Glenthorne Hotel

One of the dangers of modelling narrow gauge is that there can be a tendency to make everything else smaller too. Some of the prototype locomotives can be so tiny that it seems impossible that some buildings can be that huge. A good reminder is how Princess sits in such an inconspicuous space in the Spooner bar at Porthmadoc!  The hotel project certainly addresses this. It is a very large model! It is a typical Edwardian 'mock Tudor' hotel, examples of which can be seen throughout the country. We had to model it in semi relief yet it still occupies a sub-baseboard 3ft X 1ft 6ins. It is mostly built in card sandwich and Wills brick and tile sheets. The bay windows are white metal castings from Langley and other details are from Scale Link. The fancy tables and chairs on the terrace are Langley etchings. Some of the tables are laid using Preiser crockery and cutlery. The Scale Link cars parked outside include the awesome 4.5 litre Meadows engined Low Chassis Invicta. The interior is detailed although we now realise that it was a complete waste of time!

The 5' baseboard on which the hotel stands has virtually no railway on it at all. Some modellers have suggested that this is rather sad. The main line shows for just 8" before disappearing under the hill, where a six road traverser is fitted. The line then loops to the back of the baseboard and reappears some 16' away on the other side of the viaduct. County Gate is a landscape with a railway in it, not the other way round!

Glenthorne Hotel

The bowling green is a tad under length but who's counting? The gardens took some time and include 230 lupines and a rose garden.

The mews; The Austin 7 belongs to the hotel manager

Terrace; the tables and chairs are Langley and the crockery and cutlery from Preiser

If we drove past this hotel, we would want to stay there!

The hotel can be seen here clearly dominating the left hand end of the model in this shot. A cassette loader can be seen beneath the hotel section. The cassette system was scrapped in favour of a much better engineered traverser. The scenery section above lifts off to give access. The backdrops are photographic with a curved corner.