a small pocket camera - Sony DSC-HX9V

 

 

As for the photo's, had nothing else to do all day apart from stay in the hotel and get board. I was working away from home and was on late shift, so spending 5 hours travelling around Norfolk passed the time before going to work!

 

Dave

Edited March 18, 2016 by Shadow

[wagonman]

A couple of great books on this sort of stuff (e.g. pantiles from the low countries can be found all the way down the E cost from Wick [Highland Railway] down to Margate/Ramsgate [sE&CR]):

Alec Clifton Taylor The Pattern of English Building (1962) (ISBN 0-571-14890-5),

RW Bunskill llustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture (4th ed.). London:  2000 [1971]. ISBN 0-571-19503-2.

 

i'd buy the second, but the first is excellent to get out of the library and just pore over the maps to see what materials get used where in (pre railway) vernacular building.

 

2

Edit

Meant also to remark that rounded corners are traditionally a way of protecting a corner from being demolished by a projecting cart hub. The corner often gets corbelled out to a square corner by the time it has to receive the eaves. Damage to corners has also been an enduring headache in railway architecture (with trolleys, Brutes etc.) and these days in new hospitals.

 

dh

 

 

Definitely recommend the Brunskill as a must for any modeller's bookshelves!

[wagonman]

Added new photo's to gallery (here on RMweb)

 

Flitcham

Docking

Stanhoe

Burnham Market

Burnham Overy Town

Cley

 

Ended up at Sheringham Station on the North Norfolk Railway (Photo's here)

 

 

Nice photos but I should add that of your Cley photos, two are from Salthouse and the third from Weybourne, I think.  :-)

Edited March 18, 2016 by wagonman

[Shadow]

Nice photos but I should add that of your Cley photos, two are from Salthouse and the third from Weybourne, I think.  :-)

Thanks, I have updated them to Salthouses and Weybourne. Can find the two at Salthouse, but the Weybourne one is eluding me!

[Mad Carew]

Edwardian - I am sorry to hear that you are unwell, best wishes for a full and speedy recovery.  Please get back to the modelling, as I am very much enjoying your village taking shape!

 

I have sent you a PM re Bhivandi Pura/Nindhar Benar.  Reply when ready.

[Nearholmer]

Edwardian

 

Hope you get better soon.

 

Be careful you don't invent another project while lurking in bed, like I did.

 

Kevin

[Edwardian]

Thanks Kevin, MC.  This bug has just poleaxed me, and not being able to work doesn't help with our deepening financial crisis.  I have all but run out of printer ink, though a new router from BT means that the printer won't network with the 'pooter, so I can't print anyway!  This means I can't finish any of the buildings in progress.  I need some transfers and accessories in order to complete any rolling stock, so I can't do much there.  This is assuming that I can soon recover the will to live/model, having first caught up on the daunting back-log of last week's Real Life. 

 

On the plus side, I am at least more or less upright, and with the warmth provided by heaters and duvets and Labradors, am able to sit up and type.  I find many interesting things to read and a host of greatly appreciated photographs to look through.  And I reflect upon the Beloved Memsahib, our two Infant Prodigies, and, of course, aforesaid Labradors, who, for some reason, don't seem to care about any of this.  And Bix Beiderbecke on Radio 3. Much to be thankful for.

Edited March 19, 2016 by Edwardian

[ChrisN]

Not 'man-flu' by the sounds of it but proper flu.  Hope you recover soon and are back working at the earliest opportunity.

[corneliuslundie]

Another very useful book to look for in the library is also by Brunskill:  Brick building in Britain" (Gollancz, 1990). Not cheap even then but fUll of useful stuff.

 

While I appreciate the idea, to we want every layout at the next show to have caryatids round the doors?

 

I must admit that I prefer to see wires between my bits of electronic equipment. I looked at Bluetooth to connect the desk top computer to the hi-fi but was told it would interfere with the wireless network by which our computers are connected to the router - necessary unfortunately with laptops. I suppose it is my own fault for having five computers for the two of us.

 

And I echo the "Get well soon".

 

Jonathan

[Edwardian]

Well, I seem to have missed out a good deal whilst snivelling in my pillow. 

 

There are few, if any people in my photographs.  I sometime have to wait ages for them to move out of shot.  Sometimes, if I am losing the light or just bored of waiting, I radio one of the two trained snipers who always accompany my field surveys to "take them out", as I believe it's called.  So, it really isn't aliens, it's me.

