Medieval Fortified Village by Ekis - 1/87 scratch base kit Aedes Ars

[Canute]

Superb work, Ekis.

[WalrusGuy]

Awesome!!! 

[Egilman]

Roadhouse at one end, the Cloister at the other, with the Manor House in between.... Reflections of the world in that time...

 

Just perfect......

 

Well done...

[mtaylor]

Jaw droppingly amazing.  Just an incredible build.

[Kevin]

stunning, well done

 

[lmagna]

Amazing seeing this village come together Ekis. Every time I think you have reached the pinnacle you go and prove me wrong by exceeding the building that went before. I will never get tired of following this build. 

[Veszett Roka]

Awesome. The inn is really nice, and now i know the evolution. Sit-in restaurant on front, drive-in takeaway at the rear side

 Simply beautiful.

[Kurt Johnson]

Ekis,  It’s beautiful. How many villagers are required to drag that gigantic coin to all the current work sites? I like the trestle tables, they are very delicate looking.

 

Kurt

 

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by Kurt Johnson

[Waitoa]

Always look at your posts with a mixture of awe and envy, awe as I know that this type of modelling is harder than it looks and envy as I my efforts will not reach the same heights.

[Ekis]

Thanx for all your comments ! ☺️

 

@Waitoa I am sure of the contrary!
You'll see that you will learn a lot as you build. 😃

[popeye the sailor]

I'm glad the houses aren't on the fault line.......

 

no really.......stunning workmanship    very well done!

[Ekis]

I'm building the last block of houses for the center of the village. A long time of carpentry!

 

 

 

But before going any further, I had had an idea for a long time.
We had to look a little more precisely at what it looked like in the 14th. A windmill to create from scratch.
The reason why we hardly have them anymore in France is that they were totally made of wood. There are only a few re-creations left and the stone bases most of the time. I went to search some archives on the net and here is the result :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fnick]

That is soooo cool! And also reminds me of the windmill in sleepy hollow! Lovely carpentry skills!

 

Nick

[Old Collingwood]

Superb work on that Mill.

 

OC.

[Kevin]

lovely work, well done

[lmagna]

As always I am enjoying your creativity and choice of buildings Ekis. By the time you are done this village will be lacking for nothing.

 

I do have one question though. Although I have seen pictures of windmills almost exactly like the one you have build i wonder about it's placement inside the village walls. Would it  more likely be placed outside the walls where the farmer's fields were and save them the longer trip into the village to get their grain ground into flour. Also there would be a steadier and stronger wind available available outside of town.

 

Just a question, you are the expert in these maters not I.

[Waitoa]

Oh no, Another great addition!  Was thinking of something similar but mounting it on the wall.  Before the current war travelled through Syria and spent a few days wandering around Krak de Cheviallers.  There were a number of turrets that I auumed were some type of catapult mounting but turned out to be for windmillls.  I remember there were about 14.

[Ekis]

Thanx all ! 😃
@lmagna You're absolutely right, Lou!
That's why this mill must be placed beyond the cloister and the church (at the very edge of the 3rd base of the model), where the fields begin and where the wind is most favourable for the millstone of this mill... 😉

[Canute]

This is the windmill in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. It's a copy of a 1631 built English windmill.

[Ekis]

@Canute @Waitoa In fact, the construction of mills has changed little over the centuries. In the 14th century, Europeans brought the idea of windmills back from the Middle East after the first crusades. They built them on the citadels of Syria and elsewhere, and then, once back home, all over the countryside and on the walls of large cities (Carcassonne for example).
The only thing that evolved were the stone bases to make them less fragile, and the canvases on the wings when fabric became more common for everything.
Then the Europeans (and therefore carpenters) migrated to America and reproduced the same constructions with the material (wood) they found in abundance . It is not surprising that the mills are the same!  😀

Edited November 29, 2020 by Ekis

[lmagna]

As I said I am no authority on anything medieval, I don't even get to play an authority on TV, but I think I also may have seen somewhere that water powered mills were built into the city walls when the stream or river ran alongside. May have been some kind of Disney fantasy thing from Snow White as well. 

