Red's Unsound Buildings - Designing Kelsby

[Annie]

Don't start me off with hunting out my old wargaming figures and taking pictures of them  

[Edwardian]

Don't start me off with hunting out my old wargaming figures and taking pictures of them  

[RedGemAlchemist]

Only if I can post this!

In that case, a small selection of mine. (Mainly because my Warhammer 40k collection is massive and I find it difficult to display it all at once anywhere except on the kitchen floor.)

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[RedGemAlchemist]

Assistance from an unexpected source. My dad, who is an artist, created this sketch which he's let me recreate on the KLR as a set-piece at Hewe.

This has the potential to look beautiful and add some nice character to the section of the river that runs under the bridge on the run-up to the station. Thanks, Dad

[Annie]

 

Don't start me off with hunting out my old wargaming figures and taking pictures of them  

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

Just been reading this thread. Wow. KNP has kind of done exactly what I want to do and just... captured that perfect rural atmosphere, albeit with the West Country rather than East Anglia. So much inspiration. Appears to pretty much be the West Country equivalent of Castle Aching, but older and thus more complete.

Don't worry, fellow members of the Castle Aching Parish Council, I am not defecting. I'm only taking inspiration from the visuals.

Edited May 18, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[RedGemAlchemist]

For those expecting more track plan concepts on here, sorry to disappoint but the building and planning of the actual KLR permanent way and the layout proper has it's own thread now! Link in the sig or click here!

 

Sorry for the interruption, we now return to your regularly scheduled programming of... me making kits of buildings. Wow, that sounds kind of boring when I put it like that.

[RedGemAlchemist]

A quick note: I will be on holiday in Corfu from tomorrow to next Tuesday so I will be unable to answer any of your responses. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[RedGemAlchemist]

While I was clearing out the shed the KLR is to be constructed in today, I found this little blast from the past.

This old Rovex signal box came from the old model railway my Dad had when I was little (the same one Bulldog originated from). I have no idea what to do with it now. To be honest I had no idea I still had it. It doesn't really fit the style I'm going for for the KLR. It's also not very well made. My Dad is many things, but good at kitbuilding he is not. 

[RedGemAlchemist]

Having decided what I'm going to do with the signal box I've painted it up now to match the Kelsby one. 

It will on the finished KLR layout sit at the entrance of Alnerwick Quarry.

[RedGemAlchemist]

Well, I accidentally damaged the Wrenn van I got with my last lot of track while trying to fit hook-and-loop couplings to it, so I decided to do something else with it.

The body of an old goods van sits in the forecourt of Kelsby station. While some may think it's just there because that was where it was left, it does serve a purpose. Since around 1955, this van has served as a small storage building for the station. If one were to enter it... they'd find some spare headlamps and coal shovels as well as a large selection of the groundskeeper's gardening tools.

[Corbs]

You did a good job on that signal box, looks fresh!

[RedGemAlchemist]

Right, since it's technically scenery research and I've been wanting to do this ever since I went around Great Ellingham, here's a little look down the road from my house to Rocklands, the clump of parishes fused into a village where I grew up. 

 

We begin with a view across the fields outside my house because why not? I live in a very pretty area. And thus I head over to the crossroads at the end of my road...

 

...and my first point of interest. This is the White House (actual name Corner Cottage) and this is the former home of my paternal grandmother. It has an interesting story about it too - apparently a girl drowned in the (now bricked over) well at the back of the house and her ghost haunts the house, the garden, and the road just outside. I'm pretty sure my nan and dad made that story up, and I'm not a believer in the paranormal but... things HAPPENED in that house when I was a kid that I genuinely can't explain. Other than that it's a pretty standard old cottage, rather unremarkable for the area aside from the story.

 

 

Across the crossroads and up the hill is a well known landmark - one I can see from my house. This is the ruined church of Rockland St. Andrew's, which actually the little clump of houses I live in and several of the houses around here used to be a part of before it was split and absorbed into Great Ellingham (on my side of the crossroads) and Rockland All Saints (on the other). The church fell into disuse for reasons we'll get to shortly and was then destroyed by a catastrophic fire caused by lightning - hardly surprising. The tower, even as a ruin, is very tall, and stands on top of a prominent and very steep hill alongside - 

 

- the reason for its disuse. About 400m down the road, atop the same hill, equally visable for miles around (partly helped by the fact that there are no other buildings on the hill), is the still in use and far more complete church of the aforementioned Rockland All Saints.

