Goldhanger is not finished yet. I started it years ago, but then got distracted by learning to design etches and doing more and more of these, and building Framsden.
The original concept sketch. There is quite a lot of thinking in the composition. The layout is very much seen as a painting, but one with at least two main themes (risky!): the village and station to the left and the bridge and river to the right. Note the way the large foreground trees break up the whole into the separate scenes. I like the rhythm of the trestles approaching the swing bridge and the contradiction of horizontals and verticals between the bridge and the trees and masts of the moored sailing barge (yet to be built). Unlike Framsden, my other layout, Goldhanger is a very 'high key' painting with lots of bright colours, added to with the double rainbow.
A general view of the eastern end of the layout looking down to the river - the first part to be worked up scenically. The bridge pier has since been painted and I must replace this photo (hopefully with one which has a better depth of field).
Layout and owner at an earlier stage. I bet you're glad I tidied the workshop!
A view straight across the landscape by the river. The barge coming down under top-sail and fore-sail alone (quite common on these river passages) is painted on the backscene and is maybe the reason for the other one being moored by the bridge waiting to go up (once I've built it). The sparkling wavelets on the river were achieved by using a poor quality piece of plywood and arranging for the raised section of grain to run at right angles to the direction of view, representing 'cats paws' as a gust of wind affects the river surface - careful lighting does the rest.
A small, but dramatic section of the backscene. I have since built the buffer-stop and must retake this photo.
This is a model of a 'Dutch' cottage. There are two of these on Canvey Island and one in nearby Rayleigh, though this isn't an exact model of any of them. Many Dutch people came to this part of the UK in the late '1700's to help with flood protection and land reclamation. My Dutch friend and fellow 2mm modeller, Henk Oversloot, says there are very few of these iconic structures left in Holland now.
The construction of this model is interesting. I started at the top and turned the chimney pot, chimney and thatched roof in wood on the lathe. Inside the living space there is a bolt with octagons of plywood held as floors and ceilings with nuts screwed on the bolt and the walls are fixed to the outside of these.
This is a model of 'Steeple Stores' in the village of ... Steeple. It is out on the Dengie Peninsular and nearly all of the older buildings in the village are made from wood, there being very little in the way of hard building materials available in the area when they were built. When I first went there it was a tiny shop and cafe, but now it is a private house.
The roof on the model is made from resin cast sheets made from my own master. It was very laborious to make but I can have any number of buildings using it now. An article of mine detailing this was in the Magazine of the 2mm Scale Association in autumn 2016.
These buildings will look better when I've put the curtains up and when they are built into the landscape. I have quite a few enamel signs and a shop name board to add to this one, too, which will make it sparkle.
There is a pair of cottages like this next to Steeple Stores - there are many like it in Essex - semi-detached, nearly square in plan, a single central chimney and a hipped roof. This is a model of one in Thundersley (splendidly named place !) in south Essex. When I was very little I thought it was strange that people would have their houses completely black and it is a real feature of Essex. I definitely wanted to include it on the model and the dark patch of colour echos the engineering bricks of the bridge pier.
The plain end wall will be parallel to, and just behind, the track. It will provide a nice counter-change for photographing lighter coloured items of rolling stock against.
A view down on the river board. I have since painted and ballasted the track, but still have to add details to the bridge. People ought to iron their backscenes, didn't they!