Bath Queen Square

[queensquare]

1 hour ago, richbrummitt said:

You must be glad you did the roof properly! 

Indeed Richard. To be fair,  the old roof never leaked but with it’s pronounced sag that weight of snow would have certainly  put it to the test!

 

Jerry

[Steve Smith]

9 hours ago, queensquare said:

Hi Steve,

what you see in 2mm and what you see in 7mm are very different. The interior shots of your shed are fantastic but the exterior doesn’t look much like Bath - it’s just too small!😊

 

Jerry

...and tidy.  My mate lacked ambition and space, just as well really as it saved me worrying about the changes down the length of the d**n thing, not to mention those interesting stone bits at the end!    If only there was a scale between 7mm and 2mm that represented the best of both worlds...! 

[queensquare]

3 hours ago, Steve Smith said:

...and tidy.  My mate lacked ambition and space, just as well really as it saved me worrying about the changes down the length of the d**n thing, not to mention those interesting stone bits at the end!    If only there was a scale between 7mm and 2mm that represented the best of both worlds...! 

Indeed Steve, the shed was pretty tatty by the end, the crop below from a 1963 picture shows plenty of additional ventilation! For my 1920s period it was grubby but in pretty reasonable repair!

 

As for size. In 7mm scale  it wouldn’t be far off 6’ long so perfectly understandable  that your mate went with something a bit smaller - yet another good reason to choose 2mm😊

Jerry

 

[Steve Smith]

A crop of the shed roof in 1966, with some Bath tenements behind. 

If we think the front looked rough....!

 

[queensquare]

55 minutes ago, Steve Smith said:

A crop of the shed roof in 1966, with some Bath tenements behind. 

If we think the front looked rough....!

 

Thanks Steve. That seemingly random assortment of vents, clerestories and skylights was constantly changing thanks to extensions, modifications and bits falling off! The odds of my finding out exactly what it was like in the mid 1920s are slim to nil  but I will need to try and capture that busy, ramshackle feel.

 

Jerry

[Steve Smith]

1 hour ago, queensquare said:

Thanks Steve. That seemingly random assortment of vents, clerestories and skylights was constantly changing thanks to extensions, modifications and bits falling off! The odds of my finding out exactly what it was like in the mid 1920s are slim to nil  but I will need to try and capture that busy, ramshackle feel.

 

Jerry

Someone was asked why it hadn't caught fire, and the answer was that it had several times, but they'd always managed to put them out.  It's very likely that we're also seeing fire damage, and the resulting repairs. 

Steve

[queensquare]

17 minutes ago, Steve Smith said:

Someone was asked why it hadn't caught fire, and the answer was that it had several times, but they'd always managed to put them out.  It's very likely that we're also seeing fire damage, and the resulting repairs. 

Steve

Agreed, a Bath fireman told me a similar story about it regularly catching fire - at least they were close to the river!

There is also the story, I think Johnny Walker in one of the Peter Smith/Donald Beale books, of a loco not being properly secured and  going through the rear of the shed. How it lasted till the end is a minor miracle!

 

Jerry.

[queensquare]

I put the interior framing in this evening, well as much as I’m going to anyway.

The shed is at the back of the layout, at a slightly lower level with the previously described coal stage and sand furnace acting as effective view blockers so very little of this is likely to be visible under normal circumstances though being able to catch a glimpse of that forest of timbers inside the entrance on the odd occasion I poke a phone camera in there to take a snap will be satisfying.

The cardboard troughs to the right of the shed are the inspection pits - crude but effective. I’ve only added steps at the door end, the rest will be lost in the gloom.

 

Jerry

[DLT]

22 hours ago, queensquare said:

Thanks Steve. That seemingly random assortment of vents, clerestories and skylights was constantly changing thanks to extensions, modifications and bits falling off! The odds of my finding out exactly what it was like in the mid 1920s are slim to nil  but I will need to try and capture that busy, ramshackle feel.

 

Jerry

Nobody will ever be able to tell you you've got it wrong.

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, DLT said:

Nobody will ever be able to tell you you've got it wrong.

 

Unless the fact is advertised on an internet forum!

 

On 09/03/2023 at 09:43, Steve Smith said:

Bath tenements

 

Surely Bath has rows of elegant Georgian town houses - nothing as infra dig as tenements!

[Caley Jim]

40 minutes ago, DLT said:

Nobody will ever be able to tell you you've got it wrong.

There's a simple two word answer to that - 'prove it'! 😁 

 

Jim 

[Doncaster Green]

54 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Surely Bath has rows of elegant Georgian town houses - nothing as infra dig as tenements!

Having worked in an office that overlooked the back of some of these 'elegant Georgian town houses', I can honestly say 'tenements' is an apt description!  'More front than Brighton' is the phrase that springs to mind!

 

John

[queensquare]

1 hour ago, DLT said:

Nobody will ever be able to tell you you've got it wrong.

 

Theres always somebody Dave!

 

51 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

There's a simple two word answer to that - 'prove it'! 😁 

 

Jim 

 

Thats not the two words I was thinking of Jim 🤨

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Surely Bath has rows of elegant Georgian town houses - nothing as infra dig as tenements!

 

Its a relative thing Stephen! Those who lived up the hill a bit from Green Park, in Queen Square for example probably saw addresses by the river as tenements - almost certainly why the Midland and LMS wanted to be more associated with the latter address when they arrived in Bath in the late 1860s.

 

22 minutes ago, Doncaster Green said:

Having worked in an office that overlooked the back of some of these 'elegant Georgian town houses', I can honestly say 'tenements' is an apt description!  'More front than Brighton' is the phrase that springs to mind!

 

John

 

Some would say thats Bath all over John!

 

Jerry

[queensquare]

Made a start on what Steve called the ‘interesting stone bits at the end’ this evening - more guesstimating as I have very little to go on. 
 

