Train carriage
Category
Toys
Date
Unknown
Materials
Wood, Metal
Measurements
229 mm (H)1295 mm (Length)140 mm (D)
Collection
Snowshill Manor and Garden, Gloucestershire
NT 1338972.3
Summary
First class carriage of wooden toy train. Closed carriage, two doors each side, black roof, blue body, ‘1st N&YR Class’ in yellow on both sides. Yellow inside, split into 2 compartments, in each opposing benches, curtains, luggage guard on roof and seat for guard. Metal rails on top bent. Mounted on base board painted red and blue. Four wooden carriage-style wheels with large hubs on thin metal rods for axles. Staples back and hook front for coupling. In notebook no.5, page 30 (1340945.5) Charles Wade refers to: 'Nursery no.11 Wooden Train c.1850. Engine. Tender. first, second & third coaches. The first class has curtains, there is a luggage guard on the roof & a seat with rails for the Guard. Second has roof but no windows. The Third is quite open. Painted Blue lined in white & lettered N & Y R in yellow. The wheels are of wood painted orange red. The interiors painted canary yellow & orange red. The train is 4ft.4ins. long.' Includes sketches with dimensions. 'There is a shop in Tombland, Norwich, with a bowed Regency door at its angle, kept by one Plowright, a dreamy sort of man. He never knows what he has got. I discovered an interesting toy train hidden away in a drawer, he said it must have been there for 15 years' (CPW, cited by M. Jessup). Only engine and tender shown. Charles Wade includes a pencil sketch of a train in his Yoxford notebook (1340944 SNO.MISC.955) on page 94. He also describes the experience of riding on the G E R in the 1890s
Provenance
Given to the National Trust with Snowshill Manor in 1951 by Charles Paget Wade.
References
Wade, 1944: Charles Paget Wade, Contents of Snowshill Manor. Volume 5 Second Floor, 1944, Page 30