Gated Dovecote
(28S-ABP-A03)
28S-APB-A03 is a ‘28Standard’ 4Ground kit, as you would expect it has loads of detail and pre-painted parts.
Doves and Pigeons were farmed for their meat, eggs and feathers, and these farmed birds were housed in dovecotes. Dovecotes like this gated example were sometimes found at the entrance to a range of grange buildings and indicative of the wealth of the Monseigneur who owned the farming estate.
In the middle ages only nobles had the right to have dovecotes, lesser men would have had to ask the permission of their Lord. In time such restrictions lessened and dovecotes became common in the gable ends of rural buildings, above a henhouse, or a kennel, even over a bread oven, or wine cellar. Though always their design and proportion was governed by regional law and customs; and always built to be in proportion to the importance of their owner’s social standing.
Though purpose designed large dovecote were found among the buildings of a grange, over the generations some farms would be made from an old grange complex and so eventually it could be that a simple farm may have a large and impressive dovecote (eg. the farm buildings of La Haye Sainte were built originally as a grange complex, later one of the buildings was altered to become a farm house and the old gated dovecote still remained as the farmyard entrance).
This 4Ground kit has opening and closing doors, and full detail including blown plaster work revealing the brick construction underneath. This model can be used for a game from the 18th Century to the Modern Day.
