iamtimbo

About


Co-founder of Our Town Story. If you have any questions about the site, or wish to provide feedback, please visit the Admin forum and post in the appropriate place - we'll do our best to help you out as quickly as we can!

We really want Our Town Story to be an album for your old photos, to fill in the gaps in the history books of our villages, towns and cities. We would also love for those pictures to be able to help others - for instance by using reminiscence therapy in treating dementia

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Wimborne Model Town (1960)


Category: Entertainment
Duration: 00:02:19
Description:
M/S of a street in the town of Wimborne in Dorset; a row of shops is seen including the Corfe Mullen Dairy as a man walks past. High angle M/S of the same street, tilt up to show we are in the model village of Wimborne as we see people in the background walking about the model buildings.

M/S of another part of the model town where many people are wandering about; the real Cathedral is seen in the background; the model Cathedral is at the right of shot. Various M/Ss of visitors (and a rather reluctant dog on a lead) looking round the model town.

M/S of the real King's Head Hotel; partly covered with ivy; cut to M/S of the model hotel as an elderly man enters pic and starts to trim the tufty ivy covering it. M/S of a boy looking at one of the model buildings; pan left to in C/U two shop windows; an upholsters' and a clock shop, complete with tiny model goods inside. Commentator says "This town-within-a-town is the brainchild of Mr C A Coffen, of Ferndown, and cost £10,000.

C/U of the clock shop as a broom comes into shot and sweeps along the pavement; M/S of Harold Stroud "who acts as gardener, maintenance man, road sweeper and window cleaner", as he sweeps the streets of the model town. We also see him cleaning the windows and then a church pew from the Cathedral in a greenhouse. He climbs inside the Cathedral to replace it as some elderly ladies sitting on a bench watch.

Panning M/S of the village; possibly the view from the Cathedral (?). M/Ss of children looking at the model buildings; then M/S taken from the height of the first floor windows of the model shops as the camera tracks along and stops outside Top and Boleen's Wallpaper shop.
iamtimbo
@iamtimbo on 11 Jul 2015 10:57:26

I suppose it would have been in about 1990, when the new site for the model town was found, and friend and I volunteered to help to rebuild it. 

I remember turning up first thing on a freezing, foggy Saturday morning in what was pretty much a muddy field, and after much wailing and gnashing of teeth with plans and datums, starting to cement together the buildings in the Cornmarket.

All the buildings were stacked as loose groups of walls, so even finding all the right bits of the same building was quite a challenge....