More Pottery Buildings - and another mystery church

Though the rate of arrival is now officially reduced, a few more ceramic "ornament" buildings for my ECW towns have sneaked under the wire of late. From the Tey Pottery "Britain in Miniature" series, I'm now really just keeping an eye open for particularly good bargains on a couple of odd buildings which I fancy; I was very pleased this week to get a very cheap example of the splendid Anne of Cleves' House (Lewes), in excellent order, and at a great price, since the collectors normally really go for this one, and prices are usually around £40 to £50 on eBay. Scrooge McFoy, naturally, did not pay anything like that amount.

I also secured a couple of nice churches - these are not from Tey, but are similar in style, and were made as part of John Putnam's "Heritage" series.

The first is, apparently, a miniature of St Michael's Parish Church, Blackawton, Devon, which building dates from the 14th Century.

The other is simply labelled "Church with Tower", which is certainly true, but the configuration with the narrow circular tower (spiral stairway?) joined onto the central square tower is a bit unusual. Anyone recognise the church? - it really doesn't matter, obviously, but I am gently interested.

All these pictures are lifted straight from eBay (for which thanks), and the buildings will be retouched (a little) and matt varnished (a lot) before they appear on any battlefields.

So - no prizes, but does anyone know the unnamed church?


***** Late Edit - Footnote *****

I've only recently become familiar with these ceramic miniature buildings, so I know very little about them, and don't really wish to know more than I need to understand to get a feel for the ranges and their availability. I am not, I remind myself, a proper collector, since I wish to use them in my toy soldier games rather than deploy them artistically on the piano. 

In case you care, Tey Pottery was founded by Carol Maxted-Massey, who produced various styles of ornamental pieces, at one time working with her brother. The factory was initially at Marks Tey, Colchester, though they later moved to 3 separate factories in Norfolk (at Hainford, Lenwade and Banham). They produced teapots, animal miniatures and painted tiles, but they also produced ranges of miniature buildings - I am particularly interested in the Britain in Miniature series, but there were others (usually smaller in scale), and they also did a number of out of catalogue or special order pieces which appear on eBay from time to time. Out of interest, I obtained a pdf history of the maker, so I have a better understanding of what is out there (and some of it is marvellous). Ms Maxted-Massey moved to Spain in 2002, and production ceased at that point.

John Putnam was a teacher who took early retirement in the 1970s so that he could concentrate on his great passion for ceramic modelling and sculpture. His output included his "Heritage" range of buildings, which became very popular. His factory was at his home, a farm near Blackawton, Devon (hence the choice of the church model illustrated above). His work was popular in the USA, so in later years he travelled to New England in order to add some American buildings to his range. John Putnam died some years ago, and his family moved to Totnes - I believe the pottery concern still exists, but whether they are still trading, and whether any new pieces were ever added, are unknown to me. 

ECW - Guest Spot...

Steve Cooney very kindly sent me a note with some more pictures of his ECW troops, focusing on conversions. As far as I am concerned, this is a key topic, since the illustrations show a mixture of 20mm Hinton Hunt and Les Higgins cavalry figures (of which I use quite a few), and Steve explains the steps he has taken to improve the compatibility of these two makes.

Steve writes:

"...thought you might like to see some figures I tidied up recently....

They are Les Higgins and Hinton Hunt ECW Royalist and Parliamentarian Cavalry, I have attached a couple of photos. I snip the joints between the base and the horses forelegs on the Higgins figures, raise the front of the horse, and re-solder it so that the finished figure is slightly higher than it was originally.  

That way the Les Higgins figures are very compatible with the Hinton Hunt figures and are lovely models in their own right.

Hope you like them."

Thanks Steve - informative and inspirational!

Battle of Montgomery - 18th Sept 1644 - Another Really Bad Day for Lord John

Lord John, just checking that those chaps over by the river are the Other
Lot - his groom is saying nothing...

