Pendon is an unusual museum since nearly everything on show was made by the fine modellers who are still creating the main exhibit! This is the vast model landscape representing the Vale of White Horse (the area to the north of the Berkshire Downs, which ar dominated by the fascinating ancien representation of a horse cut in the Downland turf 3,000 years ago. ) But when you arrive at the museum, the first model yo encounter is one Pendon did no make - it is John Ahern s famous model landscape, the Madder Valley THE MADDER VALLEY Ifyou have ever attended a model railway exhibition you will have seen wonderful representations of real o r imaginary places, where model trains run through scenery John Ahern was the pioneer of thi s combination of railway and scenery In his flat in London, from about 1935, he began to create wha became his Madder Valley layout .

Until he created this, model railways were usually put away when the game was over. John decided t make a landscape to contain hi s trains so that they would not have t be put away.

In doing this, he set a fashion fo r scenic model railways which is still with us, inspired by the magazine articles and books wrote as he developed his landscape.

Many people now use Hornb y trains or make their own trains to fi t the landscape they create, whic they take to show at exhibitions.

John Ahern travelled the country picking buildings to copy, so the Madder Valley is a mixture of buildings, which make a fascinating series of small communities.

When John died in 1960, hi s widow gave the model landscape t Pendon Museum. The Madde r Valley is fragile and is run only three times a year to preserve it as long a s possible.During 2008 it will b running on February 2, June 15 and November 15.

THE DARTMOOR SCENE Before Pendon opened in 1954 there was nowhere where Roy England, one of the founders of the museum, could begin to create hi s dream, a model landscape of the Vale of White Horse.

He met Guy Williams, who made wonderful model locomotives, and together they created Pendon Museum.

Roye asked Guy to design him a track to run the locos he had made.

Guy made a model wooden Viaduct based on those which Isambar Kingdom Brunel had designed t cope with the valleys of Cornwall.

This meant Pendon s first scene had to be set in the West Country Dartmoor was chosen so that only a few model buildings needed to b built, allowing Guy and Roye mor time to spare for the Vale models.

The Dartmoor scene continued t be developed up to 1980. The hand-made model trains ar operated in two sequences, based upon a holiday weekend and a normal working day in 1930.

THE VALE OF WHITE HORSE LANDSCAPE When the present museum building was built, Roye had at last somewhere to create his intended model landscape, with building s copied from the villages of the Vale as he had first found them in the 1920s, when as a young man he arrived from Australia.

He was intent on depicting the way the village people lived thei r lives. He contrasted the high technology of the time, the Castle and King class locomotives on the Great Western Railway, thundering through the Vale, with the old-fashioned way of life in the villages. 1920s country people hardly ever left their villages. The majority of the men worked on the land, or carried on trades associated with the land, with a few employed by the railway. They grew their ow food in their gardens, while some raised chickens or pigs.

This way of life is depicted around the model buildings that for Pendon Parva, which is on a hill representing the Berkshire Downs.

In the Vale below, the countryside isdepicted with GWR trains running through it. Currently this landscape is about 60 per cent complete, and trains run on only one of the three of the lines - Paddington to Oxford.

Ten model trains are controlled automatically. On the first Sunday of most months, the landscape modellers occupy the spac between the Oxford and Bristol line s to demonstrate their skills in making trees, grass and modelling othe r aspects of the Oxfordshir countryside.

10:11am Tuesday 29th January 2008

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