The project plan

So just what is all of this stuff supposed to come together as? Well, it will be two buildings on the street, with a coachway leading back to a main yard. Two sides of the yard will have galleried buildings containing more public rooms and bedrooms for the inn.

Then - and this is something that's largely been lost to time at most remaining coaching inns - it leads back through another coachway to a further yard, containing stabling and other buildings. I haven't quite decided how that part is going to come together yet, so there are two possibilities that I'm going to choose from, once I get the whole thing more assembled.

Most of the structures will be kit-bashed to make their openings dollhouse style rather than removable fronts, as there won't be room for some of them to have their fronts opened. I'm hoping to eventually landscape everything and display on a turntable so you can see the details of the different rooms, but there'll also be a lot of details just hidden within, like the shop, where most of what's within won't even be visible once the whole thing is assembled! I'm hoping when it's lit up you'll still be able to peek inside.

You can see something like this layout in the plans of probably the most famous remnant coaching inn around, the George in Southwark. What remains of the George is just a small portion of what was originally a much bigger complex.

You can see some of my inspiration here. I've been looking at a lot of paintings of old inns, to get a sense of what they would have been like. One thing that's always clear is that these were busy, bustling places in their heyday. I want to figure out how I can give my inn that sense.