Well, since the hoped-for guest general is still missing, presumed to be on vacation, Max No-Mates decided to go it alone, and the battle has duly been fought this evening, to the aforementioned hybrid C&C-cum-allsorts rules.

The game lasted about one and a half hours, and I have a sad bit of news for all my Royalist readers - Lord John Byron blew it once again. The real battle swung in the balance for a little while, before the King's men collapsed; my version of it went the same way, but it was never very close...

I started the action at the point where the Parliamentarians have realised that they are outnumbered, and therefore in a bit of trouble, so they decide they must sit tight, while Lord Byron launches his men into a glorious attack, keeping a little reserve back to watch over the siegeworks at Montgomery Castle (and taking personal command of this reserve, naturally).

The activation rules allow spare activation counters to be hoarded (to a maximum of 5), and Byron's best bet would have been to advance slowly and steadily, keep his forces organised and the supports close at hand, and save up a little cache of extra counters to help out in moments of stress, later. He didn't get very good activation dice, that is for sure, but a slower advance would have been a sound idea - the Parliamentarians were not in a position to do much beyond standing and waiting. 5 Victory Points was all that were needed, and the Royalists had scope for gaining an extra 2 if they captured the Salt Bridge, the only Roundhead retreat across the River Camlad (or Kemlett, as John Speed's map says).

The Royalist attack gets moving, concentrating (historically) on the better ground on their right.

Meldrum does a bit of shuffling, to get his defence organised.

General view of the start of the attack - the rough ground is in the Y of the roads, far left.

Meldrum is ready, and salting away spare activation counters for later use.

So they stand and wait...

With the counter cache accumulating.

And the Royalists get nearer...

...and nearer...[really milking this]...

...and by the time they make contact Byron's second line is starting to get out of touch.

Of course, a cavalry fight broke out on the flank.

At last, Meldrum's foot got off what had to be a decisive musket volley - dreadful!
- they hit nothing at all in their big moment! - this was a high point for
the Royalists - things really looked quite promising.

But when the troops got into melee combat, the Parlies did very well indeed.

The cavalry battle was nasty, but Wm Fairfax with the Parliamentarian
horse gradually got the best of it, and also forced Michael Ernle's RoF into
Stand of Pikes (hedgehog, whatever).

Lord John suddenly has a vision.

And now we have it, as the combined cavalry of Myddleton's Brigade and the
Derbyshire Horse swept into Robert Broughton's Foot, coming up in support
- the Reaction Test required Broughton's lot [Class 3] to roll a 3 to get
themselves into Stand of Pikes, but they failed, leaving them unformed and
pretty much helpless. They took heavy losses and were forced to retreat 4 hexes,
which effectively put them out of action for the rest of the day. 

Now Myddleton's horse crashed on into Henry Warren's Foot, which was
also wrecked, Warren himself being captured  

Suddenly very short of troops, Byron sent up the remainder of his Horse, but
the day was lost. Michael Ernle's regiment, still in Stand of Pikes, was destroyed
by musketry, and surrendered. The 5 VPs were accomplished. 

Situation at the end, seen from behind the Parliamentarian position.

Sir John Meldrum - job done - no celebration and certainly no hat-waving.
He has to get back to running the Siege of Liverpool in the morning.

Overall losses - Meldrum's Parliamentarian Army numbered about 1500 horse and 1500 foot; they lost about 400 horse, 200 foot. Byron's Royalist Army had about 1500 horse and 3000 foot; they lost about 700 horse, 2200 foot, and Col Henry Warren was wounded and taken prisoner. OOBs can be found in the earlier "preamble" post, here.

