Researching your backscenes
Backscenes are like every other part of the layout – they benefit from thorough research and good reference material. Useful sources of information include Ordnance Survey maps (archive and contemporary where applicable), local interest group websites, old photographs and postcards and books. Historic England’s website is a hugely valuable resource too: www.historicengland.org. uk/images-books/archive/collections When it comes to research, the general rule is ‘too much ain’t enough’. It is a time-consuming exercise, but as the search progresses you find yourself becoming progressively more familiar with the surroundings of the chosen location. Inevitable and frustrating information ‘gaps’ may become apparent during your quest for historical data. The solution is to fill in the blanks with some educated guesswork.
1 Maps
The first glimpse of a locality can be surveyed by positioning your map horizontally at viewing height, then taking a worm’s eye view across the surface, with the size of the railway on the map corresponding to that of the layout. Looking across, it shows the footprints of what was once there, like building outlines, crossroads and other labelled landmarks. A road map augments written information to help you onto the next steps of reference gathering, letting you identify period landmarks such as crossroads, churches, and industrial or large public buildings. These prominent features can then act as grid reference points within the townscape to help frame the localities and keep them in proportion. You now have the beginnings of what would have been visible, but only in horizontal 2D. The features can be plotted out using the same principle as the immediate locality, but by using a combination of smaller scale maps and photographic references.
2 Landmarks
Get to know the areas and landmarks by including more and more of your homework into the scene, a few sessions at a time. This adds a bit of variety, and a bit of research time can be a welcome change from layout construction or sky painting. As I learn and discover the positions and relationships of a historic townscape, I put labels onto the sketch, so I can find my way back. Only a handful of structures survive today in the equivalent modern view, so the information to reproduce this view of the past is nearly all recorded.
3 Photography
Photography contains the information to detail the map footprints by showing the buildings’ height and characteristics. Some photographs can be taken directly, if the reference survives, by paying a visit to the location with a camera. A further trip to a local historic archive along with an internet image search are sure to pay off when doing a historic townscape. Screengrabs from Google Street View are useful too, but remember that buildings will have been recorded from the wrong elevation and the perspective probably won’t fit your mock-up. Buildings can be identified and projected from similar local survivors, and surviving examples sometimes appear on old maps. In the complete absence of any actual photographic proof, there is sometimes no alternative but to apply an educated guess. However, the rear aspect of a house can be copied from similar local examples with similar footprints. From this, you can calculate height and other key sizes.