Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Before the board was banished to the outbuilding and sheathed in Morrisons bags, I rescued the Keep.  After a rather busy week I have finally been able to finish applying the textures, touch it up with acrylics and add a full tea bag's worth of leaves.

 

Hopefully, at the weekend, I will be able to move the board back indoors and resume work on it.  

[James Harrison]

That is a stunning piece of modelling. 

[uax6]

Blimey, you're posh, green tea tea-bags!

 

Andy G

[Hroth]

Blimey, you're posh, green tea tea-bags!

 

Andy G

You should see what can be done with green gunpowder tea......

[Hroth]

Thats a wonderful Keep - looks rather like what Bridgnorth Castle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgnorth_Castle ) would have looked like if it hadn't been so knocked about by Ollie Cromwell....

 

AND the greenery is identical!

 

Edited to remove an extraneous "e", and here it is!!!  e

Edited June 26, 2017 by Hroth

[phil_sutters]

Before the board was banished to the outbuilding and sheathed in Morrisons bags, I rescued the Keep.  After a rather busy week I have finally been able to finish applying the textures, touch it up with acrylics and add a full tea bag's worth of leaves.

 

Hopefully, at the weekend, I will be able to move the board back indoors and resume work on it.  

I hope that your shrubbery doesn't get as out of hand as that at Lewes Castle.

[Edwardian]

PS, for any interested in how little went into this structure(!), the Keep utilised just two photographs:

 

- side panels and interior stone was from a picture of wall sections at Castle Rising

 

- everything else was from a single shot of Hedingham Castle.

 

The front elevation was realised using a Photoshopped image (as I mentioned, but it was a while back, I reversed it, cropped a storey and removed various people, railings etc).  Everything else was cut and pasted in the literal or analogue sense of the phrase. 

 

The tea was, alas, humble Builder's, and had to be painted green.  Attached with PVA and then highlighted by dry-brushing once set.

[Adams442T]

There l was, thinking that James would at least use Earl Grey, but not to be............................................

[Caley Jim]

Why is there not an 'Absolutely Brilliant' button???  Moderators please take note!

 

Jim

[runs as required]

Thats a wonderful Keep - looks rather like what Bridgnorth Castle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgnorth_Castle ) would have looked like if it hadn't been so knocked about by Ollie Cromwell....

Ah! The leaning keep; trouble is on a model folk would think you were just being cack handed.

 

OT bit coming up: in the days when I worked, I supervised/examined some fascinating PhDs. One of the best was the valuing of cultural assets and their targeting in war. It included Pevsner, the Baedeker raids/bombing of Bremen and Dresden and the bridge at Mostar.

So will the mosque in Mosul be rebuilt with its lean rather like Chesterfield spire - or meticulously set plumb as the Chinese would do out of respect for their ancestors (I.e. directly contrary to our William Morris SPAB doctrines).

Dh

[Edwardian]

Sadly, for the foreseeable future, the Great Eastern's contribution to motive power on the Bishop's Lynn Tramway will be restricted to an elderly whitemetal C53 running around on an unprototypical 4-wheel power bogie, as I learn that there is to be no GE version of the Model Rail/Rapido Trains GER/LNER 'J70'.

 

Pre-Groupers stuffed again!

 

What little time I have needs to be devoted to converting other RTR locomotives, not attempting to re-paint a J70.  I'll stick to my elderly kit and, when the time comes to add to the roster, I'll concentrate my limited time and resources on a G15 or two. 

[phil_sutters]

 

 

It's interesting seeing Newhaven like that, Phil- I haven't yet been down to Newhaven (I will at some point, having a few friends that way and it's not far by train) but it's the sort of thing you do see every now and then. Fledgling businesses alongside national giants. Always an odd sight. Though that roof does look very much in need of attention- but it does still look 'village cosy', if that makes any sort of sense.

