- 11 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00They say it's the little things that mean the most and in this series we're taking that to heart.
00:09We're stepping into a world where cherished places from the past are brought back to life in miniature.
00:16It's like being detectives isn't it?
00:18From family homes.
00:20I just miss it so much.
00:22To grand public buildings.
00:24This building was so magnificent.
00:27I found my identity there.
00:29Each tiny model tells a big story.
00:32It's a beautiful project because it's all about love.
00:36The craft and skill of our team of miniaturists.
00:39I'll make it happen.
00:40Perfect.
00:42Shines through in every delicate detail.
00:46Oh it's fabulous.
00:50Oh my goodness I don't believe this.
00:54That's beautiful.
00:57And while our models may be tiny, the memories they stir are immense.
01:03Welcome to the marvellous miniature workshop.
01:06The team are back with tiny tools and big ambitions.
01:21And this time they're recreating a place built on hard graft and skillful craft.
01:27Some workplaces are more than just jobs.
01:33They are where skills are handed down and traditions begin.
01:37But can all these ingredients really be baked into one little miniature?
01:42Today we're joined by master baker Stephen from Hemel Hempstead.
01:47Over the next few weeks we'll be rising to the challenge and capturing a special slice of his family's past.
01:54Now gone but not forgotten.
01:57Stephen, welcome.
02:06Hello Sarah.
02:07Nice to see you mate.
02:09Welcome to our little workshop.
02:10What brings you here today?
02:12I'd like a model made of my bakery, Mansbridge Bakers.
02:15Have they explained to you that you'll have to pay me in cake?
02:18Not yet they haven't.
02:19Okay, we'll work out a deal.
02:20Come and meet our miniaturist.
02:21He's called Lee and he's brilliant.
02:23Rolling up his sleeves for this tasty challenge is masterful miniaturist Lee.
02:36Hello.
02:37Stephen, my tummy is rumbling in anticipation already before we talk about this fantastic bakery of yours.
02:45Tell us everything we need to know.
02:47What's its name and where is it?
02:49Well it's Mansbridge Bakers and it's in a village called Boxmore which is Hemel Hempstead.
02:54It started in 1885.
02:561885 and by relatives of yours?
02:59Yeah, I'm fourth generation so.
03:01Okay, so great, great, great, great.
03:05Yes.
03:06They were all great.
03:07They were all equally great, okay.
03:08My dad and my uncle and my aunt were all born at the bakery, above the bakery.
03:12I met my wife there and she was a Saturday girl.
03:15So really this building is sort of imbued with your family for generations.
03:21Oh yes, definitely, yeah.
03:22And how old were you when you started to learn the trade?
03:24I used to go in there from the age of eight with my dad.
03:26I loved going in with him.
03:27I was always pestering him if I could go in with him and help him.
03:30I'd love to see a photo of you at this time.
03:32Come on, let's have a look.
03:33People keep telling me it's cute.
03:34You're cute there Steven, come on.
03:37Look at that cheeky chops.
03:39I used to go out with my uncle, my uncle David, on the round when I was quite young.
03:43We were one of the last companies in the country doing door to door with horse carts.
03:48It was fun, fun times.
03:50This is my mum and dad.
03:51Yeah.
03:52Outside the shop.
03:53That was our 100th year anniversary.
03:55That picture was taken.
03:57It's a great picture.
03:58Reg and Paulie, they were both characters.
04:01They knew everybody in the village.
04:03Is that Reg there again?
04:05Yeah, that oven was never off in my whole life.
04:09We were baking, it was never off.
04:11I get the feeling that you're very much your father's son.
04:14Oh, definitely, yeah.
04:15He loved making bread, I love making bread.
04:18When did you actually take over the bakery from your parents?
04:21My parents died within four months of each other.
04:24Had never been apart since having married, really.
04:27It wasn't easy, I must admit.
04:29You must have been in the very depths of grief and then suddenly having to run this business.
04:34Yeah, it was hard, but you can't just say we can't do it anymore.
04:39You've got to carry on.
04:40So, Stephen, what would it mean to you to have a miniature model of Mansbridge Bakery?
04:46I suppose it would sort of bring my mum and dad back a bit.
04:49Just something for me to look at and remember them by, really.
04:54And take you back to that time when you were there.
04:56Yeah, definitely.
04:57And so, the outside of the Bakers, what does that look like?
05:01So, this would have been what it would have originally looked like.
05:04Oh, look at this.
05:06That would have been in the 1890s.
05:09Mansbridge Bakers was originally a simple two-up, two-down Victorian terraced house.
05:16In 1885, Stephen's great-great-grandparents turned the front room into a shop and used the back room and the outbuildings to bake bread.
05:26Interesting.
05:27And is the front here, is that pebbled ashed?
