Tiny church models

 St Peters Haveringland

I was approached earlier in the year in relation to making some small models of a Norfolk round tower church. The idea was that the model should be composed of blocks, which visitors could assemble to make up the model.

The brief was that the model should be solid oak, but the length should be about 30cm, the rest of the dimensions being in proportion.

I managed to get hold of some plans of the building, and from these made a scale drawing. As a result the design was for an overall length of 33cm, width of 20cm and height of 19cm. 

I made a practice piece of the crossing where 4 roofs met at different pitches and had different ridge heights, this part being one of the more difficult pieces to shape. I then went on to laminate 20mm thick oak boards to form the blocks which would form the bulk of the building and select timber for the tower.

 

 

 

 

 

 Tower

A feature of some Norfolk churches is that they have round towers. As i understand, these towers date from the 11th or 12th century, with the rest of the church dating from the Victorian era.

In the case of St Peters the tower has a circular cross section, but also has a crenelated top which needed to be replicated on the model.

I managed to turn a cylinder on the lathe and ended up with a shape 56mm in diameter. I worked out the circumference and divided it into the required number of peaks and troughs, but because of the difficulty in measuring the crenelations accurately the result was far from satisfactory. I then resorted to O level (GCSE) geometry, repeatedly bisecting angles until the layout was correct. The drawing was transferred to the top of the tower using carbon paper then cut out using a multitool and a very sharp 6mm mortice chisel .

I will post more details of the project as it progresses.