 

- Alex

I am afraid that Newhaven is generally not very picturesque. The Town Centre, or Centre de Ville as the sign says helpfully for those disembarking from the Dieppe ferry, is surrounded by a one-way system that takes the A259 through the town. There are pockets of old and interesting buildings, but it is a mish-mash of down at heel Victorian and Edwardian small port buildings - domestic and business - and modern retail and light industrial 'parks'. The villages up the Ouse valley are delightful, although increasingly gentrified. Newhaven is getting investment and is the base for the Rampion wind farm out in the Channel.

Currently you can see my Newhaven & district album on the ipernity site, which is changing hands to a membership owned organisation shortly, http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/503055 . I have tended to choose the interesting bits of the town and port, so even I haven't shown warts and all.

Edited June 27, 2017 by phil_sutters

[Nearholmer]

Commutability = money.

 

Hastings is still a bit of a draggy commute to London, and there are such pleasant places within easy reach of the stations on the Tunbridge Wells line that people prefer to buy there ....... even if in one famous case they dodge their train fare. Google 'Jonathan Paul Burrows' to read all about the man who riddled the railway for £43000.

 

K

Edited June 27, 2017 by Nearholmer

[mullie]

Sadly, for the foreseeable future, the Great Eastern's contribution to motive power on the Bishop's Lynn Tramway will be restricted to an elderly whitemetal C53 running around on an unprototypical 4-wheel power bogie, as I learn that there is to be no GE version of the Model Rail/Rapido Trains GER/LNER 'J70'.

 

Pre-Groupers stuffed again!

 

What little time I have needs to be devoted to converting other RTR locomotives, not attempting to re-paint a J70.  I'll stick to my elderly kit and, when the time comes to add to the roster, I'll concentrate my limited time and resources on a G15 or two. 

As you know I have two Silver Fox bodies running on Bullant bogies that work really well, I just live with the fact they are four rather than six wheel. I also have an old K's J70 which I intend to do something with, I wasn't holding my breath for any rtr version. But then I bash also sort of things into all sorts of other things, that's the way I model I suppose.

 

Martyn

[corneliuslundie]

Be patient. Ten years is nothing. Newtown is getting its bypass after waiting over 40 years.

Jonathan

[phil_sutters]

Ah, well I suppose it's what I should've expected, really.

 

I don't understand the gentrification and prettifying of the south coast at the moment. From Whitstable and Margate down to Dover is being done up, slowly but surely, Folkestone harbour and marina is having major rework done and there will be a lot of investment into its regeneration, then between Folkestone and Camber seems dandy, but Hastings is a blip. It's rough around the edges, and it doesn't seem to be receiving a lot by way of investment. Then if you look to Eastbourne, it's caught in a weird half-and-half of being still a bit grubby but on the other trying to be a mini Brighton. It's all a bit odd to me.

 

I'd have thought Hastings, with so much history, would receive more attention.

 

- Alex

Brighton has some surprisingly scrubby areas close to the sea. Maybe they are more valuable than scrubby areas elsewhere! Hastings is better than it used to be, in some areas at least. The point about the commutability is relevant. We have easy access to London from Seaford, barring strikes and over-time bans, and our house prices are rising steadily. It's all about the ridiculous London property market. It's cheaper to pay the fares and own property here, than pay London prices.

[St Enodoc]

Commutability = money.

20 years ago when we were moving from the Midland to the South we looked at identical houses built by the same builder in Burgess Hill and Eastbourne. There was about a 50% difference in the price - all down to train journey times. As I was only commuting to Croydon not London, guess which one we bought.

[TheQ]

When the line to Norwich was electrified in about 1986, the house prices around the station and nearby jumped tremendously. It had been a cheap area. A friend was able to move out to the Horning, which is on the Norfolk Broads (although his new house is a couple of roads back from the river), and buy a 3 bedroom semi.

 Since then Horning prices have caught up, and someone now could not make the move without additional money.

 

Norwich Northern bypass was being proposed back in 1976 (and actually long before) when I moved here first, it's expected to be finished some time next year.