 

Apropos of German spies, just along the lane from the house (the house I cannot seem to sell and which is killing me !), is a little yellow-brick 1920s estate cottage.  During the war, a bloke came knocking on the door one night.  He claimed to have a broken down car, but spoke in a funny accent.  He wanted to know ze vay to Vizbeach.  The gardener, for he it was who occupied the cottage, kept the stranger talking whilst the boy went to find the copper. Eventually some soldiers came to pick him up.  

 

The Eagle landed, but, apparently, the location used for the film was Oxfordshire, just pretending to be Norfolk.  That water mill was on the Thames!  Also, it turns out, someone has already modelled it!  

Some good books I must look out for. I remember Alec Clifton Taylor's 6 English Towns series on the Box.  I find that if I stray near the coast, North Yorkshire or Cleveland, the villages are predominantly pantiled, for the same reason, coming as ballast from Holland.  My problem is, that after Castle Aching, I doubt I'll want to model another area in which it is the roofing material of choice! 

 

Started going through Shadow's excellent collection of photographs, accompanied by a bit of a Ralf Vaughn Williams fest: Norfolk Rhapsodies, 1 & 2; English Folk Song Suite, Symphony No.3 (Pastoral), and as always happens, for sometime I will be haunted by that bugle call; Fantasy & Variations on Greensleaves; Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, well, you can't really listen to anything else after that.  This got me through to the end of Docking.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Edwardian

[Stubby47]

"The Eagle has Landed" was partly filmed in Charlestown, Cornwall (the MTB boat scene with Caine & Sutherland).

 

In the film, Sutherland gets thrown through the window of the harbour side pub.

 

Many years later, young Keifer Sutherland is filming in the area and visits the same pub, where upon his is thrown out for hitting on the local lasses.

[runs as required]

Glad you are feeling a bit better James; this particular flu strain seems to linger a while in the system. I visualise it all going on in the body like an animated advert for loo cleaner or somesuch where the virus hoards are all sword fighting Holywood style up spiral staircases and across battlements, tumbling into moats.

 

An appropriate picture of Binham Priory, north Norfolk for you (in your present condition):

Bernard Fielden (restorer of York minster etc.) from Norwich once gave an excellent  lecture at Kings Manor, York where he explained this was a  favourite building because it stood eyes blacked out and bloodied like a proud unbeaten old Warrior who'd endured so much punisment over the centuries.

 

He explained how he'd had to resist pressure from funraisers to replace the distiguishing C18 bricked West window with Decorated Gothic tracery.

 

dh

 

 

[Shadow]

I have uploaded some of the photo's to Google Earth and Panoramio. This gives you the ability to view on a map.

It can take up to 10 days to be processed/checked though!

 

With Panoramio you can filter images on tags. I have added the tag "Rmweb survey" to all mine. On the top line of the Panoramio window there's an "Explore" option. Select that and you get a "Tags" option. Select that and enter the search tag. Hopefully this will eventually show just images that we want! I have already got some others I did visible.

 

I'll update here when the new ones become visible.

 

Edit :-

 

This is an easier way, select link below and then "view on map"!

 

http://www.panoramio.com/user/7639787

 

 

Dave

 

P.s. these images should be at a higher resolution than is allowed on Rmweb.

Edited March 20, 2016 by Shadow

[Edwardian]

David, Binham Priory is a great façade. 

 

Dave/Shadow, that is a great resource - a bit like Geograph, which I have found useful in the past.

 

Yesterday the Memsahib expressed the view that I had "not got Man-flu, but real 'flu" and sent me to bed.  Was a bit too done in for posting on the 'pooter, but, in between dozing, I watched The Way Ahead and The Spy in Black on Youtube, so not at all an unpleasant day despite feeling lousy.   In trouble today because I was supposed to 'phone the doctor and forgot. Anyway, I think once energy levels return, the modelling mojo should come back and I might manage to find something to do over Easter.

 

In the meantime, something from the Norfolk School (James Stark), to help get back into the mood:

Edited February 1, 2019 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Just struck me how similar some of what is coming out here is to Winchelsea, Sussex.

 

You might want to google some pictures of the church and Strand Gate to see what I mean - might be a useful distraction from feeling cr@p.

 

Winchelsea is well worth a visit. At one stage it was a Royal New Town, but it didn't really work out, and virtually nothing has happened there for several hundred years; there is a plague under a tree outside the churchyard, commemorating John Wesley preaching on the spot, and I think that might have been the most recent "event of note".

