Rails to Black Rock

It just goes to show why research is important. Having remeasured using more recent research the resulting model (the one on the left) is significantly smaller than the one I started two years ago!

There are many oddities within this row of cottages, it wasn't until today that I realised that the chimney breast is off centre and that the eves are a different height on each side. Only little differences, but they make a big difference to capturing the overall character. These are the joys of modelling vernacular architecture from a specific location My aim is for the buildings and landscape to be as accurate as possible with only the railway being conjecture.

Once I have added strengthening to the inside of the walls I will coat the model in PVA and add a thin layer of Das air drying clay. This will be sanded and then marked out using photos,  before carving the stone courses with a rat tailed file. The left hand cottages have walls with more mortar than stone, these will not be scribed but painted in the way described in the Pendon modelling cottages book.

The newly found picture at the top of the page showed that the tall thin window was one of a pair and an original feature. I had assumed it had been added more recently. I imagine it is where a stair case links the tree floors. To the right of the tall window there is now a full height extension but this was added after 1937, there was a lower extension before this date. The 1937 Francis Frith photo I am using shows this structure as having a flat roof but it is not clear how it was built. It looks like rendered stone and this is how I am going to model it. It looks like the full height extension was made by building directly on top of the lower extension, I wonder what the building regs were like in those days?