 My own house is out in the middle of nowhere, just moving it 5 miles nearer a main road would probably double it's value, moving it to actually on a river would add a 0 on the end.

[Nearholmer]

Could you achieve a worthwhile rate of return simply by digging a cut from the nearest river, to your house?

 

K

[TheQ]

Could you achieve a worthwhile rate of return simply by digging a cut from the nearest river, to your house?

 

K

Actually you could, I can see the edge of the Norfolk Broads area from my house and there is a stream running from the bottom of the field that runs into the nearest Navigable waterway.

 However,  a combination of the Norfolk Wildlife trust, The RSPB and the Broads Authority (who are NOT a national Park) would conspire to prevent any such thing happening. they all seem to forget the Norfolk Broads are man made and only by the intervention of man will they continue..

[Edwardian]

Actually you could, I can see the edge of the Norfolk Broads area from my house and there is a stream running from the bottom of the field that runs into the nearest Navigable waterway.

 However,  a combination of the Norfolk Wildlife trust, The RSPB and the Broads Authority (who are NOT a national Park) would conspire to prevent any such thing happening. they all seem to forget the Norfolk Broads are man made and only by the intervention of man will they continue..

 

You may, then, live near to Thorpe-Ambrose, seat of the Armadales!

[Poggy1165]

I fell in love with the Norfolk Broads when I first went on a proper boating holiday, I think it was in 1976. The strange thing is that a few years later, due to an inheritance, I could have afforded a modest place down there, but somehow the gears in my brain never figured this out. Instead the money went on greyhounds (as an owner), beer, cars and girls - to say nothing of small trains - and I wasted the rest.

[phil_sutters]

You may, then, live near to Thorpe-Ambrose, seat of the Armadales!

Are they Celtic cousins of the Armaghdales?

 

[Edwardian]

Are they Celtic cousins of the Armaghdales?

 

The Lady Armaghdale Bridgnorth 6 8 1983.jpg

 

An excellent locomotive, and, of 1898 vintage, well within my period of interest, though the attractive red livery and the name The Lady Armaghdale I understand only date from the change to ICI ownership in the early '60s. Wiki is a wonderful thing.

 

As to the identity of the lady concerned, I understand that she was the wife of a company chairman, though not contemporaneously with the acquisition of the Hunslet by ICI, as the name was taken from a Hawthorn Leslie of 1920.

 

At the time, John Brownlee Lonsdale (23 March 1850 – 8 June 1924), 1st Baron Armaghdale from 1918, was chairman of Levenstein Ltd, which I believe became part of ICI in due course.  This is why the Hawthorn Leslie was given the name much later inherited by the Hunslet.  Interestingly, though, Lord Armaghdale was also vice-chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal Warehousing Company. Lord and Lady Armaghdale had no children, so I guess there was only ever one Lady A.

 

Lord Armaghdale was born in Armagh and later became its High Sheriff. So, Phil is quite right about the loco having Celtic associations.

 

As to why Wilkie Collins lighted upon the name "Armadale" for the eponymous heroes of his novel, I could not say.  He did, however, tell an improbable tale of coming across the name 'Armadale' after publication of 13 of the instalments of the story and in circumstances every bit as sensational as the novel. In November 1865 three ship-keepers died in succession whilst minding a vessel named The Armadale at Liverpool dock.  Given the events of the novel that is, as Collins delights in implying, more than a little spooky!  

 

As to who any real Armadales might have been, I could not say, but, had my fictional railway been the other side of the county and near The Broads, the layout would be full of them!

[TheQ]

You may, then, live near to Thorpe-Ambrose, seat of the Armadales!

As I don't read much fiction the family involved has escaped my attention, but I'm guessing the family seat would have been not too far from Norwich Thorpe station. Though they would have been an outsider family,as the name indicates they are from Up North somewhere we don't have dales in Norfolk. Therefore unless they had been in the county a very long time they would have been furriners.