I don't intend to keep their current uses (locksmith, hairdresser and jacket potatoes or at least, not ALL of their uses) but make them more appropriate for the main shops of the village. The major change will be that the central triple unit will almost certainly become a General Stores, newsagents and Post Office.

Work has barely started but below you can see the basic structure has been prepared from foamboard. This will be covered with appropriate materials - mainly embossed plastikard to achieve the desired finish.

One of the features would can make out in the photograph of the original is that all of the shop headboards are hung between ornate mouldings - corbels I think they are. The thought of making the requisite number (10 in all) of these delicate pieces was more than a little daunting. So, I made one master, and then, using a resin casting kit bought from Nigel Lawton (http://www.nigellawton009.com/VeeTipper.html) which I had never plucked up the courage to play with before, I made firstly the mould and then cast a dozen (just in case!) over the course of the day. There was a small imperfection in the upper arch of the master which I didn't spot and which is more noticeable in the castings. But, this will be easy to fix.

The Corbel master

Making the mould - the master in the mould pattern

The mould completed

Loadsa corbels!!

A few more days have passed and some work has been carried out on the shops. It was obvious that the hardest was going to be the end shop with its strange shaped roof, mixed brick, flint and render construction. So, as ever, I decided to do the hardest one first. And it has been hard - in fact it still is, but it is getting there. Below is a picture of the current stage. Since all of the upper floor windows were the of only two types in the entire parade these, like the corbels, had masters made and were then cast in resin. I also expect to have to use the same size in a pair of cottages planned for the layout so this was a real time saver.

You can just about make out where work has started on the interior as well, with the counter to the right and you can make out the underside of the staircase at the back of the shop. The flint effect uses crushed oyster shell initially clued on with PVA and then given a brush of grey stained watery polyfilla. It looks fair in the photograph and much better "in the flesh". At this stage it is awaiting completion of the stonework on the left end (not visible in the photograph) and much more interior detailing. It wil also need gutters, downpipes etc together with an electric power cable which goes right around the front end and back on the real thing. These, however, also link in with the small adjacent shop, so will have to wait until work is completed on that.

Well, as I have said elsewhere, I have filled all of my spare time over the last month making a building for a friend (see hurlstone.htm). This was only finished on 21st April and delivered just in time for the layout to make it to our exhibition on 25th April !

But, I had made some more progress since the photograph above before then and have applied a few more "bits" over the last few days. So - this is what we have so far:-

As you can see, considerable progress has been made. Externally we need largely guttering and downpipes together with some prototypical ivy! There will be a wall and hedge at the extreme right separating the shops from the church and on the left there will be some walling and then a passageway leading to an invisible village car park to the rear. We also have a telephone box and post box to install. The locksmith's shop on the left now has a fully detailed interior. The centre shop complex - a post office and general stores, has most of the internal racking etc made together with counter and the separate post office counter which can just about be made out through the right hand window. The shop on the right currently has no interior at all - in fact, if you went through the front door you would plummet about 4 (scale) feet down into a great gaping cavity!

Your inability to read the shop nameplates is just down to a slight lack of focus together with JPG compression. I will try to get some more close up shots at some point.