A Very British Terrace

[6milPhil]

I've been working on a few terraces for VBCW, but also for more modern games, because I hadn't really found something which; i: suited what I wanted to do, ii: were pretty cheap and iii: I like building stuff, especially as I'm relatively newly converted to using cork tiles (All Hail Matakishi).

This has been a pretty complex build for me, and it's not finished but I'm madly happy to have finished the basics, and have the bugger work as well as I had hoped. I've been taking photos of the build for a "DIY project" to share with you all when it's finished but I have dashed off some piccys just to share my joy at having got to such a point with it... unfortunately the photos are blurry but you'll get the idea.

So here's the basic model, six terraced houses back-to-back in two rows of three.


It has removable roofing to let you get into the bedroom.


But also has removable bedrooms so you can get to the parlour.


And you can do this with each and every house!  The one thing which became apparent to me was how many buildings with removable roofs gave away the game in showing the whole interior, whereas I wanted to be able to tuck minis into buildings and their presence not be known by an opponent wandering into an adjacent room. I first tried this idea with my compound but it's a bit more difficult with a terrace.

blah blah!

[carlos marighela]

Nice. You really should do a seperate row of back yards, with the obligatory outdoor loo. A few window boxes at the front would dress them up a treat too.

[Arlequín]

Backyards? Luxury! We used to dream of a backyard, all we had was a one up, one down blind back hovel.   

The outdoor loo was in the form of a row of outhouses at the end of each block for this type of housing. There was normally a communal wash house (room to wash clothes etc) for the residents to share too



They're looking good btw and thanks for reminding me of cork tiles... 

[Thunderchicken]

Very nice indeed! These are going to look good. Have you thought about what you'll use for the brickwork and roofing?

[6milPhil]

Nice. You really should do a seperate row of back yards, with the obligatory outdoor loo. A few window boxes at the front would dress them up a treat too.

These are back-to-backs as Jim Hale illustrated. The other two terraces I'm building will be two-up-two-downs and have backyards though. Window boxes are a nice idea but a bit posh perhaps...

Jim, thanks for the illumination on the vernacular architecture of the British outhouse, it hadn't occurred to me for a moment.

Have you thought about what you'll use for the brickwork and roofing?

Well the roofing will be tile texture plasticard, and I had considered paint with the odd bit of brick relief for the walls BUT having seen your rather excellent terraces on http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=23647.0;topicseen I'm wondering what you used as it's much better than what I was thinking, from your original build thread it looks like plasticard... am I right?

[Thunderchicken]

You got it, I use embossed plastic either from Antenociti's Workshop or Plastikard. If you do decide to use it go for 7mm (O scale). I use Flemish Bond pattern brickwork for mine.

Thanks for the compliment. 

Good luck with the build.

[Arlequín]

Jim, thanks for the illumination on the vernacular architecture of the British outhouse, it hadn't occurred to me for a moment.

Glad I could give you something to go on. 

[carlos marighela]

 

[6milPhil]

You got it, I use embossed plastic either from Antenociti's Workshop or Plastikard. If you do decide to use it go for 7mm (O scale). I use Flemish Bond pattern brickwork for mine.

Thanks for that, good timing as well as I'm yet to start putting the other two together and I think cladding would be best done before all the cutting... not looking forward to cladding this built one but hey ho if it'll have a similar outcome to yours it'll be worth it.

Glad I could give you something to go on. 

I hope such help isn't a flush in the pan... 

[carlos marighela]

Momentum is the key, far too easy to get bogged down on this sort of thing.

[Arlequín]

I await the finished product with great constipation... erm anticipation.  

I'm not sure about pebble-dash (no pun), I understand it was used mainly where low quality bricks were used in the construction. I know it was in use in some areas, certainly the Low Hill Estate in Wolverhampton had many houses with the upper floors, or complete houses in some cases, pebble-dashed, but it was left in its natural colour until the 70s and 80s when it was painted a cream colour. Low Hill was a 'model estate' built in the 30s, so may be the exception and it didn't have blind-backs anyway.

Stone cladding (to quote Paul O'Grady "like a filling in a mouth full of bad teeth") is a relatively new thing afaik. Pre-War folk didn't worry too much about a house's outside appearance, with the exception of the front doorstep, which was rigorously scrubbed clean, often daily.

I'm also led to believe that washing was hung up across the street from the upper floor, via a system of pulleys, although I haven't come across any pictures showing this.

[carlos marighela]

If you watch the film Get Carter, you'll see the washing hung out across what presumably were the night soil lanes in former times.

[Bungle]

Render (including pebble dash) became more common due to the Arts and Crafts movement(around WW1), and then again due to the international Modern movement (20's to 30's) all over the country. It does often cover Stock bricks or Blocks.. (lovely crumbly black/dark grey blocks made from foundry slag and called breeze blocks)

Most back to backs were Victorian, so would have nice dense "engineering" type bricks, often only 9" thick solid walls, and blue welsh slate roofs.

They could use Blue or red engineering bricks below the ground floor level (6" plus above the ground) on corners and around window and door openings, with softer bricks as infill between (which could be yellow in or near London)

Roofs normally 30^o pitch, they became lower as tiles with better water shedding properties were developed.... 22^o

[Arlequín]

Anorak... 

[Lupus]

Anorak... 

True but i bet you read every word..I did and then went right okay, thanks for that