Castle Aching

[corneliuslundie]

There are some modern layed - laid? - hedges here in Montgomeryshire. also many that show signs of once being in that style. 

Yes, there are restrictions on when hedges can be "trimmed" = massacred.

For my Sarn layout I took the view that the mid 30s would not be a prosperous time for farming so the inter-field hedges would be in the layed style but rather straggly.

But the Cambrian Railways specification for boundary hedges was quite specific: a post and wire fence plus a quickset hedge. You can still see the results in May when the hedges are a mass of white flowers. If other railway companies had similar specifications then railway boundary hedges will not be layed.

And I endorse the book recommendation above, also the other titles by W G Hoskins, three of which are on the shelf beside me with my railway books; also a number of books in the New Naturalist series.

A slightly belated Happy New Year to the parishioners.

Jonathan.

[Compound2632]

I recommend his book "The Making of the English Landscape" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_English_Landscape

 

Some years ago, I bought a copy of that as a Christmas present for my wife's uncle, a geologist very familiar with Devon - indeed the family story is that his interest in geology, as a boy growing up in London, was triggered by a jigsaw of the Cornish Riviera Limited on the sea wall at Dawlish - why were the cliffs brown? Surely cliffs are white?

 

Anyway, the present wasn't a success. It turned out he'd known Hoskins quite well...

[uax6]

I have only ever seen one hedge actually being layed, and that was in the neighbouring village here in West Norfolk, and was only about 5 years ago. I really must have a look to see how well its doing now...

 

HNY to all the Parish.

 

Andy G

[Nearholmer]

The book that got me into this topic was "The Presence of the Past" by Penelope Lively, which I bought when it was published in the mid-1970s. She acknowledges her debt to Hoskins, but adds further thoughts, and presents the subject in an instantly accessible way ...... it wasn't written for children, but her experience as an author for children must have helped her to 'pitch' it so well for the lay reader. That and a copy of "Remains of a Revolution" by Burton, which came out at about the same time, make a cracking pair as an intro to the physical history of Britain. I can actually remember standing in the bookshop while the assistant wrapped them in that crackly sort of brown paper, dispensed from a huge roll of a metal holder, that they used to use, and tying the parcel with string ...... very retro, even then.

[Martin S-C]

This is why I love railway modelling - it draws you into so many different subjects and disciplines. For the outsider who might think it is just about carpentry, electronics and looking up the colours of engines, how much more is there? It stretches your brain, your intellect and your experience. It entices you to travel. It rewards your curiosity. Wonderful.

[Donw]

I have seen freshly layed hedges done top quality in Anne's photo but it suggests a big estate where someone has the time to do a proper job. and does a lot of hedging. Many smaller farms it will be done by the farmer between a lot of other jobs. It will be layed but then allowed to grow up quite tall before being layed again of course you can take allowing it to grow up a bit too far

 

A hedge gone wild on exmoor you can still see where parts were layed years before. It was also a type of hedge used inthe west country where a bank is made of stones with earth between them and a hedge planted along the top. I have such hedges along two of our boundaries. I am a little confused by Hoskyns rule about the ge of hedges. I have known hwges were there were more species than one would expect from the known age of the hedge. Of course it may have been planted with different species in the first case. It is also a question of what is considered a tree species if you ignore things like Elder often considered just a bush you get a different answer. In the hedge down one side of about 80m which is predominantly Elm  the first 15m has been added to recently with some laurel and other things but the rest has additionally Horse Chestnut. Cherry, Field Maple,  Holly, Spindle, Hawthorn, Elder, Lilac, Dog Roses, Ivy no end of Brambles and an Oak where it joins the hedge running across the back plus I removed three Ash saplings that had got a foothold along the bottom of the stones.

 

Laying a hedge can be tricky you have to cut enough to allow it to bend rsather than break but leaving enough to keep the sap flowing. jonathan mentions Hawthorn ( May) used by the Cambrian. Hawthorn is a good tree for laying but a well kept HAwthorn Hedge can be lacking in flowers whereas one left a bit scraggly can have lots of flowers.

 

Don 

 

edit for a couple of typos there may be more.

Edited January 2, 2019 by Donw

[Annie]

Here in the rural Waikato where I live hedges have had a long history and many farms still have them and keep them well maintained.  The typical New Zealand farm hedge has a barbed wire fence running through the middle of it, but if the hedge is being maintained properly eventually the barbed wire fence ends up being absorbed into the hedge (never to be seen again) and the hedge does all the work of keeping stock where they are supposed to be.

