New building - Spanish Granary

Whilst googling for images of Spanish buildings I happened to type in 'barn'. Amongst the pictures was an image of an old Spanish granary. I googled Spanish granary, and found that this style of buildings was not a one off. There are several still in existence and, I presume, they were even more common in times gone by. Rodent proof storage facilities. What a find! 

These granaries come in several varieties. All seem to be built on stone stilts - though these might just be the 'surviving' examples of the basic design, perhaps others were built on wood stilts, though I suspect even these would have capstones between stilt and beam to prevent the entry of rodents (rodents can't hang upside down from stone). 

Some granaries are quite small (like this one) and some are much longer. Although some are square, most are long and thin. Some of the upper structures are stone built and some are made of wood. The larger stone built ones seem to be associated with churches - perhaps, they are Spanish tithe barns. Some are accessed by stone steps that don't quite join the building, others, especially the smaller ones, by ladder.

This model is made from a gabled MDF box clad in balsa wood planks. These were hand cut for thickness so that they look like 'hand sawn planks', with the edges lightly bashed in with the handle of a scalpel to make them look 'rustic'.

The main beams at the base are 4 mm plywood, for strength. The base and cap stones (all of the granaries seem to have flat capstones) are MDF, the ones at the base appliqued with Milliput for that rustic stone slab look.

The pillars are dowel (actually a wooden arrow from a child's bow and arrow set that I've had in my bits box for about six or seven years). I made it look like 'standing stone' pillars with a layer of Milliput - larger dowel could be cut down / shaved with a craft knife for the same effect. Some of the stone pillars I've seen were obviously shaped by a stone mason (some are tall pyramids) but I wanted a continuation of the ragged, rustic look.

The stone steps are 5 mm foam board, as are the enclosure walls. These were 'bricked and plastered' with thick emulsion paint; also used for the basic groundwork. The gate is made from ice lolly stick cut into planks (lollypop sticks are generally made from Baltic Birch; much less fragile than balsa wood - how do I know this crap?). 

Pantiles are Will's plastic sheets for HO railway buildings.

Top tip: Don't stick the walls on before the granary and groundwork (except flocking) are finished and painted. I actually had the forethought to do it this way and it made painting in between the stilts very easy. Before sticking on the surrounding wall I finished it's interior surfaces. The last thing I did was the flocking, which went all round the lower edge of the wall, tied everything together, and hid the join.