Castle Aching

[runs as required]

20 hours ago, runs as required said:

Kings Lynn. - A place I have not noseyed around since my push biking days in the early 1950s. I was glad to see a lot has survived despite Lynn's  GLC 'Town Expansion' status in the mid 1960/70s - like P'boro and Ipswich. 

 

The right hand side is how i remembered the Dukes Head from my biking days, supposedly full of ghosts (note how part was was a Barclays Bank - the Natwest still exists next door)

 

I reckon KL is surviving the 'Death of the High Street' pretty well - because of its distinctive pattern of spaces.

The stock Alamy aerial view of Kings Lynn shows clearly the classic layout of a trading port of the Hanseatic League of the Baltic and northern Europe. Defensive strategies such as the long narrow plots and short quays (as well as convoys of ships) were devised through the CII to counter the raids and piracy of the Northmen and Danes.

Notice how the wide open space of the Tuesday Market Place lies behind and two longitudinal streets run N-S behind the narrow burgage plots to the Town Hall and the Minster (at what I think I recall was the Saturday Market).

(I mentioned the railway to try to justify this lengthy OT post)

KL used to feature heavily in the Architectural Review of the 1950s with photographs by  Eric de Mare and the writings of ian Nairn on "The Functional Tradition"  

Pevsner called the walk from the Tuesday Market down Kings St past the Custom House as "the finest town walk in England".  

Newcastle upon Tyne has a similar Hanseatic pattern along the quayside with market places and church up behind (though partially destroyed by a fire in the 1850s and rebuilt with a tight Dobson grid of Victorian office blocks) .

dh

 

Edit

Eek!  

CA has swerved totally away from West Norfolk once again since I thought this might fit

Edited August 18, 2019 by runs as required

[Hroth]

31 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Alright, then, try a different example:

 

 

(It’s called “conversion to 7mm on the road to Barney Castle”)

 

The sorrowful souls are complaining "Why can't we stick with TT-3?"

 

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Northroader said:

Yeah, that sort of thing...

"Here's the USB stick if you have to reboot the system from scratch..."

[uax6]

12 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

The trickier bits will be the strap shoes attaching the springs to the solebar and the axleboxes.

 

 

What I was envisaging was you cutting off the axleboxes and just using the springs, which will therefore have the shoes done for you....

 

Andy G

[St Enodoc]

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

There’s an Indian restaurant, in the former chapel of what was originally a Catholic children’s home, near to where we live, which has a full-sized replication of that painted on the very-high ceiling.

 

Which probably interests no one.

 

Sorry!

 

 

I see that the wardrobe malfunction has been rectified. Oh, and unless you're lying on the floor, wouldn't that be a wall rather than the ceiling?

 

I was also trying to find a pun involving curry and apse but failed - over to you lot.

 

C. Lever-Clogs

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I see that the wardrobe malfunction has been rectified.

 

It was having an effect on curried sausage sales.

[Hroth]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I was also trying to find a pun involving curry and apse but failed - over to you lot.

 

"This apse's on fire"?

 

Its Monday morning, can't expect better...  

[runs as required]

Thinking about the arrival of James's 7mm signal box, I can remember how in my first 8/9/10 year old enthusiasm for modelling (and scratch building) we cared not a jot about scale.

We happily mixed it, the posh Doctor's younger son smuggled his older bro's 0 gauge Hornby stuff across to mix with my 00 Trix and I used tea chests to make buildings using a Hobbies fret saw set and Croid fish glue.

I enjoy Indian Maharajas' painstakingly detailed sequential Palace murals of epic battles won painted on the same principle.

dh

[Talltim]

The signal box is probably a bit large to claim it’s forced perspective!

[Edwardian]

On 18/08/2019 at 17:04, runs as required said:

 

The right hand side is how i remembered the Dukes Head from my biking days, supposedly full of ghosts (note how part was was a Barclays Bank - the Natwest still exists next door)

 

I reckon KL is surviving the 'Death of the High Street' pretty well - because of its distinctive pattern of spaces.

 

The stock Alamy aerial view of Kings Lynn shows clearly the classic layout of a trading port of the Hanseatic League of the Baltic and northern Europe. Defensive strategies such as the long narrow plots and short quays (as well as convoys of ships) were devised through the CII to counter the raids and piracy of the Northmen and Danes.

Notice how the wide open space of the Tuesday Market Place lies behind and two longitudinal streets run N-S behind the narrow burgage plots to the Town Hall and the Minster (at what I think I recall was the Saturday Market).

(I mentioned the railway to try to justify this lengthy OT post)

KL used to feature heavily in the Architectural Review of the 1950s with photographs by  Eric de Mare and the writings of ian Nairn on "The Functional Tradition"  

Pevsner called the walk from the Tuesday Market down Kings St past the Custom House as "the finest town walk in England".  

Newcastle upon Tyne has a similar Hanseatic pattern along the quayside with market places and church up behind (though partially destroyed by a fire in the 1850s and rebuilt with a tight Dobson grid of Victorian office blocks) .

dh

 

Edit

Eek!  

