Pendon Model Railway Museum Long Witenham Oxfordshire UK
A visit to Pendon Model Railway Museum in Oxfordshire
Not really a model railway but really the most beautiful scenery
with a model train passing through it
Well worth a visit.
HD Second Trip to Pendon Museum, Oxfordshire 16/09/2017 with Madder Valley Railway Running
On the 16th September 2017 I went with some members of the Kingsway Model Railway Society held at the Kingsway Centre, Wellingborough back to the Pendon Museum after 3 years. Here's my first trip from 2014
Pendon Museum, located in Long Wittenham near Didcot, Oxfordshire, England, is a museum that displays scale models, in particular an extremely large scene representing parts of the Vale of White Horse in the 1920s and 1930s. The scene, under construction since the 1950s and with parts dating back earlier, was inspired by extremely detailed research into the architecture and landscape of the vale, with some models of cottages taking hundreds of hours to complete. Founded by the late Roye England, the museum is run by a group of volunteers and is open to the public most weekends and holidays.
The museum was founded by the artist and craftsman Roye England, who was interested in model railways. He observed the destruction and modification of many historic buildings in the area and began to make model representations of them.
Both the main Vale scene and others display working scale model railway scale models of typical scenes on the Great Western Railway (GWR) of the 1920s. The trains are also representative in detail of those travelling that line in those years.
It is not a 'model railway layout' in its usual sense as the trains run at scale speed with a realistic interval between each.
Vale of White Horse
The main display and ongoing project at Pendon is a scale representation of the Vale of White Horse as it was in the inter-war period. The scene is centred on the 'typical' village of Pendon Parva, which is served by a railway station on the main London to Bristol GWR main line that runs through the Vale, and another on the M&SWJR that became one of the constituent companies of the GWR in 1923. The topography and the village layout is fictional, but every building and significant feature is an exact model of a real building from the Vale of White Horse.
Some locos on the layout:
GWR 2900 Class No. 2943 Hampton Court Built in 1912.
GWR 4000 Class No. 4050 Princess Alice Built in 1914.
GWR 2251 Class No. 2253 Built in 1930.
LSWR N15 Class No. 789 Sir Guy Built in 1925.
GWR 3700 Class No. 3705 Mauritius
LSWR S15 class No. 515 Built in 1921.
Dartmoor branch
On the ground floor of the museum, a model representing a Great Western Railway branch line on Dartmoor, originally built in 1955 to showcase the trains being built for the Vale scene, is operated for visitors. The main focus of the Dartmoor scene is a model of Brunel's timber viaduct at Walkham in Devon built by R. Guy Williams, who also built many of the model locomotives at the museum.
Locos on the layout include:
GWR 2900 Class No. 2921 Saint Dunstan Built in 1907.
GWR 2800 Class No. 2844 Built in 1912.
LSWR M7 Class No. 30 Built in 1904
Madder Valley
The museum includes displays of individual models, modelling methods and railway artefacts. The museum also displays Madder Valley, a pioneering model railway built by John Ahern.
A VISIT TO PENDON MUSEUM - 22nd April 2018
A visit to the world famous Pendon Museum at Long Wittenham in Oxfordshire. Established by Roye England, Pendon models faithfully in 4mm scale (1:76 scale) the GWR in 1930, as seen through two world class completely scratch built models: The Dartmoor Branch of Pen Tor Road and The Vale of the White Horse model of Pendon Parva Junction.
Hair Thatching (1958)
Long Wittenham in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire).
Man measures proportions of a dilapidated cottage - its windows are broken. Mr Roye England makes scale models of traditional English cottages that are ready for demolition or just falling to pieces. He is creating a model village.
Mr England is seen working on a model. He uses tweezers to move parts of his model. He uses fine sand from egg timers to represent soil, rubber sponge is used for ivy, card for the buildings, blackbird feathers are used for flowers etc.
Mr England's wife and Wynne Morris turn up and Mr England asks his wife to cut a chunk out of Morris's hair. This will be used in the model to represent thatched roofing.
Mr England has another project which is (surprise, surprise) a model railway. Another man - Guy Williams - is working on this project with him. Mr Williams gives the thumbs up signal to Mr England and he flicks a switch. Various shots of the model railway in operation.
