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Standen House
Following my cryptic post in the English Pub thread, I will now reveal the model;-)
The above name may mean nothing to most card modellers - except Kevin!
The house is cared for by the National Trust and their web site will tell you all you want to know. Briefly, it's one of a very few "Arts and Crafts" buildings. Originally the NT were not sure they wanted it - it was quite run down and too new. One thing that's not on their site is that I am one of their volunteers, mainly as a room guide.
I have known about the kit for some time but couldn't find it. I know one copy is held by one of the UK's biggest museums but they wouldn't let me have a copy! When I saw a reference to the National Building Museum in Washington I had a look at their site and found they had an exhibition of cardmodels and they had recently received a donation of a large collection of kits. I asked them if they had the Standen kit and would be willing to let me have a copy - they said yes. I went one step further and asked if they had all the 6 buildings, again they said yes. I am now the owner of six kits - all of NT properties "through the ages". They asked me sign a contract confirming that these were for personal use and should not be copied etc.
The kits aren't the best in the world, the colours are a bit garish and the fit of the parts is questionable - they remind me of the original Heritage models. The coloured parts are printed on to coloured paper, so printing the pages takes up a lot of ink. Having made the first kit, I think I know why they haven't remained in publication.
The model is on a base about 7 X 7 inches and is approximately 1:300 scale - the taxi in one of the pictures is from Minibox. The base shows the areas for the parts and the "grass". This means that the paths and courtyard are white. As you will see I have covered these areas - The courtyard colour is correct because I photoed the courtyard from one of the upper windows and printed enough to cover the base!
I will make a few more, but I'm not sure if I'll make all of them - given the above problems.
BTW - if you are thinking of contacting the NBM - they charge and only accept cash or cheques.
Cheers
Mike
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