The real battle ended with the broken Royalist force being pursued right off the field, to the south, which is where they suffered most of their loss (500 killed and 1500 prisoners, I believe, overwhelmingly from the Foot). This evening's version did not continue to play out the pursuit, but I have a simple dice system to simulate the situation at the end of the day. This reflects the state of the respective armies - in particular the balance of effective cavalry remaining. In this action, the Parliament army held the field, with moderate initial losses and the troops still fairly fresh, while the Royalist cavalry was not in a desperate state, but was battered. The system is crude but works OK - the winning side roll 1D6 for each base lost (red "loss" counter - I don't remove actual bases) - any base which rolls 4, 5 or 6 can return to the ranks in the morning - they were just lost somewhere in the general excitement; the bases on the losing side are only rescued by a 6 - those that avoided death and capture are heading homewards, thank you very much.

In my game, poor old Byron should have advanced more carefully, keeping his force better co-ordinated, storing up extra activation counters wherever possible and using his greater numbers of foot to gain superiority in a focused area. He would also have done well to keep his shakier units (Class 3 - yellow markers) out of the front line - this was probably compromised, both in the game and in the real battle, by the fact that the senior officers in the Foot (notably Ernle) were from the Shrewsbury garrison, so the most jaundiced troops were to the fore. There were two particular occasions where lack of enthusiasm caused problems: part of Tom Tyldesley's horse were forced to take the necessary double retreat as the result of a reverse in the cavalry skirmish, which removed them from the action, and - especially -  Broughton's foot failed the reaction test needed to redeploy when attacked by Myddleton's horse, were badly beaten and ran a long way from the action, leaving Myddleton's men to continue to roll up the Royalist left.

In an action of this size there are few second chances - when the day starts to swing one way, lack of fresh reserves and lack of opportunity to withdraw damaged units are decisive - and quickly. The real Battle of Montgomery lasted about an hour - my version must have been fairly similar. Without the Homeric narrative of the rally of the Cheshire Foot and the Yorkshire Horse, the story is simple enough - the King's troops attacked, it did not go well for them and they retreated from the field, losing a great many in killed and captured on the retreat.

Battle of Montgomery - rule tweaks

Because of the relatively small size of the forthcoming battle, I am intending to allow a little more tactical detail in the rules. The combat will remain pretty much straight Commands & Colors, but units will have a front, flanks and a rear, and will be able to do some (limited) changing of formation - thus the activation and movement rules will be different, and there will be a "reaction" test (based upon the quality of a unit) to allow emergency changes of front or configuration during the opponent's turn. [As ever, I hasten to add that this is not intended as an improved version of the published game - it is merely that C&C is rather a blunt instrument with which to fight a very small battle!]

This is all lifted straight from a rather long-winded (though much read) post I put up here about a year ago, Manoeuvring in Hexes; the only problem is that that note was about Napoleonic games, and extensions to Commands & Colors: Napoleonic - I've never actually written down how this translates to the ECW variant. I shall not attempt to batter through all the discussion in that post - please follow the link if you can be bothered, if not, just assume that I have thought about this before!

In the tactical extension to my ECW game, the recognised formations for Foot will be:

Column of March - essential if you wish to get anywhere in a hurry
(especially on roads - columns of march get a bonus hex of movement on a road)
but can't fight at all - not even a bit.

Formed Line of Battle (or battalia - choose your own jargon) - muskets on
the flanks, pikes correctly in the centre -  optimal fighting formation, but
moves slowly, cannot fire on the move.

This rather stylised arrangement of bases represents Stand of Pikes -
Renaissance equivalent of a Napoleonic square - this formation cannot
move, has no front, flanks or rear, has limited combat power but is good
defensively against Horse

Unformed - no formation, minimal combat ability - units which fail to
redeploy are in this form (with their original front), also units occupying
villages, woods or enclosures will normally be unformed, which is a useful
reminder that they must stop to reform as they emerge!

Units of Foot may be seen in this form, simply because their commander
has not got around to specifying what they are doing - this is just a
default "don't know" formation - to an extent, they are assumed to be getting
on with things, but must move at slowest rate, and if involved in combat
will be Unformed unless they shape up, or pass a reaction test

For Horse, things are less complicated:

This is a general purpose formation in which Horse can fight or move
- the front is defined, intuitively...