FILM ID:83.04
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HD, Pendon Museum, 14th September 2014
A wonderful trip to a model railway museum in Oxfordshire, fully recommend to any railway enthusiasts, run by some great staff/volunteers who give a wonderful insight and willing to answer any related question etc. They build everything themselves, the rails, trains, each individual brick and slate of a building. It really takes modelling to the extreme, not even I take it this far, but it is good and there are some very talented modellers.
Roye England (1908 - 1995) is the founder.
The layouts seen are
Vale of White Horse
Dartmoor branch
Madder Valley (Only runs occasionally due to old age)
The model trains are hand-built, to represent individual locomotives, carriages and wagons as exactly possible, based on surviving records and photographs. Operation consists of a sequence of trains, showing what one could have seen passing by on a summer day and night, in the mid-1920s. This sequence is based on timetables of the period. They are all modelled in 4mm to 1 foot scale (1:76), and run on track of 18mm gauge, a combination known as EM gauge.Pendon Museum, located in Long Wittenham near Didcot, Oxfordshire, England, displays scale models of typical scenes on the Great Western Railway (GWR) of the 1920s centred on working scale model railways.
A 1920's Oxfordshire Lives On
A volunteer-run attraction in Long Wittenham continues on track in setting out to teach the public about life in the Vale of White Horse district. Miniature models and rainways within the Pendon Museum bring to life the history of the county from decades ago.
Pendon Museum 11 03 2016
A video showing the magnificent models on show at Pendon Museum, Oxfordshire. The Dartmoor Scene shows rural Great Western Railway in the Devon and Cornwall hills in the 1920s. The Vale scene depicts rural Wiltshire and Oxfordshire in the 1930s.
A video by Black and Decker Boy.
Pendon Museum Railway
Museum of model railways, featuring 3 huge layouts and highly detailed! Also very friendly staff!
Long Wittenham angels
Abseiling the John Radcliffe Hospital Tower for IMPS
Long Wittenham's New Forest
A new forest is to be created with 7,500 trees next to the Sylva Wood Centre in Long Wittenham. And a community orchard will be developed where people can bring their apples for juice pressing.
The woodland will be established on land next to the site of a derelict former research farm which is gradually being transformed by the Sylva Foundation. It says the new woodland will help the environment by improving the landscape, wildlife and air quality.
Ringing at Long Wittenham
Wingrave ringing outing to South Oxfordshire. Some of the bells of this six, were not properly in tune... Tenor in Ab
This is o some Called Changes ☺
swcwalks, swcwalk 44, Appleford Circular. 6/6/19.
Thirteen miles (12 'officially') of walking around the Thames Valley village of Appleford, South Oxfordshire.
Having past Appleford's church, the initial walking is alongside fields and the River Thames to Long Wittenham. Then, it's more quiet road walking and field margins to rejoin The Thames Path. Following this through water meadows, and a crossing of the Thames at Day's Lock, the walker soon reaches the attractive village of Dorchester, where lunch is had in the Abbey grounds.
Thereafter, there's another section of riverside walking before the ascent of Wittenham Clumps, which provide some fine views back of the earlier walking. These are former Iron Age hill forts and now managed by the Earth Trust charity.
This is followed by more field-edge walking and an option to finish in Didcot, or Appleford, as desired.
The Appleford version passes the interesting Pendon museum, which houses a number of miniature villages and railways.
A decent day's walking, with good paths and notes. Would be very different in the wetter months though. Quite cattle heavy near the Thames.
The train service to Appleford is very sporadic, so is best done on a week day.
Long Wittenham Thames Flood 3/2007
Pictures of River Thames in flood
Ode to the Thames
Swim in the Thames near Long Wittenham in Oxfordshire
Ode to a River
Thames swim around Long Wittenham - Oxfordshire
Twizz Twangle 'Love is a Raver', Wittstock 20th May 2005.mp4
Lunatic troubador Twizz Twangle with another of his own compositions accomapanied by Nick Clack (drums) and Mark Bosley (bass) from Wittstock Festival 2005. It took place at the Plough, Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire and was organised by Phil Garvey.