Now for something completely different… My local model railway Society, the High Wycombe and District MRS are currently building a new 00 gauge layout of West Wycombe station and its goods yard during the final years of steam haulage on the Great Western & Great Central (GW/GC) Joint line, 1955-66, when express trains from Marylebone and Paddington to Birmingham, Birkenhead, Manchester and Sheffield, outer London suburban services and a wide range of freight movements were reflected in a very busy 24-hour railway.
On my workbench are currently a number of the key featured buildings namely the main station Down building, the Up waiting shelter and the prominent front of stage Friend in Hand pub.
The station buildings, are predominantly Great Western in design but with a subtle Great Central influence (the signal box is pure GW), so I won’t go into too much detail on those here. The Friend in Hand pub, however, has a lot of character, history and architectural interest so I thought I would include my efforts to recreated the building in 4mm scale here.
The pub and adjacent stable block and small yard was built circa 1845 before the original West Wycombe station opened on the GW broad gauge line from High Wycombe to Aylesbury and Oxford that was opened alongside.
The line and station was rebuilt as part of the GW/GC joint line in 1905 between Northolt (in north west London) and Ashendon Junction (west of Aylesbury) and gave the GCR a better route than previously for its London Extension from Nottingham and Leicester. When the GWR completed its “Bicester Cut-off”, combined with the Joint Line itself the GWR had a much shorter and better route for its Birmingham and Birkenhead traffic.
The pub became owned by the GW and leased to local breweries: Lucas Frogmore Brewery pub by 1872, Wheeler’s Wycombe Brewery from 1898, then Simonds of Reading and Courage. Still owned by British Railways it was it was sold to Courage in 1987.
The pub could be accessed by both the front door at road level and the first floor rear door at station forecourt level via the stairs. The ground floor had a public bar to the left, a saloon bar to the right with a a counter for ‘off sales’ sandwiched between alongside the stairs. At the rear was the bars, ladies toilet and also the cellars, part of which extended under the upper driveway at the side and rear. The kitchen was at the right hand end along with access to the small yard and the stable block that had become the gents toilet (until the 1980s) and storage.
To the left at the top of the upstairs was a function room with a small room by the rear entrance, (rumoured to have possibly at one stage been a booking office) that post mid 1980 became the Gents toilet). To the right was the landlords living quarters with a small office, lounge and bedrooms and later a small kitchen / utility area.
The pub remained open until 1998, with one landlord amassing and displaying a large collection of local railwayana, before plans for conversion to flats resulted in the original buildings being demolished and rebuilt but having to retain the ‘look’ of the original buildings.
As you can see from the pictures left my model is trying to represent its 1955-66 condition and follows my usual methods of construction using plastic sheet and Wills building sheets that I have described before on these pages with my various buildings such as the my recent Westhill Road station building that can be read here…
I have used a modular construction with the main pub building, roof and two internal sections, the stable block, its roof rand its front wall being separate modules to aid detailing and painting and these will be permanently fixed together when the buildings are eventually bedded into the layout. Other details such as further gutting, downpipes and signage are also still be to be created and applied.
The building will be finally assembled and all parts fixed into place once the base scenery ground form and cover is completed on the layout, a start on this has been made using insulation foamboard as the basis and trial fitting of the pub in its eventual setting taken place, with some further adjustments to the complex sloping levels as per the prototype are still to be finished but is starting to look the part.
All in all a fascinating building(s) both in shape, style and history that has been a bit of a challenge, albeit enjoyable to research, helped by the “Wycombe now and then” Facebook group (proving that social media can sometimes be very positive), as well as to build. I still have a few things to do including painting and texturing the main outer wall render which I will do by my method stipple painted with the almost dry brush also dipped in talcum powder to give both some surface texture and ensure a very matt finish (as adding talcum powder to any paint will create a matt finish), as I did on my Westhill Road station building here.
If you are in the High Wycombe or surrounding areas and either fancy visiting or interesting in joining the High Wycombe and District MRS and getting involved in any of its projects such as West Wycombe at our clubrooms please do get in touch. The Society is also very proud of its thriving Junior modellers section, and welcomes new young modellers aged 12 to 18 (accompanied by a parent or guardian), proving the hobby is alive and well somewhat bucking the perceived view of some that it only an aging hobby!
Modelling Tips & Techniques
To view an index of modelling techniques, most of which can be found in my Workbench Witterings, Talking Stock, and A View From the Line posts please see my Modelling Tips and Techniques topics page here.