Column of March is almost a cosmetic device - it probably looks good to move
Horse around in this formation, and is essential if you wish to claim road bonus,
but remember they can't fight like this!

What else? Oh yes - for the purposes of the Reaction Test, the forces at Montgomery will all be Class 2, apart from the rather war-weary "Irish" Royalist foot units from the Shrewsbury garrison, and Tyldesley's two units of Royalist Horse, which will be Class 3 - which means that they are rather less likely to carry out emergency manoeuvres on the battlefield, and are subject to double retreats if things go badly.

The details about turning rates and all that are in the Napoleonic post from last year, if you have the stamina.

The units of Horse will all be of Trotter type, which means they have a standard move of 3, but advance to contact is limited to 2 (because of all the fiddling about with pistols).

The only other thing I can think of at present is that, since this particular game is to be played end-to-end of the table, temporary rules are needed to force units to face the flat side of a hex, rather than a vertex, which involves some intuitive, minor alterations to movement rules, firing arcs, definitions of flanks and permitted retreat directions. Easy peasy.

That's quite enough about that. Oh yes - artillery? There wasn't any. That was easiest of all.


*****Late Edit*****

Not so fast....

I received an email from Jack Mortimer, asking me if I would publish the full rules, or at least send him a copy by reply. The answer to both these questions is no, but I can set out a bit more of the detail.

Foot move 1 hex in line, 2 in column or unformed, + 1 hex bonus for a column of march which spends entire turn on a road. Cannot move and fire in same turn. Stand of Pikes cannot move. Terrain rules are pretty much as C&C. Units entering a new hex may turn 60 degrees without penalty; any larger turn, or any stationary turn (which includes a turn BEFORE moving) takes a full move. Any ordered change of formation takes a full move; any change of front or formation in reaction to opponent action is instantaneous, but requires the unit to pass a Reaction Test (q.v.).

Horse move 3 hexes, but only 2 if advancing to contact. Horse have negligible (i.e. no) range combat ability - pistol fire is abstracted into melee. Non-free turns and formation changes take 1 hex of movement (not a full move), otherwise movement rules as Foot. Charge to contact must be in a straight line - i.e. any necessary turns must be carried out (with necessary penalties) before final charge. Column of march gets 1 hex road bonus, as for Foot.

Units can only fire within defined frontal arc. Units attacked in flank/rear who fail reaction test and do not turn about do not get to battle back in melee, and opponents get an extra combat die. Horse in melee with Stand of Pikes roll just 1 die, the SoP itself also rolls just 1. Since a SoP cannot move, any retreat it suffers must be taken as casualties instead of movement.

Reaction Test - units are ranked Class 1 to Class 4 (elite to dross). When required, unit may take Test in reaction to enemy action; to pass, must roll 1D6 >= (Class + 1 for each loss counter - 1 if general attached); natural roll of 1 is always a failure, natural 6 always a pass.

Otherwise, the game is basically my CC_ECW variant!

Battle of Montgomery - the set up

Looking south, from the Parliamentarian position on the (unfordable)
River Camlad toward the town and castle of Montgomery. The Salt Bridge in
the foreground is rather more grand than the original.

I've now set up the battlefield for Montgomery (18th Sept 1644), as discussed a few posts ago. I hope to play the game this weekend, though one of my pencilled-in visiting generals appears to have vanished without trace - the scouts are out. If necessary, I'll play the game solo, though that hadn't been the intention.

It's a fairly small action, by my usual standards, so I intend to use a tweaked version of my CC_ECW game, with extensions to allow for some elements of tactical manoeuvre. The Command Cards will not be used, since the game is to be played end-to-end of the table (on the larger, 17 x 9 grid) - I'll use a dice-based activation system.

More soon.

Sir John Meldrum's Parliamentarian army - initial position, with Sir Wm
Fairfax on the left flank with the cavalry (which initially was to push
through to the castle with provisions).

