The Hartwell Tavern

So it has been two weeks since I posted. That's a long break for me. In part because of a cyclone that was supposed to cause mayhem but in the end skipped past us (but not until we had postponed our planned Sunday game) and in part because I had nothing complete to present. That's not to say I have not been busy because I have a commission for the Hartwell Tavern from the American Revolution. 

The first thing I did when I was asked about it was to have a quick look online and turned up this image of the historic building.

Immediately I thought "what a superb building to make"...lots of interesting shapes and dark wood tones. But when I started to look for more details and plans, I found that the building in the photograph is not representative of the tavern during the Revolution.  The rather attractive part of the building, that gambrel-roofed part on the left with the dormer windows, was not added until 1783, and the shed, only just visible above on the extreme left, was added in 1830. All that was there during the Revolution was the portion on the right of the image. Still, this saltbox-style structure is still a significant and interesting model to make. I dug around a bit more online and turned up a document from the Historic American Buildings Society that provided a wealth of detail, including floor plans, that enabled me to build an image in my head of the completed model.

All the parts for the shell were cut from 3mm MDF and assembled. Its a big beast, measuring 210mm on its long  (east/west) axis, 150mm on the shorter (north/south) axis and 120mm to the roof apex (plus 20mm for the chimney).

The next step was to make all the windows, of which there were seventeen: nine on the front (south face), three on the east face and five on the west face. The modern building has three windows on the north face, but there were no windows there in 1775 - a fairly standard practice of the time not to have north facing windows to prevent thermal loss. All of these were sash windows, eleven of them were a six over nine configuration, four were six over six and the two attic windows were four over four. These were made from plasticard using 0.5mm card for the individual panes, then 1mm for the outer frame. They were quite fiddly, but strangely quite quick to make.

I made the doors and their frames at the same time. The third, back door, was made a little later.

All these were then glued to the shell of the building.

The next step was to apply the clapboard cladding. Research showed that in this era clapboards were generally hand split rather than sawn and as a result to make them easier to split the logs used rarely exceeded six feet in length, although there were exceptions. I used 1mm balsa, in 3mm widths for the boards, intending for a 0.5mm overlay when fixed to the shell. To get a consistent 3mm width I created a jig. The strips were then cut to between 20mm and 30mm lengths to represent those four to six feet lengths. It is very fiddly work and experience told me that I can't place more than three or four levels of 'boards' at a time until the glue sets, otherwise it is just too easy to disturb the other 'boards' with fat fingers. As tedious as this task is once you get going, with the TV on or some music playing, you quickly learn ways to work faster and more accurately and the fat fingers issue becomes less. It's sort of like plastering drywall joints when you are doing DIY - you start off slowly, make lots of mistakes and its all rather sloppy, but by the time you have finished you are really good at it...then you don't have to do any plastering for five years and you forget the skills and have you learn them all over again. All that said, with a bit of persistence I found that what I thought was going to take days actually was achieved in no more than six hours (not all in one stretch) and the effect is very pleasing.

The front (southern) face clad ready to have the ends trimmed...

...and with the ends trimmed and the corners finished

When all the clapboards were glued on they were given a couple of coats of PVA glue to hold everything together. Then the window casings were added along with the stone base and then the underlying roof structure was fixed.

The thermal core of the original building was provided by the brick chimney that connected to all five fireplaces - two on the first floor, two on the second and one in the kitchen lean-to. This was sculpted in epoxy putty over a cardboard form then fixed centrally, just beyond the crest.

Then it was the joyful task of applying the shingles...1,540+ of the little suckers...I have done so many shingle roofs now that I can whip through them in no time at all - I managed to complete the whole of the back roof (25 rows) in a single evening. The result looks great.

Next the roof cap, the flashing around the chimney, the barge boards and the stone steps were added. Finally the whole model was painted.

...put into an AI generated 1775 rural setting...

...and rendered as a painting in the style of JWW Turner

The whole model was then based. The removable signpost was made from plasticard and the sign painted from an image found in the Historic American Buildings Society documents. The hitching rail was carved from some left over sprue.

Along with the tavern are the barn, the chicken coop, the woodshed and the outhouse. 

The barn is entirely conjectural because the original barn is long gone and the one on the site today is a much more modern style. Most studies describe the original barn as an English 3-Bay barn measuring perhaps 30 feet by 40 feet. One bay, often the central one would have been for theshing and vehicle storage and would have had large double doors on either side of the building for vehicle passage. Another bay was for hay storage and the remaining one was a stable - it was a requirement of the tavern license that stables for guest's animals had to be provided. I have based the model loosely on a barn that was a part of another historic farm along the Concord/Lexington route, the Hunt-Hosman farm. Like the tavern this is a big beast, measuring 130mm by 186mm and rising to 110mm, and as evidence of my improved roofing skills the entire shingle roof was completed in a single three hour session on a wet, squally afternoon! 

But it just looked too plain, so to give it some life I created a dung and straw pile at the stable entrance, added some fencing and a bit of clutter at various points around the base.

The chicken coop (complete with a chicken and cockerel), the woodshed and the privy are simple structures made from plasticard.

There are more buildings on the work table, but they will take a backseat while I will work on some  figures.