 

With my digital model layout I'm working on achieving a balance between well maintained pristine hedges and ones that have gone a bit scraggy.  A couple of good sized farms plainly owned by well to do farmers have very neat hedges, but in other places I've broken up the hedges with a certain amount of wild growth.  All very WIP since Valleyfields is a scale 30 miles long so it's going to take me a while to get it all done. 

The layout in its original form was a riot of growth with the hedges so rampant they were invading the railway itself and I'm certain no pre-grouping railway would ever let things get that bad.

[Jim15B]

I learned hedge laying at agricultural college but after 20 years I'm not sure I still have the skill. It should be remembered that pre-mechanisation small farms would be family run, and larger concerns would employ considerable numbers of labourers. Now thousands of acres are managed by relatively small teams, with little prospect of having the time and resources to manage layed hedges in the traditional way. Flail cutting is pretty brutal but is a necessity of modern agriculture.

 

Here in Northamptonshire, metal fencing is relatively common (often found rusting and twisted in an overgrown hedge, but in places still maintained). I'm not sure of a date when such fencing first appeared (something else to research, but I suspect late Victorian to inter-war judging by the cast iron gate posts) and I suspect it is mostly associated with estate farms. I certainly intend to include some on my ironstone quarry layout at some yet to be determined future date.

[Annie]

I thought this might be useful while on the subject of fencing off fields and the like.

 

[Jim15B]

The Northamptonshire type:

Edited January 2, 2019 by Jim15B

[CF MRC]

Iron rail fencing always reminds me of estates. I doubt that many yeoman farmers would have afforded it. The other thing that is seldom modelled is an estate wall, but very useful for hiding a baseboard joint or lift-out piece.

 

Fencing and conventional wooden field gates are often incorrectly modelled, with gates hung upside down* - the diagonal bracing timbers should always be under compression - and no straining posts in a barbed wire fence when it changes direction. Useful to remember that at an outside boundary e.g. next to a road / railway, the wire or rails were placed against the livestock.

 

Growing up on a mixed farm, I spent many hours helping with fences and gate hanging.

 

Tim

 

P.S.

*My first ever item published in a model magazine was a letter to RM suggesting that Allan Downes should put his gates the right way up.

[Annie]

Some railway companies seem to have made use of metal fences for boundary fencing, but I don't really have any solid information on that.

 

Edited January 2, 2019 by Annie

[Edwardian]

Albert Shako - great name for a private-owner coal wagon.

 

Erratum.

 

Well, my military knowledge (though I'm plucky and adventury) has only been brought down to the beginning of the [Nineteenth] century, so I tend to get quite vague after Waterloo.

 

I misidentified (again). It's not an Albert shako, it's a "quilted shako". Apparently.  

 

The Albert shako was a tallish twin-peaked affair and to my mind the least elegant shako sported by the British infantry in the Victorian period.

 

It was introduced in 1844 so, I imagine, it was the less fun replacement for the bell-topped shako (as worn by the soldier on the Quality Street tin) introduced in the 1820s.  Having defeated the Napoleonic French army at Waterloo, we thought it best to emulate it in as many minor and major military ways as possible, from the bell-topped shako, as worn by the French infantry, to the conversion of a number of Light Dragoon regiments to lancers.

 

Be that as it may.  The Albert shako (1844) was apparently followed by the "second Albert" post Crimea. The second Albert was lower, but retained the rear peak. 

 

The kepi-like shako pictured in the 1866 ILN engraving looks to me more like the so-called "quilted shako" introduced in 1861.  It is, to my mind, distinctly French in style and rather more elegant than the ponderous Alberts. Whether there was a further version of this, I am not sure, but in the 1870s we decided to follow German fashion and adopt a spikey helmet.  

 

Below, I think, are plates showing Northumberland Fusiliers in Alberts (the first Albert, here dated to 1844-1852) and Quilted Shakos in the 1860s (pre-issue of the 1866 Snyder breech-loader).

 

You also see the contrast between the old-fashioned tail coats worn at the start of the Crimea and the more modern uniform introduced at the time.

 

Hopefully they'll be a train along soon ...  . 

[Adams442T]

The term pletching comes to mind in any discussion about hedge layering.  It may be a Herefordshire term.

 

Or not.  It was commonly used in Herefordshire, and l don't know the origin.  Though it was used in rural Wales as well.

 

It consists of cutting a stem almost through, and then bending it and pinning it down with other off-cuts from the hedge, so as to form a uniform surface.  It was done in Herefordshire, almost as a matter of course.  I did a layering, though inexpertly, and l was quite satisfied with the result.

[St Enodoc]

Erratum.

 

Well, my military knowledge (though I'm plucky and adventury) has only been brought down to the beginning of the [Nineteenth] century, so I tend to get quite vague after Waterloo.