05:30Yes, it still is.
05:31Yeah.
05:32Still pebbled ashed now.
05:33Still pebbled ashed, yeah.
05:34So, is this as you remember it when you were growing up?
05:37No, I don't really remember it as the sash windows.
05:39It changed to the bow windows.
05:41And so, how do you feel when you look at this, Lee, with the pebbled ash?
05:44Pebbled ash must be hard.
05:45Pebbled ash.
05:46Well, yeah, it is recreating in miniature, but it's not impossible.
05:49So, you know, it's a great challenge.
05:50Yeah.
05:51I mean, my task is to try and create something that evokes a memory in Stephen there.
05:57And although this is a great picture, that's not the era that Stephen remembers.
06:02So, it needs a little bit of research to come forward a few years.
06:06So, are you hoping to go somewhere between 1895 and the 1980s, maybe?
06:11Yeah.
06:12So, recreating this little shop awning.
06:14Yeah, the little candy stripe.
06:16Yeah.
06:17What colour was that?
06:18I think green and white.
06:21Dad loved green.
06:22If you stood still, you got painted green.
06:24So, are we going to have things in the window?
06:27I'm going to have a crack at some little tiny pastries.
06:30Yeah.
06:31Will we have to eat some as research?
06:32Yes, we will.
06:33Research, research.
06:34Very important.
06:35Well, what a delightfully delicious challenge you've got here, Lee.
06:38How are you feeling about it?
06:39I'm feeling confident.
06:40Good luck.
06:48Lee gets straight to work sketching out his plans for the model.
06:55So, I'm going to focus on the shop part of the bakery.
06:59This is where the business started four generations ago.
07:02I think it's great that it's been handed down to the generations.
07:05This is the building that Stephen will remember from when he took over the business and from back when he was a child, when his parents had it.
07:13There are a few challenges.
07:14This is the best photograph that we've got, but I know it's old.
07:18It's an old reference picture and there have been certain changes.
07:21Notably, the window has changed to when Stephen had it.
07:25So, the window that I'll be making will be a bow window with some nice Georgian panes.
07:31It's going to be a nice little cute model, I think.
07:34First, Lee laser cuts walls and glues them together.
07:39The side elevation has a finely etched brickwork pattern.
07:44Lee's model will be 50 times smaller than the real bakery, which means the whole thing is only 14 centimetres high.
07:54So, that's going to be quite cool, I think.
07:57Next, he needs to make the window and door lintels.
08:01They're cut from thin laser board and glued carefully into place.
08:07He paints the back of the building white, but before he can do the same to the front, he needs to create a pebble dash effect.
08:15So, he covers it in adhesive before sieving tiling grout over the top.
08:22Yeah, it's quite an important part of the model, I feel.
08:26Once dry, the pebble dash texture is also painted white.
08:32To make authentic-looking Victorian sash windows, Lee layers up tiny pieces of extra-thin laser board, gluing them together carefully.
08:42It's quite a delicate piece.
08:44The bakery had three doors, all of them different.
08:48Lee has designed and laser cut different elements of the doors in layers.
08:53He glues them together to give a three-dimensional panel effect.
08:58The back and side doors are painted in Stephen's father's favourite shade of green, a personal detail that bakes memory right into the model.
09:11The glazed shop door gets a minuscule handle made from jewellery wire, carefully curved, cut and glued into place with tweezers and a very steady hand.
09:25That'll add a nice little detail.
09:30On the side elevation, Lee adds a cream base coat, then gently sponges the whole thing a deep red, to give it a weathered brick texture.
09:40Finally, he hand paints the lintels to resemble aged concrete, creating a wall that looks like it's stood for a century.
09:49I can't wait to see what he thinks about that.
10:02Stephen still lives next door to his family bakery in Hemel Hempstead.
10:07This is the bakery.
10:10Got your sign above there.
10:12And then we've got the Hovis sign.
10:14Lots of people call it the Hovis shop.
10:16This is a new window.
10:18We had a funny shaped window in the front, which had all the cakes in, sort of like jam donuts, ice buns, all that sort of stuff.
10:29But sadly, these days, the window is empty.
10:33None of my kids were interested in coming into the business.
10:39They've got other things they wanted to do.
10:42The building needed a lot of money spending on it.
10:45And there's only so much you can charge for a loaf of bread.
10:48It's not easy to make money these days.
10:52And I think if you speak to anybody in business, they'll tell you exactly the same.
10:57Reluctantly, after 128 years of trading, Stephen had to face a painful reality.
11:04It was the 21st of November, 2013.
11:10That was the last day that we traded.
11:12My whole life was the bakery.
11:14So it took me two years to decide to close the business.
11:18That was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make.
11:21Because, obviously, I'm the fourth generation and I will be known as that one in the family that's closed the business down.