Lord John Byron's Royalist force, near the town and castle. The road to
Welshpool snakes down the length of the table - note Col Mytton's
Parliamentarian garrison peeking over the battlements! The area 
of the table between the roads and the river (far left in this picture) is 
classified as rough ground, since it contained many hummocks and boggy 
streams - slow going here.

Col Washington's dragoons, who fought as commanded shot

Royalist horse

Near-contemporary town plan - north (and the river) is to the right

View of the battlefield, from St Nicholas' church - the town had some walls,
but they were in a bad state of disrepair, so I have omitted them from the scenery.

The Battle of Montgomery, 18th Sept 1644 - Preamble

Aerial view of battle area - the photo came to me with incorrect 
details - please see Ubique Matt's comment below for orientation [thanks Matt!]

For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by this battle from the English Civil War. Within the last 3 years I have failed twice to visit the battlefield – just a little far from home for the time available on each occasion – so I have decided that the next best thing would be to have a go on the tabletop.

Not as a walkthrough - I have no appetite for that at all, but as a game which involves something like the correct forces and – more challenging – has a chance of reproducing the strange events of the real battle.

Strange? Well, the action is pretty much ignored in the standard histories, though, since it involved something close to 8000 men, it was by far the largest ECW battle to take place in Wales, and its result – a surprising and catastrophic defeat for the Royalist side - effectively ended Royalist influence in Wales, and had far-reaching consequences for the war elsewhere.

Max Foy’s Potted History of Montgomery:

(1) Royalists besieged Montgomery Castle – they had about 1500 horse, 3000 foot. Since they had no serious artillery, the siege was more a blockade than an attempt to break in.
(2) Parliamentarians arrived with about 1500 horse, 1500 foot, and, having seriously underestimated the Royalist numbers, set about pushing through a mounted force, to re-provision the garrison.
(3) Royalists attacked – downhill, across pretty open ground, and pushed their outnumbered opponents back towards the River Camlad, which could only be crossed at a single bridge on the Welshpool road.
(4) As they prepared to drive the enemy into the River, the Royalist forces suddenly suffered a major collapse of morale, and were routed from the field, losing all but about 100 of their foot troops in the pursuit.

Hmmm. The action is well documented, there are eye-witness reports and commentaries from individuals on both sides. The Royalist army was experienced and well officered, though their recent experience had been unhappy. Parliamentarian accounts claim the influence of the hand of God (which might explain a few things), but give great credit to the leadership efforts of a few of the senior officers, and, in particular, to the courage and vigour of Wm Fairfax’s Horse and Sir Wm Brereton’s Cheshire Regiment of Foot, who rallied with such ferocity that they turned the day. The Royalist writers take the opportunity to blame each other, and name specific units which broke and ran in a shameful manner. The message is consistent, if the details vary a little: one moment the  Royalists were on the brink of victory, then within a very short time they panicked and ran. The Battle of Montgomery is said to have lasted little more than an hour.

Interesting. I am currently on holiday (far away...) – I have some of my reading material with me, so homework can continue to an extent. I am focusing at present on the battlefield, and how best to represent it on the tabletop, on the OOBs (of which more in a moment) and how to allow for the kind of events which destroyed the Royalist attack.

Let’s look at this last bit first.

If I set up the armies as they appear on paper, and the Royalists proceed to push the (outnumbered) Parliament lot back into the River Camlad, few people would give the Parlies much chance. One way to give history a slight chance of repeating itself would be to allow some kind of fancy Chance Card event or a nuclear dice throw to stand the battle on its head. I don’t like this – the game is then obviously rigged, and it’s rigged in a manner which makes it pretty clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with my rules. I’d prefer it if there was some way of allowing for an inherent fragility in the Royalist army, veteran or not, and play the game as normal.