 

I misidentified (again). It's not an Albert shako, it's a "quilted shako". Apparently.  

 

The Albert shako was a tallish twin-peaked affair and to my mind the least elegant shako sported by the British infantry in the Victorian period.

 

It was introduced in 1844 so, I imagine, it was the less fun replacement for the bell-topped shako (as worn by the soldier on the Quality Street tin) introduced in the 1820s.  Having defeated the Napoleonic French army at Waterloo, we thought it best to emulate it in as many minor and major military ways as possible, from the bell-topped shako, as worn by the French infantry, to the conversion of a number of Light Dragoon regiments to lancers.

 

Be that as it may.  The Albert shako (1844) was apparently followed by the "second Albert" post Crimea. The second Albert was lower, but retained the rear peak. 

 

The kepi-like shako pictured in the 1866 ILN engraving looks to me more like the so-called "quilted shako" introduced in 1861.  It is, to my mind, distinctly French in style and rather more elegant than the ponderous Alberts. Whether there was a further version of this, I am not sure, but in the 1870s we decided to follow German fashion and adopt a spikey helmet.  

 

Below, I think, are plates showing Northumberland Fusiliers in Alberts (the first Albert, here dated to 1844-1852) and Quilted Shakos in the 1860s (pre-issue of the 1866 Snyder breech-loader).

 

You also see the contrast between the old-fashioned tail coats worn at the start of the Crimea and the more modern uniform introduced at the time.

 

Hopefully they'll be a train along soon ...  . 

 

Albert Shako's still a great name for a private-owner coal wagon though!

[Compound2632]

Keeping close to the rails, the boundary we most often have to model is that erected by the railway itself. Midland Style gives drawings of six styles, most of which I believe were confined to station areas where a fence that was not easily climbed by humans was wanted - the well-known diagonal-slatted fence:

 

 

two varieties of vertical paled fence:

 

 

and a tall close-boarded fence. The most effective obstacle must have been the "unclimbable" iron fence, either 4'6" or 6'0" tall, very pointy. I suspect that most of the ordinary lineside boundary was the post and five rail fence - this has 7" x 3" posts at 9'0" centres, projecting 4'6" above ground level, with 3.5" x 1.5" rods of 18' length, the bottom one being centred 6" above ground level, then at centres of 10", 10", 12", and 12". Vertical stays 3.5" x 2.5" at 3' centres provided stiffening between the main posts. This type of fence was at the bottom of my parents' garden, adjoining an ex-LNWR line; the posts were on the railway side of the fence. It is stock-proof but easily climbed by humans of most ages:

 

 

Happy New Year!

Edited January 2, 2019 by Compound2632

[Hroth]

Erratum.

 

Well, my military knowledge (though I'm plucky and adventury) has only been brought down to the beginning of the [Nineteenth] century, so I tend to get quite vague after Waterloo.

 

I misidentified (again). It's not an Albert shako, it's a "quilted shako". Apparently.  

 

The Albert shako was a tallish twin-peaked affair and to my mind the least elegant shako sported by the British infantry in the Victorian period.

 

It was introduced in 1844 so, I imagine, it was the less fun replacement for the bell-topped shako (as worn by the soldier on the Quality Street tin) introduced in the 1820s.  Having defeated the Napoleonic French army at Waterloo, we thought it best to emulate it in as many minor and major military ways as possible, from the bell-topped shako, as worn by the French infantry, to the conversion of a number of Light Dragoon regiments to lancers.

 

Be that as it may.  The Albert shako (1844) was apparently followed by the "second Albert" post Crimea. The second Albert was lower, but retained the rear peak. 

 

The kepi-like shako pictured in the 1866 ILN engraving looks to me more like the so-called "quilted shako" introduced in 1861.  It is, to my mind, distinctly French in style and rather more elegant than the ponderous Alberts. Whether there was a further version of this, I am not sure, but in the 1870s we decided to follow German fashion and adopt a spikey helmet.  

 

Below, I think, are plates showing Northumberland Fusiliers in Alberts (the first Albert, here dated to 1844-1852) and Quilted Shakos in the 1860s (pre-issue of the 1866 Snyder breech-loader).

 

You also see the contrast between the old-fashioned tail coats worn at the start of the Crimea and the more modern uniform introduced at the time.

 

Hopefully they'll be a train along soon ...  . 

The chaps on the left in the second plate look like Angler fish...

 

 

Albert Shako's still a great name for a private-owner coal wagon though!

 

A train of PO wagons with the names of the inventors of various kinds of military hardware would be fun.

