Houses on the Hill South Lane Holmfirth in 4mm scale

This was the first set of buidings I built to fill the space behind my station, and to try and create a believable street scene.

I had read and been very impressed with Geoff Taylor's 'Houses on the Hill' article in issue 115 of the 'Model Railway Journal'. What Geoff described was exactly what I wanted to do, in that my layout was set 'somewhere' on the Lancs/Yorks border, and due to work and family commitments it was not possible to do my own survey for suitable buildings at the time. Therefore copying Geoff's work was a good way for me to practice the techniques before designing my own structures; I regarded it as my 'Apprentice Piece'.

Aiding this process, Geoff was commissioned to build a number of buildings based on Todmorden prototypes, which is the focus of my current layout, so this was all to the good.

The houses are based on a row that are located at the bottom of South Lane in Holmfirth. When Geoff originally surveyed them, they still had many authentic features, but the modern Google Streetview shows that much of the character has now been lost. The prototype houses follow the curve of the road (as did Geoff's original model) but I straightened them out, as they had to fill the gap between the station platform and the backscene. Mine are also only low-relief.

The decoration is exactly as Geoff described in it the original MRJ article, with the shell painted with Humbrol 94, and then the mortar courses 'flooded' with thinned white (34) before the weathering was added by a finger smearing and dabbing, or dry-brushing, on black (33) and chocolate (98). I should also mention that Geoff wrote a definitive book on all of this, and I would highly recommend his 'Creating Model Buildings in 4mm and 7mm' published by Wild Swan.

'Houses on the Hill' South Lane, Holmfirth. 4mm scale