[Ekis]

Water mills were often single buildings outside the walls of a bastide or fortified town.
The reason is simple: more often a fortification was built high up on a hill to protect itself and to see the aggressors from further away... So not very close to the banks of a river.

But you're partly right about some cities that evolved from Roman times to the Middle Ages. The Romans mastered water mills perfectly, of course.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Ekis

[Kurt Johnson]

Ekis, I was waiting for this one and it was well worth the wait.

 

To totally misquote Winston Churchill, this is not the end, It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning. As far as we’re concerned you have a lot more building to do. So you best get busy! You have no one to blame but yourself.  Like in Little Shop of Horrors “ Feed me!” 
( I’m not sure at all if that translates transatlantically.) If that made no sense PM me and I’ll try and explain.

 

At any rate keep up the wonderful work.

 

Kurt

[FriedClams]

Just catching up Ekis and I see the superb work continues.  Your village is coming along beautifully!

 

Gary

[Egilman]

8 hours ago, Ekis said:

In fact, the construction of mills has changed little over the centuries. In the 14th century, Europeans brought the idea of windmills back from the Middle East after the first crusades. They built them on the citadels of Syria and elsewhere, and then, once back home, all over the countryside and on the walls of large cities (Carcassonne for example).
The only thing that evolved were the stone bases to make them less fragile, and the canvases on the wings when fabric became more common for everything.
Then the Europeans (and therefore carpenters) migrated to America and reproduced the same constructions with the material (wood) they found in abundance . It is not surprising that the mills are the same!  😀

The workings haven't changed in centuries, just advanced in materials and design.... somewhere along the way the dutch perfected the method of allowing the wind itself (using sails) to set the angle of the blades to the wind making them, (by rotating the house) much, much, more efficient, and could therefore be built much, much larger on permanent stone bases.... But they are basically the same as these rotating houses on stilts which are rotated by hand....

 

That sir is modeling excellence, especially for a primarily wooden structure..... You scratchbuilding master jedi you.....

 

Impressive....

[Kurt Johnson]

Ekis, I would love to see the mill as a larger, maybe 1:50 scale, stand alone model, with all the stops pulled out. Of course with the lord’s permission when he deems the village is completed to his exacting standards. Maybe he has some connections with the current government to find sufficient monies to fund such a project. He could be a powerful patron. It’s your civic duty to the greater glory of France.  I he won’t help, I’ll have a word with them.

 

Back to reality. Which part gives you more pleasure, the stone work or the carpentry? Or is it just what you happen to be doing at the moment? For me it would be how I would approach the next issue while trying to go to sleep the night before.

 

Regards,

 

Kurt

 

 

 

 

[Ekis]

Thanks Kurt! 😉
I think that after this village is totally finished, I will come back to the boats... Some have been waiting for me for a long time!
 

To answer you about the construction of this village, what I like the most, apart from the vision of the whole, is to take each element, each building, as a whole project and to carry it through to the end having implemented all the ideas!
For each construction, I think about how to build it, the reason of this building in the village, the construction at the time... As individual models, and no matter the materials: only the result counts!

[Kurt Johnson]

Just remember, we’re all supposed to meet at the tavern ( including those rafter hangers ) to celebrate some guy named Ekis and his accomplishments. I hope with all the straw on the floor a fire doesn’t “accidentally” get started. Hopefully no one would be hurt. It could however mean the entire village would have to be rebuilt. 
 

Look at what happened to Chicago in America. I wonder if they would allow a cow into the celebration, they’re letting rafter hangers and I’ve never heard of cows voluntarily hang from rafters.

 

Kurt

 

For those unfamiliar with the story in 1871 Chicago had a terrible fire, destroying most of the city, killing thousands, leaving thousands homeless. Legend has it a Mrs O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern which began the fire. So maybe there should be security at the door checking for cows.

[mtaylor]

Kurt, as one of the rafter sitters, I can firmly state that there are no cows up here.    A few pigeons, a pile of dust bunnies, but no cows.

[Kurt Johnson]

That’s a relief, from what I’ve heard “it's a good thing cows don’t fly, ‘cause the world is full of so much bull, it’s a good thing cows don’t fly!”

 

Sorry, just couldn’t resist that, it took me back to 3rd grade.🤣