My rules, as ever, will be Commands & Colors based, though on this occasion the shape of the battlefield suggests to me that the forces will fight from the ends of the table rather than the long sides (which means I shall substitute a dice-based activation system for the Command Cards), and, since I am keen to have the town and castle at one end, I’ll use my bigger table size - 17 hexes by 9. At 200 paces across a hex, that’s pretty close to my estimate of 1.5 miles x 1 mile for the main field. My rules do allow for troops to be classified as Veteran or Raw, and maybe this gives me a way to address the problem. The regiments which are known to have disgraced themselves were all veterans, in the sense that they had been fighting for years, but the “Irish” [sic] units which came from the Shrewsbury garrison had mostly been badly mauled at both Nantwich and Marston Moor, and Tom Tyldesley’s horse had been through both of these and Ormskirk, where they had suffered considerably.

Given the hardships they must have been under and the big proportion of replacement recruits that must have been needed to make up the numbers, my inclination is to take a bit of a radical step, and mark a number of supposedly experienced units as Raw, which could well introduce the element of fragility I am looking for.

I’ll think further about this, but at least I can see a way ahead for the moment.

Order of Battle (with approximate strengths)

Royalist Army (John, Lord Byron of Rochdale)

Horse (Col. Mark Trevor)

Col Trevor’s RoH (500) – [from Chester Garrison]
Sir Wm Vaughan’s RoH (500)
Sir Thos Tydesley’s (Lancashire) RoH (500)

[I propose to rationalise this into 4 standard-size units of horse – Trevor’s, Vaughan’s and half of Tyldesley’s were with the main advance, on the right flank, while Byron kept part of Tyldesley’s back as a reserve, partly to defend the siegeworks near the castle]

Foot (Sir Michael Ernle)

Regts present from the Shrewsbury garrison were those of Col Robt Broughton, Col Henry Tillier, Col Henry Warren, Sir Michael Ernle and Sir Fulke Hunk – (total about 1500)

Col Robt Ellice’s (Welsh) RoF, Sir Michael Woodhouse’s ('Prince of Wales Regt') RoF and Col Henry Washington’s Dragoons (who fought on foot) – some of these were from the Chester garrison, brought by Byron (total about another 1500)

[it is thought that the Shrewsbury troops were combined into 2 battalia, with Hunk’s regiment as a reserve; I shall field 5 standard foot regiments, plus 1 of dragoons, serving as foot musketeers]

Parliamentary Army (Sir John Meldrum was nominal commander, but evidence suggests that the field command was a joint effort between Meldrum, Sir Wm Brereton and Sir Thos Myddleton)

Garrison of Montgomery (Col Thomas Mytton)

A few hundred foot from Mytton’s own regiment and that of Sir Thos Myddleton

Horse (Sir Wm Fairfax)

Sir Wm Fairfax’s (Yorkshire) RoH (400)
Lancashire Horse (Col. Nicholas Shuttleworth) (400)
Cheshire Horse (Maj. Jerome Zankey) (400)
Sir Thos Myddleton’s “brigade” (150)
Derbyshire Horse (Maj. Thos Sanders) (150)

[I’ll represent this lot by 4 standard regiments of horse – Myddleton’s and the Derbyshire Horse were probably merged]

Foot (Maj. James Lothian)

Sir Wm Brereton’s (Cheshire) RoF (500)
Col Geo Booth’s RoF (Cheshire) (500)
Col Henry Mainwaring’s RoF (500)

[on the face of it, this looks like 3 standard units of foot, though I am considering sneaking in a 4th unit to represent the “hand of God”!]

It seems that neither side had any significant artillery present – I shall ignore artillery, though the castle might have a gun or two, and the garrison of the castle certainly had plenty of ammunition.


I’ll describe the battlefield in more detail when I have better graphics facilities available!

That’s about as far as I’ve got, and that’s probably more than enough to be going on with. I am aware that the bold Jonathan Freitag, wargamer, cyclist and blogger extraordinaire, wrote up a couple of reports on a Montgomery game recently, so I’ll certainly check those out. I have found that searches for the Battle of Montgomery on Google produce an overwhelming amount of information about El Alamein!