 

H Maxim, RJ Gatling (& Sons), H Shrapnel and Co, and so on.

 

 

The discussion about hedge-laying has been fascinating!

[Compound2632]

The chaps on the left in the second plate look like Angler fish...

 

Why? Is it to give the enemy a sporting chance? Aim for the tuft and you've a good chance of hitting your man...

[Hroth]

Why? Is it to give the enemy a sporting chance? Aim for the tuft and you've a good chance of hitting your man...

 

I've a hunch that in general, 19th Century Military uniform was designed to look pretty on the parade ground.  The side effect that it drew attention to the wearer and provided a good aiming point was not of even secondary importance, it probably wasn't even considered!

[Edwardian]

The term pletching comes to mind in any discussion about hedge layering.  It may be a Herefordshire term.

 

Or not.  It was commonly used in Herefordshire, and l don't know the origin.  Though it was used in rural Wales as well.

 

It consists of cutting a stem almost through, and then bending it and pinning it down with other off-cuts from the hedge, so as to form a uniform surface.  It was done in Herefordshire, almost as a matter of course.  I did a layering, though inexpertly, and l was quite satisfied with the result.

 

I think the cut part of the stems to be laid are "pleachers".  Cutting them is, perhaps "pleaching".  Perhaps in Herefordshire that's "pletching"?

 

Assuming that hedge laying is to be under-taken October to March, to avoid disruption of nesting birds, there would be no hedge laying in progress on CA, but a newly laid hedge is something I'd love to try.  

 

With that in mind, I snapped this hedge one May (the time of year CA is to be set), it had been laid the previous season, possibly in February, so shows the state of a winter-laid hedge in the fullness of Spring.  It was in Cambridgeshire, so, the progress of the seasons should be consistent with Norfolk.  Spring and summer come later up here! 

[Nearholmer]

Electric fencing goes back a surprisingly long way, probably to the 1880s.

this cap, which I just happen to have on the shelf in the study, comes from another 'engineered' fencing system, which had posts made from pressed-steel, to form tubes. I am fairly certain it was 'electric', with little porcelain insulators for the live wire, but its so long ago that I rescued this from the crumbling remains of a section that I can't be absolutely certain.

 

Morton's were big in everything iron, see here https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Francis_Morton_and_Co

Edited January 2, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

The chaps on the left in the second plate look like Angler fish...

 

 

 

Aim for the tuft ...

 

They're Fusiliers, talk like that will only get their hackles up!

 

 

I've a hunch that in general, 19th Century Military uniform was designed to look pretty on the parade ground.  The side effect that it drew attention to the wearer and provided a good aiming point was not of even secondary importance, it probably wasn't even considered!

 

Not really a problem in the age of smooth-bore muskets.

 

Nor did it particularly matter when you had rifles and they had pointy sticks.  Being seen is not a problem here; it's a question of whether your rate of fire is sufficient to stop you being overwhelmed.

 

On the other hand, in the Anglo-Egyptian and First Anglo-Boer wars of the 1880s, red was a less forgiving colour.

 

By 1914, it was a very silly choice for trousers.  

[TheQ]

The Northamptonshire type:

Seen that type in Wiltshire near Ludgershall//

[Talltim]

 

By 1914, it was a very silly choice for trousers.  

And still is

[Edwardian]

A locomotive for the West Norfolk.

 

Once the Drill hall is done (home straight now, surely?!?), I promise to turn my attention to stock, ignoring once again the elephant in the room, which is the need to re-lay the three bullhead turnouts, wire the layout and make the points operable.

 

I will have a go next at WNR general merchandise opens and the first three of the locomotives.

 

To re-cap, these are No.1 Colne Valley 0-4-2T, No.2 Fox Walker 0-6-0ST and No.3 Sharp Stewart 0-6-0T.

 

No.1 is the Achingham branch passenger engine, No.3 is envisaged as a goods tank, and No.2 is to be vac fitted to work both passenger and goods traffic on the Wolfringham branch.

 

Turbosnail of this parish has kindly produced a Fox Walker body for No.2.  There some compromises in order to utilise the Eletrotren 0-6-0 chassis, which is not the correct wheelbase, but hopefully something characteristically Fox Walker results. 

 

My profound thanks to Tom for this. He has really done a great job, correcting a couple of points on the Essery drawings in the process, and has achieved a great looking loco body and the poured resin finish is everything one could wish (and much to be preferred to the very expensive FUD and FXD offered by Shapeways, I might add).  I understand that in due course he may produce an industrial version for general release.  

 

EDIT: Pictures of the supposed prototype.

Edited January 2, 2019 by Edwardian