I can not be sure the portal architecture and construction is accurate to prototype from old monochrome photographs I have seen. When I built the portal on Hewish Gates it seemed to me that the portal was stone work with brick capping. Subsequently I saw a glimpse of one portal in the Clemens colour film 'The Withered Arm' (incorrectly identified by the film narrator as Hewish tunnel). That portal is clearly brick construction with a rough stone arch. That is what I have modelled here on the approach to Misterton Station.
The portal is made from plywood covered in old English brick bond paper that I created on the computer, taking care to include the white mineral leeching from the brick, as the prototype.
The stone arch is Miliput standard grade epoxy putty. I have a love/hate relationship with this product. I find that the initial adhesion is weak but once set hard (after several hours) stays firmly in place. During application excess can be scraped off the brick paper without any marks or damage due to the putty not being wet, like clay products.
The tunnel interior is built at right angles to the portal, which makes for a simple construction, and the part where interference with trains arises is cut away.
This is exactly what I did for the other portal. From the normal viewing position you would never see that it is not a full fabrication.
Landscape is to be created above this and the side will be a removable panel for access.
The back scene is reused from the previous incarnation of this layout where it formed a front scene on this non-scenic bridging baseboard, which is now being landscaped. It has added another dimension to the model giving an impression of more depth than actually exists on the layout.
To Part 41.
To Series Part 1.
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