Tey Pottery Buildings – Another Back-Door Collection

A couple of people have expressed interest in the ceramic buildings which I used in my ECW siege testing a couple of months ago. For the most part, these were made by the Tey Pottery company, now defunct, which operated from various locations in Norfolk. The range of which I seem to have become an accidental collector is the Britain in Miniature series, which suits my purposes admirably.

Tey Pottery "Britain in Miniature" - Grannie would have been delighted. The
white-backed buildings in the background make effective town blocks - the
textured-all-round items nearer the camera are more suitable for standalone pieces

I didn’t really need another unofficial collection, but I am pleased with what I’ve obtained, and have consciously cut down on purchasing now, in the sense that I am very picky about what I go for. I note that at the start of this year I wasn’t sure at all about the viability for the wargames table of items primarily intended for your grannie’s sideboard – these are ornaments, let’s make that quite clear – pottery knick-knacks, and they are neither serious models nor exactly accurate.

Some points (for and against) and things to watch for, if you have half a mind to acquire some of these miniatures:

(1) They suit me perfectly – they have a cheerful, almost playful brio which I find very appropriate to accompany toy soldiers – the Britain in Miniature (BiM) series are (mostly) to an approximately constant(ish) scale which I would describe as “smallish 15mm”. I deliberately use underscale buildings with my 20mm figures, because the smaller footprint is more acceptable (given the constant paradox of incompatible ground and figure scales), and because I believe a cluster of undersized houses looks more like a village than a single representative structure which matches the figure scale.

(2) Tey’s BiM range – if you are selective – will fit nicely in a 17^th Century setting. The buildings are, mostly, what in ship model terms would be called “waterline” representations, without bases or landscaping, and can be combined into effective town blocks which would be difficult and expensive to achieve otherwise. Be careful with sizes – the churches are too small for my taste, and the Countryside Collection and a few others contain smaller-scale items – anything which is obviously a generic cottage usually will not match.

(3) They are readily available and splendidly cheap – on eBay you can pick up nice examples for just a few pounds (they are available on US eBay, too though slightly dearer). Typically, I obtained lots for about 3 to 5 pounds each, and was the only bidder. On occasions, an attractive off-catalogue or commissioned item will attract heavier bids, so I normally duck out when the going gets tough. It’s only a hobby, for goodness’ sake…

(4) They are ornaments – they are delicate (though not too bad, if you store them sensibly) and they are glazed to a high gloss. Being a very bad person, I give them two coats of acrylic matt medium – if I need to do any touching up, or obliterate any anachronistic shop or pub signs, I can do that with acrylics between the varnish coats. I expect serious Tey collectors to be outraged by my destruction of their collectors’ value by this varnish business, but these things are plentiful, the value is not great and they are mine anyway (heh heh) – consider it equivalent to converting original Hinton Hunt figures!

(5) Some serious bad news – many of these pieces are untextured and plain white on the back, so have to be placed with care to make a convincing street scene, but this doesn’t cause me any difficulty. This can be a fairly confusing aspect of collecting Tey buildings – some of them are textured and painted all round – these tend to be detached-style buildings rather than sections of town blocks – and I mostly go for these now if I can. Some of the buildings have changed during their production history, so I have (reluctantly) been forced to learn more about the catalogues than I might have wished – in particular, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage appeared in a number of versions, some of which had plain white backs and some, like mine, are finished all round. Yes, I know, this is getting nerdy. 

So, overall, if they suit your purposes (or porpoises – thank you, Jonathan), these guys are cheaper and handier and quicker to deploy than wargames-specific  resin buildings, lighter and more robust (and less irritatingly cute) than Lilliput Lane or David Winter houses (though I cherish a fair few of those, too), and I find they bring a pleasing, colourful vibe to my siege activities, which really benefit from a bit of scenic interest. I still need specialist Hovels houses and similar, but as a bulk buy to make an easy, flexible town the Tey houses are great. Buy them selectively, keeping a careful eye on sizes and they do a nice job. For matching churches, I have found the most satisfactory source is the products of Sulley’s Ceramics, but these are rarer and more expensive.

