Dioramas at Pendon.

[Noel Smith]

If anyone gets the opportunity and finds themself in the Vale of the White Horse in the Wantage/Faringdon area of Oxfordshire visit the Pendon Museum.

It has a very large centre piece diorama that will definitely not fail to impress. It is a 00 Gauge diorama of what the local area would have looked like back in the early 1900's. The buildings are very highly detailed absolutely exquisite models that showcase the model makers art in that genre as is the general detailing of the in period working railway layout within.

[Pete in Lincs]

I remember going there in or about 1980. It was very impressive. I think there was a huge bridge or viaduct?

[Noel Smith]

Anyone else using this forum visit Pendon?

[MODeller]

I live about a ten minute drive from the museum some of the finest scenic modelling you will ever see the attention to detail is phenomenal! Check out the videos on you tube!

[Jonners]

I'd vaguely heard of Pendon in the dim-and-distant past and, after seeing this thread, I've just had a look at the museum website. The diorama modelling is exquisite; the people who created the scenes were (and I'm sure some still are) masters of their craft. 

Jon

[Malc2]

Its been on my list of places to go for ever.

There was an article about it in Scale Models mag Oct 1985.

Malc.

[Mr T]

Pendon is on my list of places to visit, as it looks amazing. It seems railway modellers regard it as a benchmark for scenery and buildings. 

Just to be pedantic, Pendon it isn't OO gauge, which is 4mm to the foot scale running on 16.5mm gauge track, but is EM, 4mm scale running on originally 18mm, but now 18.2 mm gauge track. 

Historically because of the size of mechanisms, it was difficult to produce models of British locos in HO scale (3.5 scale with 16.5 mm track) because the more restrictive British loading gauges meant smaller locos in real life. OO gauge has stuck commercially in Britain since Hornby introduced Dublo in 1938.

[Paul Thompson]

Thanks for drawing attention to this. Wonderful.

 

Paul.

[Mu17]

Pendon is an unexpected experience. It is truly unique and the area of a barn, with the railway almost lost in the landscape.

In what aircraft modellers consider 1/72 (actually 4mm = 1 ft)  you will see ivy on walls, where each leaf has been punched from tissue paper, birds sitting on garden spade handles.........

Anyone that does dioramas should go there - take your wife or girlfriend but beware..................

The ladies tend to go to Pendon on sufferance but leave completely enthralled. However, their partners often leave as broken men, wondering how on earth they can model to that standard.

Paul

[bigfoot]

Pendon is a great place, I live about 20 minutes from it. My dad used to take me there from time to time as a kid as he is a railway modeller. I used to spend ages looking through all the windows in the houses and finding all the little animals in the trees and fields.

 

I took my own boys (5 and 7) and my FIL there for the first time a few months back and they were enthralled by it and it was enjoyable to me as I remembered it from when I was a kid. The level of detail and story telling is fantastic. My boys even got the behind the scenes experience on the large up stairs layout as we were pretty much the only people in there on that day which they loved.