Friday 19 June 2015

Medieval Guildhall - Thaxted

This one proved to be a total headache..not only the fact it has Jetties on three sides  but the open area underneath and the shape of the Roof!! Adding the tiles/shingles was "fun".
As ever..the planning stage.
It started well but as it went on the positioning of the uprights on the top two floors had to be changed three times and trying to space the large Posts for the open area took half a dozen attempts.
Worse came when putting the finished walls together......First, some idiot had forgotton about the jetties  between the bottom and second floors for the side walls. Luckily it´s not the whole length of each side so a Piece could be added.
Then due to the small supporting area of the ground floor, the upper floor sagged towards the front,  similar to a concertina,  which meant adding extra bracing pieces inside.
Then..as the Roof was being added it caused the front and back walls to bow inwards which meant adding even more internal bracing pieces.

Underneath.
I´ve left out a couple of crossbeams and (it can just be seen in some pics on the web but not 100% clearly) the "kingspost" , which should roughly be (in this model) near the middle but it took up space and wasn´t necessary so got left out.
What next?. A break from houses...maybe?
Or...Stokesay Castle gatehouse or Bayleaf farmstead ? Or a freestyle made up building?

7 comments:

  1. Thaxted, home to British composer Gustav Holst. The town also lends its name to a hymntune, based on the Jupiter movement of Holst's Planets suite.

    Loving the scratchbuilt buildings, Paul! Impressive modeling skills as always.

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  2. It looks terrific, Paul. Bravo. Like architects actually did in the Middle Ages, you were working by trial and error. Very authentic.

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  3. Looks a bugger to build!! I'd go for the Farmstead!

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    1. It was a bugger to build. The worst one yet. Since I built this one and thought about the farmhouse or gatehouse I´ve built a couple more, they just popped into view and sidetracked me but I´ve already made the plans for the other two.

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  4. This is fantastic work, loving the inclusion of your sketches as well and the way you've used real buildings. I have a particular soft spot for old timber framed buildings and have built a few in 28mm, takes me much longer than this though! I have a pile of photos of buildings I'd like to take a crack at someday. Tried 'Ye Olde Dolphin' pub from Derby a while back.

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    1. I saw your (from 2011?) buildings recently on a search for possible build candidates. The Dolphin Pub showed up in a General Picture search and after directly searching for it I found yours. TBH, your buildings inspired me to have a go at this lot, I´d been thinking about it for a while but didn´t have the heart somehow . The dolphin is on my to do list..but I might take the wooden framing onto the ground floor..although the White walls do look nice and it would make a Change from complete timber framed frontages. I´ve also got the Old Bell Hotel, Derby in my sights along with creating a village (so far it´s mainly been town houses) using 2 storey buildings like the The Mermaid Inn, Rye

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    2. Forgot to add..getting enough decent photos that cover all angles is a pain sometimes but Google street can be brilliant for "walk arounds" :-D

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