[I had shown links to the Gnatterbox, the Gn15 Forum, where many of these builds were detailed, but the Forum is no longer available and the links don't work.]

After building two layouts on an industrial theme I decided to try something different - an estate railway in the style of those of Sir Arthur Heywood.

The baseboard for the estate railway was made from two layers of insulation foam with foam-board on top, and hardboard base and edges. The area was divided into three scenes and a very small fiddle yard with thin hardoard. The estate - Berger Hall -  was owned by Sir Macintosh Berger ('Big Mac' to his friends).

                                                                 This is the base and back-scene before track-laying ...

... and this is the track in place.

The story of the baseboard construction can be found at  http://gn15.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10508

Then on to the scenicing ...

There's an album of photos detailing the build on Flickr  www.flickr.com/photos/149926300@N07/albums/72157686374233122 

BERGER HALL BACK STORY

Sebastian Berger was the scapegrace younger son of a family of minor gentry, born in 1825. He was expelled from Eton (a scandal concerning the under-gardener’s daughter), sent down from Cambridge (a scandal concerning the barmaid at the Fort St George public house on Midsummer Common), and forced to resign his commission in the Guards (a scandal concerning his Colonel’s wife). His family decided that Something Must Be Done, and after much deliberation they sent him to Australia as a Remittance Man[1].

In 1851 he and his faithful Aboriginal tracker Kaffie were in the area around Ballarat, in Victoria , when gold deposits were discovered there[2]. He was thus able to secure a very high-yielding spot before the huge influx of people, and quickly made a fortune. He was acquainted with John Turner and Charles McCarthy, who were later to feature in ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle[3], and there was some speculation that he had been involved with Turner (Black Jack of Ballarat) and the group of bush-rangers who robbed a large gold convoy; nothing was proved.

In 1858 he returned to England a very wealthy man. He bought a run-down estate which he renamed Berger Hall, bought a knighthood contributed money to the party forming the government of the day and was awarded a knighthood, and in 1865 married an heiress. He had a son, Macintosh, who inherited the estate and the title on Sebastian’s death in 1890.

Sebastian had started work to bring the estate back from its run-down state, clearing derelict woodland and planting trees, with the aim of restoring it to the original design of the landscape architect Isaac ‘Incapable’ Green, who had created a park with faux-Classical features in the 18th century – the remains of his Temple of Bacchus are still evident.  The mature trees on the estate suffered much damage in the severe storms of 9-13th March 1891 and 17th/18th November, 1893[4], and Sir Macintosh has been working ever since on clearing the fallen timber and planting trees to replace them.

Sir Macintosh married in 1892 the elder daughter of Lord Wimpy, and he and Lady Frideswide (her mother was influenced by the story of St Frideswide, Oxford’s Patron Saint[5]) have a son, Hamilton[6], twins Ronald and Macdonald, and a daughter, Ambrosia. He read Greats at Oxford, but was very interested in engineering from an early age, and when he read Sir Arthur Heywood’s work  ‘Minimum Gauge Railways’ and the accounts of the lines Sir Arthur constructed at Eaton Hall and Duffield Bank, he decided that he would have a 15” line around the Berger Hall estate.

The Berger Hall Railway was completed in 1900, and is a circular line around the estate grounds. It is meant to serve as a pleasure railway, transporting visitors around the sights, as well as serving the estate sawmill and stables. It takes in such features as the Temple of Bacchus and the Cascades, that were created by ‘Incapable’ Green, and uses some of the modified landscape features, such as the semi-derelict ha ha at Temple Halt, for the trackbed. A wooden loco shed has been constructed in the stable yard, using timber from the estate. This required the demolition of a portion of the stable yard wall, much to the disgust of head groom Arthur Biscuit.

The railway has three staff, - two drivers, Harry Ramsden and J D Wetherspoon, and a mechanic -  Arthur Biscuit’s son Garibaldi (known as Gari). Rolling stock consists of a loco named after Sir Sebastian’s tracker Kaffie, four 4-wheel 4-seater carriages and two open wagons, all constructed at the Eaton Hall workshops. The BHR has attracted interest both in Britain and on the Continent, and has many visitors. Sir Macintosh and Lady Frideswide (known as ‘Fries’ in the family) enjoy showing the railway and estate to the visitors, their hospitality is renowned, and their generosity is much appreciated in the local village of Much Bowsting. Sir Macintosh has the advowson[7] of the churches of St Lawrence and St Arbux, and has recently arranged for the living to be granted to the Reverend Duncan Donats, a graduate from his old college.

There may be more

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance_man

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_gold_rushes

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boscombe_Valley_Mystery

4. http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/climate/1850_1899.htm

5.http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/oxford/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8403000/8403977.stm

6. One for the Perry Mason fans.

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advowson 

Page Created  20 December 2020 Last edited 3 March 2023