CA has swerved totally away from West Norfolk once again since I thought this might fit

 

This is very much on point, thank you, as it happens, as I was musing about what the Bishop's Lynn terminus of the GER-WNR Joint Cttee's Bishop's Lynn Tramway would be like.

 

For a guide to Bishop's Lynn, see Here

 

Tramway Terminus?

 

I always start with a mental picture, often derived from a real one. Thus it was with Castle Aching, and here I find myself thinking of Madderport and the Purfleet at King's Lynn. How to combine the two?

 

 

 

Now the Purfleet is the waterway running into the Ouse past the Custom House, as seen on RasR's helpful picture.

 

Here are some pictures to get us into the mood ....

 

 

 

There was even a Drill Hall along Purfleet quay .....

 

 

Thus, I can conceive of the passenger and goods tramway trains threading through streets lined with Hanseatic warehouses, almhouses, half-timbered merchants' residences, Victorian warehouses and Georgian houses.

 

 

 

 

Bishop's Lynn Docks & Railway Co. and the GER Bishop's Lynn Harbour Branch?

 

Parishioners will note from the Achipedia entry that a great expansion of the docks occurred, particularly from 1880, with links to a GER goods branch from King's Lynn as well as the Tramway.  Naturally I think here in terms of King's Lynn's docks.  These were constructed some way to the north of the Purfleet, so off to the left of RasR's picture.

 

I could fill these with Edwardian steam coasters (probably little, possibly dirty)

 

 

We might have Little Coffee Pots (as per this High Level kit) and a defrocked C53 (no need for skirts on the docks) fussing and chuffering around.

 

 

There was the Alexandra Dock ...

 

 

And the larger subsequent Bentinck Dock (a name we have just heard on the Regency Rails thread) ... 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by Edwardian

[uax6]

I'm not sure that Purfleet is the obvious terminus point if you are coming in via Austin Fields. For Purfleet to be an obvious terminus, it would be reached from along New Conduit Street, and therefore from the GE station. From Austin fields you could cut along past the Priory (or through it as railway builds often did!), along St Nicholas Street into Tuesday Market Place. From there you could either go up to a terminus on Page Stair lane, or cut along around Tuesday market place and along King Street to the Purfleet, but getting onto the Purfleet might be a bit tight!

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/120848789

 

My view would be that you would either use the dock branch to get to the 'new docks' (where most of the traffic would be) or you would just terminate at Austin Fields. If you pushed on towards Page Stair Lane, you could possible develop a small quay there, as there is a bit of room behind the Corn Exchange, and you would be able to get both sides of the inlet there.

 

Andy G

[Donw]

I am thinking you need another outbuilding to house the Bishops Lynn/ Kings Lynn. With your skill at buildings it would be a real treat. 

 

Don

[Edwardian]

5 minutes ago, uax6 said:

I'm not sure that Purfleet is the obvious terminus point if you are coming in via Austin Fields. For Purfleet to be an obvious terminus, it would be reached from along New Conduit Street, and therefore from the GE station. From Austin fields you could cut along past the Priory (or through it as railway builds often did!), along St Nicholas Street into Tuesday Market Place. From there you could either go up to a terminus on Page Stair lane, or cut along around Tuesday market place and along King Street to the Purfleet, but getting onto the Purfleet might be a bit tight!

 

https://maps.nls.uk/view/120848789

 

My view would be that you would either use the dock branch to get to the 'new docks' (where most of the traffic would be) or you would just terminate at Austin Fields. If you pushed on towards Page Stair Lane, you could possible develop a small quay there, as there is a bit of room behind the Corn Exchange, and you would be able to get both sides of the inlet there.

 

Andy G

 

Thanks, Andy.

 

A long, rambling, thread, I know, but I think we are at cross purposes.  There is no intention to plonk a tramway on Purfleet Quay or anywhere in King's Lynn.  The terminus is at Bishop's Lynn, which naturally bears some resemblance to its southern neighbour. I commend This Explanation

 

Purfleet is Visual inspiration only. 

 

However, in plotting a course narrowly through the streets of the real King's Lynn, you illustrate perfectly the sort of line that would result from taking a tramway from the riverfront inland through a cramped mediaeval townscape!

[uax6]

Ah, I see. I think, well maybe I don't!

 

To some extend this merge of reality and fiction is quite difficult to visualise! Although I envisage that the same sort of narrow streets would exist in Bishop's Lynn as does in the real Lynn, so the problem of getting to the quays would still be the same. I suppose you could move Purfleet upwards towards the new docks and then my plotted route would be ideal, but of course I would expect a full model of it to be made, including St Nichs chapel!

 

Andy g

[ianathompson]

25 minutes ago, uax6 said:

you could cut along past the Priory (or through it as railway builds often did!), along St Nicholas Street into Tuesday Market Place.

 

You aren't cutting up either the Priory or St Nick's because I would have nowhere to sing!

