Tuesday 5 August 2008

Wellington

A little distraction last week in the shape of Sir Arthur Wellesley - a.k.a. The Duke of Wellington mounted on his famous chestnut stallion Copenhagen. This is one of the Clayton figures I received a few weeks ago. Once again I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the casting, which was near perfect except for a few pits in the base. It was a new casting that had never been painted before so I could forgo the usual bleaching and scrubbing.

I’m sure that Sir Arthur needs no further introduction from me, as there will be few readers of this blog not familiar with this great British hero. As for Copenhagen, he was apparently a bit of a flop as a racehorse winning only one minor race at Newmarket before being shipped off to Spain in disgrace. Wellington acquired him there in 1813. By all accounts he was a spirited beast who tried to kick the Duke when he dismounted after Waterloo – possibly not too pleased with the dodging the shot and shell aspect of his job. The Duke kept him until his death in 1836 at the age of 28. Interestingly he was buried with full military honours on Wellington’s country estate, not bad going for a horse.

This figure then, is a David Clayton produced version of Hinton Hunt BN250 Duke of Wellington on BNH10 General’s Horse. I mount my General Officers on individual plasti-card bases measuring 20mm x 30mm and add the General’s name on the top of the base as well as full details underneath (see basing). The font I use for the labels is Old English Text MT, which is as close as I could get to the one used in the original Hinton Hunt logo. Click on the image for a closer look at the great man.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent Nosey. These HH figures are much better than i remember - what a shame they are so hard to find at the moment.

Stryker said...

Yes, even though I have obviously always liked the figures I must say that I am also surprised at how good some of them are (some are pretty awful too to be fair). They are hard to find but there is a chance they will make it back into production again one day. Thanks for your comment,

Ian

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Morning Ian

Sir Arthur is a lovely addition to the collection!

Best Regards,

Stokes

rpardo said...

Hey... a great figure! However he's not wearing the red spanish cockade...
Regards
Rafa

Stryker said...

Rafa,

That cockade was actually invented by me. I looked at all my reference books to find a picture of the correct one but they all show the wrong side of the hat. Of course I should have known better than to think I could slip it by your Spanish eyes! If you can point me in the right direction I will happily amend it.

Ian

Anonymous said...

I request please-how about a "Grand Review" picture. Looking at the individual posts you must have quite a sized collection.

Perhaps the Iron Duke could inspect his troops?

Matt

Lovely figure by the way.

Stryker said...

Matt

A good idea - I will try and get all the lads out on the parade ground soon,

Ian