 

Kevin

[Northroader]

The best time to go to Winchelsea is when they have their open gardens weekend, and you can get behind the frontages. As a feast of small town historical architecture it really is marvellous.

[Shadow]

Bad news on Panoramio I'm afraid. Looks like there's a problem with the site and it's no longer displaying new photo's and Google (who now own it) are not going to fix it!

 

Therefore after having spent the last few days positioning them on the map, no one can see the position. The web also says that Google Earth may have/has a similar issue.

 

However, looks like Flikr may be able to something similar so will look like into this.

 

Dave

Edited March 21, 2016 by Shadow

[Metropolitan H]

Just struck me how similar some of what is coming out here is to Winchelsea, Sussex.

 

You might want to google some pictures of the church and Strand Gate to see what I mean - might be a useful distraction from feeling cr@p.

 

Winchelsea is well worth a visit. At one stage it was a Royal New Town, but it didn't really work out, and virtually nothing has happened there for several hundred years; there is a plague under a tree outside the churchyard, commemorating John Wesley preaching on the spot, and I think that might have been the most recent "event of note".

 

Kevin

K - I thought Edwardian was suffering from the Flu - like wot you had - not the plague?

 

Edwardian - I hope you recover soon.

 

Regards

Chris H

[Nearholmer]

I hope to goodness that, whatever the precise diagnosis, Edwardian's Doctor doesn't use a computer with predictive text completion to make-out any prescription.

 

K

[Edwardian]

Not feeling quite so done in today, so possibly it was, after all, a touch of 'flu and not the plague.  Well, I had to choose between 'Funny' and 'Thanks', so here's thanks to Chris H and all who have expressed wishes for my recovery!

I am sure that half of this is due to stress, the cause of which is our unsold house.  It struck me some years ago that it wouldn't make a bad subject for a model, now, though, I wonder if it is only for someone less emotionally involved, perhaps!

 

The Memsahib cleverly produced a website - Flint's House    In theory, at least, it remains my intention to model the house, back-dated for an 1890s farmhouse, as it was/is intended to be the centre-piece to what I had planned as my ultimate light railway project, for which Castle Aching is the test run.  This would be a model of an entirely self-contained system, based on an inland island in the Fens; the Isle of Eldernell & Mereport Railway.  I reckon with a shed, say, 16' x 18' I could just about cram in the whole system.  A lovely little railway with its Sharp Stewart 2-4-0Ts and 4-wheeled coaches.  Perhaps I should tackle it if and when I get through Castle Aching.

 

I like the, now rather old fashioned, idea of modelling an entire railway.  Everything is 'on-stage' and you have to cater for the needs of a complete, if exceedingly modest, system.  l did draw up a rough plan long ago, the key to which is the use of triangular junctions that mean you can go from anywhere on the system to anywhere else in a satisfying number of combinations.   No doubt it will bear revision, but it gives a good general idea. 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Edwardian

[runs as required]

Have you thought of "writing" it rather than modelling it?

Why not continue modelling the bits you like modelling - without setting yourself a goal you are bound to fall short of.

 

I'd regularly call in to a fantasy site about a lost model of a 'real' Hundred of Wherever Light Railway. Only fragments of the lost model are known to exist but all sorts of battered drawings and sketches keep coming to light - from which you endeavour to re-create fragments of the old Edwardian model.

There could of course be the 'actual' history of the real HWLR which unluckily never found a Colonel Stephens to prolong it. Its rails were lifted to help the war effort in 1917 and that was that.

 

Just an idea....

  dh

[Nearholmer]

Glad you're beginning to feel better, and I really do like that entire-LR concept; very American, and a good way of getting in all those mentally-stored scenes that can never all be crammed onto one small layout.

 

You mention the possibility that stress might be part of what knocked you down. That thought crossed my mind when reading on your earlier posts. A good long course of fantasy railway modelling, spiced with actual railway modelling, is a great tonic.

 

K

 

PS: OK, I sneaked a look at Flint's House. It looks absolutely beautiful and I'm genuinely surprised that it hasn't attracted lots of potential buyers.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Stubby47]

I, too, like the concept of a whole railway, with trains having a purpose and destination, actually moving goods around.  Now the loft is clear(er), I need to plan how to fit Treamble and the future Cubert into a working railway.  (I doubt the PSMT will form part of this layout...)