Jerry

 

[bécasse]

A chimney stack that size, particularly in an "industrial" building, is most likely to be in brick, even though the building itself is in stone, because it is considerably easier to build it in brick, and it would be more stable.

[queensquare]

As Steve rightly said, it’s the roof in our models that is most visible so I have started giving that some thought. In my 1920s period things were a lot tidier than in the 1960s but still far from straightforward. Much of this stems from the fact that the shed was altered and extended so much in its early years, starting as a much shorter two road shed, subsequently lengthened, a new shorter shed erected alongside making it an unequal four road shed which was then lengthened to arrive at the great barn of a building we are familiar with.

 

 

Upper picture is 1947, note all the white paint to aid movement during the blackout. Lower picture, 1920, pretty much how I want to model the shed scene. I’d love some more info on the transshipment shed on the far right - I just about have room for it!

 

The clerestory on the south building looks to be uniform all the way along and fairly narrow fitting comfortably within the chimney vents. That on the north is in two distinct halves; the front being similar to the south building, the rear being much wider and wrapping around the chimney vents.

 

The ends of the clerestorys look to have been hipped although they were altered/rebuilt over time. By the 60s pretty much all the wooden chimney vents had gone being replaced by a selection of hatches.

 

early 1920s, hipped end

immediately post war, squared end

 

The south  roof was slate with no skylights, the north had full length skylights. 

1935, testing the new turntable. As well as being a good view of the roof/vents, this also clearly shows the two tone paint scheme of the shed. I’m still debating whether I replicate this in a very grubby, faded form or go with the grey/brown/sooty colour it was in later years. It’s another case of what is right doesn’t necessarily look right.

Apologies for this wordy post but it’s as much for my own benefit to gather my thoughts, having spent hours staring at old photos, as it is for anyone interested in my progress. I’m now pretty clear on what I want to include on the roof, just need to work out how!

 

Jerry

 

 

[queensquare]

2 hours ago, bécasse said:

A chimney stack that size, particularly in an "industrial" building, is most likely to be in brick, even though the building itself is in stone, because it is considerably easier to build it in brick, and it would be more stable.

Photos, few as they are, show it to be stone.

 

Jerry

[bécasse]

4 hours ago, queensquare said:

Photos, few as they are, show it to be stone.

Interesting, almost surprising. I have to say that I am glad it is you and not me that is having to pore over those photos trying to interpret what they show, I have done my fair share of it in the past. The photos of the shed certainly suggest that you are making a good job of the task.

[Steve Smith]

Those photos show that the east end of the north shed had a large clerestory which included the chimney vents that was a doppleganger for the one on the Midland shed - I hadn't realised that.  That large clerestory is still visible in my 'tenement' crop from 1966.   

 

Steve

[queensquare]

14 hours ago, Steve Smith said:

Those photos show that the east end of the north shed had a large clerestory which included the chimney vents that was a doppleganger for the one on the Midland shed - I hadn't realised that.  That large clerestory is still visible in my 'tenement' crop from 1966.   

 

Steve

I'm not 100% certain but I believe that north east section of the shed was the original. The workshop which forms the third apex at the front of the north shed was the original coal stage. 
 

Jerry

[Steve Smith]

Courtesy of National Library of Scotland, this link to the OS 25" map from a survey 1882-3, published 1888 shows you to be correct!

https://maps.nls.uk/view/106019255

 

On that basis NE part first, then as it's quite different the SE part fairly soon after in a more 'economical' style.  I wonder what the signficance of pink (Midland Shed) vs grey (S&D Shed) was?  The obvious difference being masonry vs. timber construction, and I think that interpretation would work for the other buildings shown.

 

Steve

[Adam]

2 hours ago, Steve Smith said:

I wonder what the signficance of pink (Midland Shed) vs grey (S&D Shed) was?  The obvious difference being masonry vs. timber construction, and I think that interpretation would work for the other buildings shown.

 

Steve

 

I didn't know that was the answer, but it turns out that you're right (well, wood or iron, which accounts for the gasholder): https://maps.nls.uk/os/25inch-england-and-wales/info2.html#colouring.

 

Something to add next time I do a thing on using OS maps in historical research.

 

Adam

[queensquare]

2 hours ago, Steve Smith said:

Courtesy of National Library of Scotland, this link to the OS 25" map from a survey 1882-3, published 1888 shows you to be correct!

https://maps.nls.uk/view/106019255

 

On that basis NE part first, then as it's quite different the SE part fairly soon after in a more 'economical' style.  I wonder what the signficance of pink (Midland Shed) vs grey (S&D Shed) was?  The obvious difference being masonry vs. timber construction, and I think that interpretation would work for the other buildings shown.

 

Steve

 

Thanks for the link Steve, I'd not twigged the significance of the colour difference before either. Interesting to note that the turntable appears to have two additional radial stabling roads

 

jerry. 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, queensquare said:

Thanks for the link Steve, I'd not twigged the significance of the colour difference before either. Interesting to note that the turntable appears to have two additional radial stabling roads

 

I was looking at the 25" maps too and am equally grateful for the explanation of the colour coding. I hadn't previously cottoned on that the wagon road of the "new" coaling stage was reached by crossing the turntable!

[queensquare]

On 12/03/2023 at 16:18, Compound2632 said:

 

I was looking at the 25" maps too and am equally grateful for the explanation of the colour coding. I hadn't previously cottoned on that the wagon road of the "new" coaling stage was reached by crossing the turntable!

Hi Stephen, yes, having  to push wagons across the turntable probably wasn’t unique but certainly wasn’t common and is the reason I had to ensure that both ends  of my turntable lined up, both ways - they do, but it took a lot of fiddling!

 

Jerry