Hornby factory

I've become a little obsessed with the Hornby "Town and Country" range of plastic kit buildings. There are several in my collection and I wouldn't mind picking up the rest. While they were badged Hornby, as Simon Kohler reveals in his blog, manufacture was by the European firm, Pola.
 

A little digging on the web finds that my 50 pence building is from their R281 Industrial Buildings kit. In the box you'd find the "Hornby" building and a modern northlight style structure. While long out of production, unused kits can still be found 2nd hand.

It's an odd beast really. Too small at 21cm by 9cm for an actual building but ideal for many model railways. Possibly the best bet would be to use it as the posh entrance to a much larger warehouse building. Basically, stick it on the front of one of the great big tin sheds that populate the out-of-town industrial parks of the nation.

My model is going to be a tribute to the real Hornby factory in Margate, which they moved out of earlier this year. OK, so the plastic version looks nothing like the real thing, I still think it can be made into a presentable model with some properly applied paint and perhaps better windows. It's better than being thrown away anyway, the normal fate of a model building if no-one will pay 50p for it.