This is my latest building for Brettell road and likely to be the last but one physical model building for the layout.  I have plenty more buildings to create yet but as those will be on the backscene they will need to be illustrated instead.

As usual it takes its inspiration from a local structure and this time its the Lion Health building in Stourbridge.  Or at least a bit of it.  Construction is the same as the others featured recently so I wont go over old ground again. Before it was a health centre the Lion Health building was an Ironworks built by Foster, Rastrick and Company in 1821.  John Urpeth Rastrick was originally from Morpeth and had previously constructed an early railway locomotive for Richard Trevithick in 1808. The company would continue to produce steam engines as well as proving machines for chain cable, saws, mills, and boilers. It also produced structural components for buildings, bridges and gas works and in 1825 it listed railway components in a catalogue of products including rail, sleepers and chairs.  Its fourth locomotive, Agenoria, was built for the Earl of Dudley’s railway and it survives to this day at the National Railway Museum.  The company fared far worse than Agenoria and it was officially dissolved on 20 June 1831 and it was absorbed into the Stourbridge Iron Works of John Bradley & Co.  James Foster was already the major partner (John Bradley was his half brother) and after 1832 James became the sole owner.

The site went through several more owners but they kept the name John Bradley & Co. (Stourbridge) Ltd. The first was when, in 1919, the Stourbridge Iron Works were sold to a company owned by Edward J. Taylor and then in the interwar period, N. Hingley & Sons Ltd took over but it still continued to trade under the John Bradley & Co name until 1963. The company was finally wound up in 1966 but the Stourbridge Ironworks continued as a rolling mill within the F.H. Lloyd Group until 1982.  The building became derelict was nearly destroyed completely due to a fire in 2004. In 2012 it was renovated to become Lion Health which opened in 2014.  In 2009 a couple of urban explorers managed to get in and took some pictures, these can be seen here.

What have lions got to do with any of this?

In 1829 Foster, Rastrick and Company built a locomotive for the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company in the USA and this loco, Lion, or rather the Stourbridge Lion is noted to be one of the first foreign built locomotives to be operated in the United States, and one of the first locomotives to ever operate outside Britain. The locomotive performed well in its first test in August 1829 but was found to be too heavy for the track and was never used for its intended purpose of hauling coal trains.  Parts of this locomotive also survive and are on display at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.

A view from the platform.  I think i’ll tone the lighting down a bit more.

The recently completed Hymek trundles past.

Below are a couple of overall layout shots which I think captures the wet look I’m after. The last one from my phone so apologies for the lack of depth of field.