 

Ian T

[St Enodoc]

46 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Thanks, Andy.

 

A long, rambling, thread, I know, but I think we are at cross purposes.  There is no intention to plonk a tramway on Purfleet Quay or anywhere in King's Lynn.  The terminus is at Bishop's Lynn, which naturally bears some resemblance to its southern neighbour. I commend This Explanation

 

Purfleet is Visual inspiration only. 

 

However, in plotting a course narrowly through the streets of the real King's Lynn, you illustrate perfectly the sort of line that would result from taking a tramway from the riverfront inland through a cramped mediaeval townscape!

Wherever it ends up, you deserve a pint in the China Clipper after that magnum opus.

[corneliuslundie]

Perhaps also a house or two owned by skippers who have admired Dutch buildings, as in Topsham, Devon.

I hadn't realised until now how much my map was folded.

Jonathan

[Hroth]

7 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

I hadn't realised until now how much my map was folded.

 

Its not just creases, now its entirely new virtual panels...

 

Looking at the pictures, you never think of coastal steamers sitting in mudberths to unload, thats a marvellous reference for a small harbour scene.

[Edwardian]

OK, to save on confusion, the arrangement of Bishop's Lynn is up for grabs.

 

The history books tell us that the parish lay along the east bank of the River Great Ouse between Wootton old creek to the south and the River Great Ach to the north.

 

The major expansion of the 1880s was to the north of the great Ache.

 

This, very, very, hurried and provisional, sketch shows how a compressed Lynn might have developed along such lines.

 

[uax6]

I hadn’t envisaged demolishing St Nicks, so you will still have somewhere to sing Ian.

 

That seems a sensible arrangement, although that flat crossing could lead to some interesting comments from the BoT....

 

Andy g

[Northroader]

It would need a nice, big, GER signalbox to control the crossing?

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Northroader said:

It would need a nice, big, GER signalbox to control the crossing?

 

Not that big!!!

 

[Northroader]

And here’s the crossing for it for 99p!  99p!!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-Hornby-O-gauge-2-radius-CA2-acute-angle-crossings/293192624684?hash=item4443a46a2c:g:N5sAAOSwWB1dWU3E

[ianathompson]

I cannot see any problems with the basic concept of establishing the town along the Wootton Creek.

If I am not mistaken this was a more important site than Lynn before the Norman Conquest which was one reason why the local castle (Castle Rising) was built alongside it.

At the time of the Conquest the site of what was to become Lynn was simply a marsh so establishing the town further north might have made more sense than what actually happened!

The town's name (the King's part is never used locally) is supposedly derived from the Celtic for a lake or pool (llyn).

 

I notice that you have a channel for the Ouse flowing almost due north.

You may or may not be aware that the Ouse flowed in a huge loop out towards the village of Clenchwarton at the start of the nineteenth century (as I recall from my teaching days).

A new channel was cut to increase the scour at Lynn as the port was silting up.

 

This gives you scope to tinker with the local drainage and generally alter the topography.

There was, of course, a Victorian proposal to dam The Wash and reclaim the land to create Victoria County, thereby doing this in reality.

The history of the area in real life is about as close to ideal for any modellers' "Just Supposing" scheme.

 

Ian T

 

 

[Edwardian]

4 minutes ago, ianathompson said:

I cannot see any problems with the basic concept of establishing the town along the Wootton Creek.

If I am not mistaken this was a more important site than Lynn before the Norman Conquest which was one reason why the local castle (Castle Rising) was built alongside it.

At the time of the Conquest the site of what was to become Lynn was simply a marsh so establishing the town further north might have made more sense than what actually happened!

The town's name (the King's part is never used locally) is supposedly derived from the Celtic for a lake or pool (llyn).

 

I notice that you have a channel for the Ouse flowing almost due north.

You may or may not be aware that the Ouse flowed in a huge loop out towards the village of Clenchwarton at the start of the nineteenth century (as I recall from my teaching days).

A new channel was cut to increase the scour at Lynn as the port was silting up.

 

This gives you scope to tinker with the local drainage and generally alter the topography.

There was, of course, a Victorian proposal to dam The Wash and reclaim the land to create Victoria County, thereby doing this in reality.

The history of the area in real life is about as close to ideal for any modellers' "Just Supposing" scheme.

 

Ian T

 

 

 

Yes, the fictitious Bishop's Lynn is to the north, and the Great Ouse is heading pretty straight for the Wash at that point.  South of the real Lynn, IIRC, it curves to the west, about where the Nar joins.

 

I like what you say about the site.  Looking at satellite images, it struck me that there was no particular reason why you couldn't have developed a port further to the north.  My fictitious geography requires a river to flow through the Achings, so we have a northerly cousin to the Nar in the form of the Great Ache.  That would seem to set the seal on area north of King's Lynn as the site for the alternative Bishop's Lynn.

 

I think the GER branch should be further to the east, outside the town.  It will still need to intersect the tram route, however.