 

All Saints is a very pretty church, if a bit... plain? For the most part. The old Victorian outbuilding sat in the grounds is nice (although I'm certainly not going inside - it's now a chapel of rest) but overall it's a bit ordinary.

 

Although, the gates are cool. 

 

Very nice wrought iron metalwork with stone pillars reading "Salvation" and "Praise". A nice touch, whoever built the place. Interested, though, to see how the church looks on the other - 

 

- OH.

I had genuinely never seen the back side of the church before I went here to take these photos as you cannot see it from anywhere due to the thick foliage. What I met was bleak to the point of being genuinely startling. There is literally NOTHING back here except for a small, crumbling wooden door which I obviously didn't attempt to enter because as much as I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination I do at least respect sacred sites and not enter them when not allowed or invited. No windows, no ornate architecture, NOTHING. Just a totally blank flint wall. I genuinely have no words. 

 

Back on the road, we head to...

The bit I'd been dreading. This is Church Hill, known for being extremely steep. Past that point on the photo that looks like the road just... ends, you're looking at a roughly 50° angle straight down. Walking down it I nearly fell over three times. 

 

This little bit is irrelevant, I just wanted to mention it as it's perfect location for a substation. It is near enough invisible except for this angle, despite being at the foot of an extremely steep hill and right on a very sharp corner that almost entirely surrounds it. Props to you, whoever put this here.

 

 

And then here is the edge of Rockland All Saints. The small clump of buildings is very important to me, so allow me to run along:


Welcome to Rectory Road. This patch of grass in a cul-de-sac is where I used to play cricket with my friends, where I used to stomp around the pavement in muddy puddles, where my dad, my brothers and I used to fire water rockets from.


This hill is where I learnt to ride a bike, where my older brother shoved me in a go-kart down and I crashed into the ditch at the bottom. And a little further along on the left...

 

The house I lived in between late 1993 and mid 2000. My older brother and I grew up here. My younger brother was born here. My older brother and I used to build cardboard forts in the front garden, race ride-on tractors down the path in the back garden. My dad kicked a football through next door's window. My parents built my first train set on the table in my brother's room. Christmas dinner with my grandparents and my great-grandad in the front room, with great-grandad reading me and my brothers The Railway Series in the evening from the old armchair in front of the fireplace. Such good memories of my childhood.

Sorry, I'm getting introspective. Let's move along.

 

Rocklands All Saints is what I consider the quintessential Norfolk village. Small, close community, quirky, cheerful and quiet. 

 

But this is the real world, and so bad stuff does still happen. This house, known just as The Pink House, I wanted to point out as it was the home of my former headteacher. But while I was planning this excursion, it burnt down. This is what's left.
Oh, and the classic red phonebox? Still works. Still an operating public phonebox, and one of two still in use in the village.

 

Directly across the road is Rocklands Primary School, which is where I went to school as a kid. Pretty Victorian schoolhouse when I went, but since I've left... all this STUFF has been added on. I don't have many good memories of my time at school so let's move on.

 

Little further on and here's the White Hart, the village pub. Very nice wooden beam building, don't know how old it is. This was crumbling and abandoned until a few years ago, then it was bought by new owners and renovated into a really nice little pub. I'm teetotal but they do make nice food.
Oh, and Will Kemp stopped here during his famous 1599 stunt of Morris dancing from London to Norwich (or at some potential predecessor of the pub: I have no idea how long the current White Hart building has been here but it was definitely a pub on this spot even if the exact sequence of events is a bit blurry), so there is something interesting about it.


And across the road is the village shop. Not much to say here, though the owners have always had the EU flag flying out front for years, even well before Br*x*t, and I don't know why. Stop here for some nice homemade bread and cakes and such. Also if you need a post office.

 

And here's the village hall... it was built in the 40s so it's boring other than the fact we used to do our school plays here. 

 

Across the road is the cricket ground... yep. It's a small country playing field that happens to also be a cricket pitch. Moving on.

 

 

And so we move along the road to a building I talked about in the second ever post on this thread, and one of my favourite places in the world - the church of Rockland St. Peter's. This church is my image of a perfect Norfolk church. Round tower, thatched roof, flint, later tower top, not quite perfect (see the first picture - that's not the angle, the tower is not only not square to the nave but also leaning slightly towards the churchyard) but pretty and "cute". When I was at the school we used to hold our Christmas nativity plays here. It's nice and quiet here - mostly, the main road between Attleborough and Thetford cuts off the churchyard about 200m behind where the second photo was taken - and I sometimes come down here to sit and get away from things.

