Building Papelotte in 6mm

This page describes how to build the Farm of Papelotte in 6mm for a Waterloo battle. Irregular Miniatures do very nice La Haie Sainte and Château d'Hougoumont but they don't do the third farm I needed for my Waterloo battlefield; Papelotte. So I had to build one myself.

Description

Like many other farms in the area, including the better know La Haie Sainte, the farm of Papelotte is a typical Brabant farmhouse quadrilateral with buildings arranged around a central courtyard.

The north side of the farm was formed by the huge barn. Stables formed the east side as well as a part on the south side. The rest of the south side was the farmhouse. The west side was formed by a wall containing the main gate. Unlike La Haie Sainte, the main gate was not vaulted. Annexes had been constructed on the inside of this wall. To the south of the farm is the walled garden.

Some of the buildings were destroyed or damaged during the battle. These have been reconstructed. Looking at photos of Papelotte, you need to be careful, because some new buildings were added after 1815.

The wall on the west side was expanded with more stables and a large vaulted main gate. Later still an octagonal tower was built above the main gate. A large annex has been built since 1815 in the southwest corner of the garden wall.

As often in Walloon Brabant, the farm is masonry brick painted lime white. Roofs are covered with slate .

What You Need

I talked to the very helpful Irregular Miniatures and they sent me some "bits". The farmhouse from La Haie Sainte, the north gate and two small sheds from Château d'Hougoumont and the stables from the generic European Farm. This left me without the barn and the southern stables which were made with FIMO Puppen Doll Clay. In addition plasticard was used for the garden walls and gate.

Modelling the Barn and the Southern Stables

The easiest was to do this, is to get hold of a friend with artistic fingers. Cut out the body of the barn and its roof seperatly from the clay. The stable is small enough to be made in one piece.

Use any convenient tool such as an old paintbrush, coctail stick or the GW sculpting tool to model the details of the roof and doors.

Ready for Construction

Built

The Garden

I built the garden seperate, so thet I can decide whether or not it is needed depending on the battlefield. The walls we madr from plasticard. The gate was marked out by scoring lines with aknife and then using a fle to round off the top. Finally gate posts were added with very thin "plasticard" - I used the top of a margerin tub.