At a whimsical level, I find it deeply amusing to set up a town which features Shakespeare’s birthplace, the Bronté family’s parsonage, the Rows of Chester, the Siege House (Colchester),  John Knox’s House (Edinburgh), and all manner of famous tourist sites – all in the same spot. Fantastic – I should wheel out one of my miniature tour buses to show off the rich heritage! I am cutting down on watching eBay now, but I keep an eye open for Anne of Cleves’ House, the Mermaid Inn and a few others. No – of course I am not a collector.

Hooptedoodle #228 - A Few Days Away

View of the bridge over the Dee at Chester - yes, the actual bridge by which
Charles I left the city after the Bad Day at Rowton Heath - legend has it that
they put up sheets of hide to conceal his departure - you'd think the townspeople
would have suspected something though, eh? 

We spent a few days this week in Chester and in Denbighshire - very pleasant. As part of our fitness preparation for the Alps we walked up Moel Famau, in the Clwydian Range, and of course it rained - but why would you want to walk in the Welsh hills in atypical conditions?

Once again I had a vague idea about stretching the Welsh bit of the trip to include the battlefield of Montgomery, but it was really too far for the time we had available, so I shall content myself with a tabletop game based on Montgomery in the near future (note for self). Considering the wealth of good eating and drinking places in Chester, I was a bit unlucky to get a touch of mild food poisoning on the first night, so my diet was largely bottled water and Immodium tablets for the next few days, but I survived.

We hit crazy traffic queues on the way home, on the M6, on Friday, but otherwise we had no logistical problems at all - very easy travelling. Here are a few pictures - just to give a flavour of our trip!

Bunter Sandstone - the reason why Chester is a red city, and the reason why the walls
need constant refurbishment - the stuff weathers quite rapidly. The Victorians did a
lot of improvement to the walls, which is the sort of thing the Victorians did, and
they often destroyed the real history while they were about it, but in this case
there would probably be no walls left at all if they hadn't.

The King's Tower - formerly the Phoenix Tower - from which Charles I
may or may not have been able to watch the Rowton Heath disaster unfolding

And suddenly I find someone has put me in my miniature Tey Pottery ECW
siege town - Chester's Rows - as you see, the place has had a coat of paint and a
few new businesses have opened up...

Just a brief moment of hope for us old guys, and then you realise the place has closed
down. The worst bit is the notice you can't read, which states "SORRY FOR ANY
INCONVENIENCE". Not with a bang, my friends, but a whimper.

Please take note

We called at Conwy to visit the castle, which is a phenomenal place

The lovely, peaceful town of Ruthin

Back to my siege town - here's the original of another of my Tey buildings -
this is Ruthin's Old Courthouse - now a bank

Monument to a local hero - the racing driver Tom Pryce, who was killed
in a freak accident at Kyalami in 1977

This, of course, is one of the chief reasons we were in Wales - pleasing view
of the Clwydian hills, taken from our B&B, on a farm near Pwllglas, about
4 miles from Ruthin. These are not very spectacular, really, but it's a lovely area.

Foy the Younger on top of the Jubilee Tower, at the summit of Moel Famau.
The Victorians at work again - they felt it was necessary to build a tower
on the top to make the hill up to the full 2000 feet, so that it would class as a
mountain. This, again, is the sort of thing that the Victorians did, and they
saw fit to dedicate it to Queen Victoria, as a monument to their own
victory over Nature. Bless them. Last time I climbed up here was in 1963
(I am astounded to calculate), and the tower was a heap of rubble
- it's been restored since then, though it's a bit battered.

This may not be very high, but it's a rugged old puff up to the top! 

It was raining, of course, on the hills, but we were comforted to see that it was
mostly dry and sunny in the valley below.