 

On the way down from St. Peter's to our final stop, here's the village's duckpond. No reason other than I like it here. There's also the second red phonebox, which is also still in use. However this one isn't a phonebox anymore per se - it's a small library.

 

And finally - village sign at the edge of St. Peter's village. All three churches standing proud on the sign, along with fields and a woman in white which my dad always told me was the well girl but really I have no idea. I decided I wasn't going into St. Peter's proper because I'd just walked about three and a half miles in a massive circle. 

And so, back towards the playing field, up the lane next to it - then I found a footpath I didn't know about that I thought might be a shortcut. It was, sort of - it dumped me back at the foot of Church Hill, meaning I now had to climb up the steepest part, which I'd walked down earlier. FFFFFFFFFFFFFF - 

And that's a little walk around Rocklands - most of it, anyway - and some much needed research of the atmosphere of a Norfolk village by visiting the places of my childhood. Hope you enjoyed it, and if you have any comments feel free.

Edited July 10, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[Northroader]

Really enjoyed that tour, thanks for that.

[Annie]

Thanks very much for the tour Red.  I really enjoyed it too  

[RedGemAlchemist]

Thanks for all the kind remarks. I know that a guided tour of the village I spent my childhood in is very unusual for this forum but I just wanted to share some of my inspiration with you guys. 
Anyway, speaking of inspiration I've been doing some thinking. As much as I love the little station building I've made for Kelsby I feel... I feel I can do something better. Something more unique, something more... more Norfolk. 

Enter one of my favourite station buildings (or rather former station buildings) - a place so cute, quaint, and stereotypically Norfolk-country-branchline fodder I just have to try something similar.

I think I've mentioned Wretham station on here before. I think the building is quite sweet and always have done, so I've been thinking of having something more like this for Kelsby's station building. I will still use the building I've made, but I'm probably going bigger with Kelsby. Maybe even try and scratchbuild one. 

[russ p]

Just found this interesting thread.

I'm also modelling Norfolk and have done a church and couple of cottages in flint, really should do some more

If you look back in my layout thread there are some pictures of them.

My layout is currently being rebuilt and most building are currently stored

[RedGemAlchemist]

Just found this interesting thread.

I'm also modelling Norfolk and have done a church and couple of cottages in flint, really should do some more

If you look back in my layout thread there are some pictures of them.

My layout is currently being rebuilt and most building are currently stored

 

Hello! Always nice to see another Norfolkman! Norfolk based freelance is incredibly niche (pretty much just me and my inspiration/sometimes mentor Edwardian) so it always surprises me to see how much traction I seem to be getting on this and my other threads. Will definitely take a look, mate. Thanks, and welcome aboard

[russ p]

Not a Norfolkman I'm afraid though my family does originate from here I'm a Yorkshireman though been down here over twenty years now

[RedGemAlchemist]

Not a Norfolkman I'm afraid though my family does originate from here I'm a Yorkshireman though been down here over twenty years now

 

That's fine. I'm not pure-blooded Norfolk either. My Mum's family are Irish though Mum was born here. All the Norfolk comes from my Dad's side.

Edited July 10, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[RedGemAlchemist]

Ta da! From the depths of the shed, something I forgot I had!

My 18th birthday present! A Days Gone Trackside tinplate warehouse and wrecker truck, one of only 3100 sets ever made!

 

Also this is my 1000th RMWeb post!

Edited July 28, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[Sandhole]

Having decided what I'm going to do with the signal box I've painted it up now to match the Kelsby one. 

Rovex box repainted.jpg

It will on the finished KLR layout sit at the entrance of Alnerwick Quarry.

Nice job with the box.

A piece of your model railway history!

Something I am quite passionate about!!!

Love the shots of your area!

The buildings are fascinating, especially the churches.

Everybody had a grounded Iron Mink!! They never ever rotted!1

                                                          Chris.

[Annie]

Congrats on post No. 1000.  I think your 18th birthday present is considered to be a highly collectible item now; - especially when in fine condition as your one is.

[RedGemAlchemist]

Congrats on post No. 1000. I think your 18th birthday present is considered to be a highly collectible item now; - especially when in fine condition as your one is.

I know. To think I've had it seven years and forgot about it until now. It's been in the shed all this time!

[RedGemAlchemist]

(Cross Post with the rest of my threads)

 

Sorry for the radio silence but I have been dealing with a lot of real life issues of late. But that doesn't mean I've been neglecting the KLR.

 

One brake van, scratch built on Triang chassis, and some building kits, as well as a Volvo 544 for Jacob Bradleigh's car as he loves classic cars. Stay tuned...

Edited August 7, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist