phil_sutters

On 11/01/2022 at 20:58, ChrisN said:

I think we all know really that the lower working class wore flat caps, and tradesmen, supervisors and that level wore bowler hats.  They also appear to have been adopted by the middle classes.  There are lots of pictures of engine drivers wearing bowlers, well at least after top hats went out and before the companies got strict about headgear.

Flat caps have not always been just worn by working class men. This photo, found in my Mother's family albums, shows a very middle class bunch of guys in Hereford in the early 1900s. I think one is one of my great uncles, but I have no idea what they were doing, with a couple of postmen in uniform and some with weapons in the group. Peaky Blinders comes to mind, although I have never watched the programme.

Another excellent model. I have been thinking about making the slightly larger two-horse version, which ran between Highbridge GWR station and Burnham around 1890, that I have seen in a book of old photographs of Burnham and Highbridge, using Scale Model Scenery wheels and wagon springs. That one has GWR on the panels on either side of the windows. The lamp is in front of the main cabin. Between the ribs on the side is what appears to be 'Highbridge Station via Burnham', which makes me think that this was on a changeable destination board, with perhaps 'Berrow (or Brean) via Burnham' on the back.

On the subject of drivers there are a number of military drivers that could be used, with a bit of fettling of pockets, puttees and headgear, from this one-man manufacturer - http://www.wdmodels.com/page3.html . That's the figures page. There is a separate page for horse-drawn vehicles. I like his horses. I am not sure whether the harnesses are suitable for civilian use but they look ok to me. His products are very detailed. He uses a mixture of white metal and resin - not in the same model as a rule. His motorcycles have even got tiny etched parts. I have a pack of these which I am plucking up courage put together. Edit March 2023 - regrettably this firm now seems to be out of business.

Another delightful scenario. Harking back to your previous blog entry, the only photo I can find of Grange Road is a rather odd one, taken from the window of the office I was then working from, at the west end of Grange Road. When London buses first went out to franchises, several franchisees did not have enough buses to service the routes they had won. so they hired extras in from far and wide. This was the furthest company I saw working in south London. http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/51038914

Although, as they are still around, I assume, I expect you have your own photos, these are some of Pages Walk, at the western end of the Bricklayers Arms depot site. I took them when I worked in the area. I also have some of Grange Walk which runs parallel to and to the north of Grange Road, if they would be of interest..

I suspect that this is one of the photos of this class that you have - but just in case you haven't....

6 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

According to the instructions (which I don't have with me right now), it was gold lining until 1911-ish then yellow. My 7mm coaches are lined in gold but I went with yellow on these as I wanted to be able to run them in combination with post-grouping stock.

So I might have been using the old scheme. My collection of S&D stock is rather flexible in its era. In my youf I wasn't too fixated on the dates liveries came and went and this will carry over into my Highbridge Wharf diorama when I actually lay some track etc.! Yellow certainly would have been easier to paint with than Humbrol gold enamel, although now I have dragged it out of the garage, it didn't turn out too bad with its hand painted lettering. I couldn't do it now!

The roof details in the photo of no.20 in Colin Maggs' Highbridge in its Heyday, show a gas lamp top centrally on the centre line of each passenger compartment, with a smaller cylindrical fitting on the centre line just to one side - which side depends on which side you are looking from. When I cut and shut mine, from Triang clerestories, back in about 1970 I made two errors - I put ventilators instead of gas light tops and lined the beading in gold not yellow. I was working from much more limited information at the time. I consciously didn't change the GWR grab handles for the SDJR elongated 'S' ones, as I thought I would mess the mouldings too much.

Highbridge Wharf tolls include manure at 1/6d per ton or part of a ton. This is a recreation of the board displayed on the wharf.

Having the output from London's huge manual work force in Victorian times helps to explain why there were dozens of stinking tanneries very close to the centre of the city, between London Bridge station and the Bricklayers Arms goods depot. If you look at the 1879 layer of the Southwark mapping service you will see them all over the place, but especially in that area. https://geo.southwark.gov.uk/connect/analyst/mobile/#/main . (Find 1879 in the 'Base Map' menu at the top right.) It was the centre of the country's leather trade, with the London Leather, Hide & Wool Exchange at its heart. The sculptures show the workers, but not the source of the materials! The 1896 OS map layer does show the public houses, as PH, and there were a fair few of them in the area too. Tanner Street remains as a reminder of the industry, running under London Bridge station's approaches.

6 hours ago, Regularity said:

My father tells me that when a horse and cart went down the street, kids would be sent out with a bucket and shovel to collect the dung, for use of the allotment.

Living in Ripon around 1950 our milkman had a horse drawn milk float. My mother was always darting out, with the coal shovel, after a delivery, to get the droppings for our garden.

Across the sea in Bruges they have a solution to fouled streets.

Some railways, the Midland was one I think, who had manure wagons specifically made, for transferring dung from cities to the countryside.

I am always amazed how clean and tidy model cattle docks look. I am sure that there were employees whose jobs included cleaning out the cow pats and other droppings, but I would doubt that every trace was shovelled away and the paving and fence posts hosed down and returned to the pristine as-built appearance seen in many layouts.

The staining and traces of fibrous matter seen in Mikkel's atmospheric (word chosen with care) depictions above would seem more likely. Given the disgusting state of many city streets, reported in public health documents well into the 20th century, it would be surprising if the railways didn't have at least some grimy corners.

It could well be faded, as on this Mklll. Dry brush with desert sand?

S&DJR's Johnson Avonside 0-4-4Ts had a total wheelbase of 22ft -  8ft - 8ft 6in - 5ft 6in.

On 11/03/2021 at 13:43, Mikkel said:

This discussion prompted me to have a look at the clothing shown in contemporary paintings. Of course, they are rather biased, aiming for that "wow" effect.

 

 

Abraham Solomon, 1854. Source: Getty Images (embedding permitted).

 

Abraham Solomon, 1855. Source: Getty images (embedding permitted).

 

William Powell Frith: "The railway station" (Paddington). 1862. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Large version here.

 

Some photos from my family albums - doubtless dressed up for the photographer. They date from the 1860s, with some later ones. There are other albums in the folder with photos from the first half of the 20th Century. http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/1276568

Hobbies website furniture section is at https://www.hobbies.co.uk/dolls-houses

I don't know what dolls house furniture retailers you have there. There are two that have been around in the UK for decades with similar names - Hobbies and Hobby's. While I am no suggesting that they have anything you could use in 4mm scale their catalogues might give you ideas. Our dining table was a circular mahogany one about 4'6" across with a central pedestal. The chairs were an assortment of dark wood types with upholstered seats. My mum had recovered them all in the same green fabric, so they looked OK together. We had a large mahogany sideboard - two cupboard pedestals with a three drawer top, with a small upstand at the back.

Our cookers were first a Rayburn and then an Aga - both solid fuel. Kitchen furniture was freestanding and again an assortment of secondhand tables and cupboards. The big white stoneware 'butlers' sinks, with wooden draining boards, would have been common between the wars, although I think we had progressed to a double sink unit base with steel sink etc.

I have photos of some of the furniture which I took at my parents' last, much smaller home, as we were sorting things out after they had both passed on. I don't want to put them on public view but would be happy to email them to you. My email address is philsutters@googlemail.com 

One rather odd suggestion is to look out for a cheap pocket chess set. The rounded pieces provide material for things like table lamps, vases, candle sticks, coffee table bases etc. all depending on the size of the pieces.

Best wishes

Phil

18 minutes ago, Simond said:

It’s extraordinary, they were claiming “Electric fires for health & comfort” way back...  

 

and whilst we had the clean air acts of the sixties, now we’re finally waking up to the pollution caused by domestic heating, gas and wood.

 

if only we’d known!

 

atb

Simon

Yes, but where did the electricity come from at that time - coal-fueled power stations in the main, although hydro-electric was increasing.

As a former inhabitant of two Vicarages, Coleford, Nr. Bath & Highbridge, where my Dad was Vicar, I thought I ought to offer some assistance with furnishing ideas. We lived in those two vicarages in the '50s - '70s. You mention 1928 so things were a bit earlier in style, though not much more. Vicars were not well paid and most of our furniture was large second-hand dark wood stuff. Vicarages tended to be quite large and hard to heat. Coleford was freezing in winter, sometimes literally so. We had solid fuel fires in some rooms and parafin stoves in others. The bathroom had a single bar electric fire on the wall.

I have acquired a copy of a fascinating booklet extolling the virtues of electricity in the home. 'The All Electric Home' by Michael Egan. I have scanned a few pages with illustrations that may be of interest. It isn't dated. It is clearly between the wars, so would be relevant to your 1928 vicarage.

On the modelling front I have used laser-cut ladders from Scale Model Scenery to make dining chairs and other odd bits of furniture. I then discovered that they make a set of dining chairs and table. They also make armchairs - for first class waiting rooms or signal boxes? -

Newhaven Harbour station in its glory days - http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/page_id__842.aspx - with the London & Paris Hotel.

In case you haven't spotted them there are photos of aggregate depots in Newhaven in this thread, that you may find interesting. They are both fairly small rail-served depots, with a mix of dredged shingle aggregates in both and quarried stone in the northern, Day's Aggregates one. The new East Quay depot has some different wedge shaped bin dividers.

The photos above and other GC and LNER photos can be seen in my album - 

869 is a bit more blurry, but there's a reason for that!

A photo of 968 looking nice and ex-works like your smart conversion!

4 hours ago, JRamsden said:

 

Hi Terry, thanks for your comments

 

There's definitely a similarity between some of these figures and, I suspect, it would be more noticeable with a larger sample size. That said, I picked the ones I did for the sake of visual variety. There's definitely a nice mix of body types in here and sometimes just changing the skin colour can help change up the identity. I don't find the fidelity to be high enough to tell individual facial features at this scale.

 

The figures you linked also look impressive; thanks for the tip. I think I may have some of the Monty's Models figures as one or two look suspiciously like the ones I got from Langley Models. I can't say I was all that impressed with some of them, although the ones featured on this website do look a step above in most cases.

 

Alas, I feel a lot of this comes down to the skill of the painter and I just haven't succeeded this time. I'll return to my work and see if I can get a more subtle colouration on these poor people!

 

Painting figures in small scales does take practice. You need to ensure that you use a very small brush 000 or 00. Use synthetic for acrylic and hair for enamels. Make sure that it is thoroughly cleaned after each colour. I personally would avoid black or dark washes. I would put on a layer of colour a bit darker than you want the end result to be and then dry brush the lighter colour you want over the top. Dry brushing means taking paint off your brush on a bit of card or kitchen roll and stroking the remaining paint across the raised areas leaving the darker colour in the recesses or folds. That again takes practice. Don't over emphasize the dark bits. Eyes are important although they are tiny specks. Don't use black. Dark brown or the occasional blue dots work in 4mm, with a thin eye brow above, matching the hair colour. You can't see the 'whites' at that scale. I am pleased to see that you keep your figures matt. The number of otherwise top class layouts spoilt by shiny figures is quite surprising.