11:27Napoleon once called us a nation of shopkeepers.
11:34And while he meant it as an insult, he wasn't entirely wrong.
11:38Britain thrived on butchers, bakers and candlestick makers holding our high streets together.
11:43But today, many of those proud independents are fighting a losing battle against giant supermarkets, big chains and the ease of online shopping.
11:54In fact, last year, the UK lost an average of 37 shops every single day, with independent stores hit hardest.
12:03Mansbridge Bakery is not alone.
12:08My father would have been sad for us to close the business if he'd still been here.
12:11I felt responsible that I was going to be that one person, that one generation that couldn't take it any further forward.
12:21Stephen's now converting the building into flats.
12:25But everywhere he looks, there are memories of the past.
12:29The horse would be down here, waiting for the bread to be loaded from the bakery.
12:35And if you weren't quick enough, the horse would try and get in the bakery to get the chocolate.
12:43This is the original part of the bakery.
12:46I hate to think how many millions of loaves, rolls and everything's been made in here in its lifetime.
12:53Unbelievable.
12:55The building is part of who I am.
12:59It's made me, for good or for bad.
13:04So having a model of Mansbridge Bakery at its peak would mean so much to me to keep the history alive.
13:09So there's lots of good memories there.
13:12Luckily for Stephen, Lee is on the case, restoring the bakery to its former glory in miniature.
13:31He's cleverly designed and laser cut corrugated strips of MDF.
13:38They're stained brown and laid one by one to create a tile effect on the roof.
13:44Lee carefully paints the roof tiles a rich brown and then skillfully ages them with a thinned black oil paint to capture the weathered character of the bakery's long history.
13:57Lee fits the sash windows into place and then adds the glazed shop doorway before turning his attention to the most striking aspect of the facade.
14:10We want to make it as Stephen remembers it, so it has to be the lovely bow window with the wooden panes.
14:17At some stage in the bakery's history, the plain bay window of the Victorian terrace was replaced with a bigger bow window to create the feel of a shop front.
14:29The window here is featured in the photograph that Stephen supplied that had his mother and father in it.
14:36So it would have been the one when he was younger, when he remembered the business as it was.
14:40But making a curved bow shape at this scale is not easy.
14:44So the laser cut piece is the paned window frame.
14:48It's quite a delicate piece, so we need to get the curve looking right.
14:51It's 0.5mm thick, so it's really testing the limits of the cutter.
14:56And if I try and bend it, it'll break.
14:59So to get that perfect curve, I'm going to dip it in some water and then wait for the water to soak into the wood.
15:05And then what I'm going to do is wrap it around a plastic bottle, take it onto the plastic bottle and wait for it to dry.
15:09Once it's dried, it should form a nice natural looking curve.
15:15An hour later, the curve has been created.
15:20Lee adds tiny sills to the top and bottom and the window is primed and painted.
15:26But now he's built it, he has to fill it.
15:29What I'm going to do is put a range of confectionery and some loaves of bread in the window to make it look like a shop.
15:37A nice little detail to show up in the window.
15:41He's a baker, he needs to have bread.
15:43To create white bread, he cuts a strip of foam into minute oblongs and squeezes one side with tweezers to produce the classic fresh baked shape.
15:55Lee's little loaves have a crusty history behind them.
15:59Back in Tudor times, only the nobility ate white bread as it wasted more grain.
16:04And in 1666, a blazing baker's oven was blamed for the Great Fire of London.
16:12Talk about a recipe for disaster.
16:15In 1928, the first automatic bread slicing machine revolutionised breakfast time and was the best thing since, well, sliced bread.
16:25In wartime, everyone had to chew their way through the National Loaf, a dense brown bread born of rationing.
16:35Let's hope Lee's wares have a bit more tasty.
16:39The bow window would have had the display of cakes and bread for everyone to see in their lovely wares.
16:46It's quite an important part of the model, I feel.
16:49Lee makes tiny clay buns with a shiny gloss paint for icing.
16:53Then, with the little loaves and buns added, he carefully fits the bow window.
17:01It makes it look like a shop.
17:02Lee's determined to make the upper crust of miniature masterpieces, so time for me to find out if we need any more ingredients for the perfect model.
17:19I've arranged to meet Stephen's Uncle David.
17:27Well, hello, you must be David. Nice to meet you.
17:30And you.
17:31I know I've definitely got the right chat because you look just like your nephew Stephen.
17:34Yeah, people say I look like him.
17:36Yes.
17:37I don't know if I do or I don't.
17:38Well, you do.
17:39He's got his good looks off you.
17:41Devilishly handsome, obviously.
17:43Yeah, I don't know about that.
17:44So, let's chat about this miniature model then of the bakery.
17:48Right.
17:49Obviously, it's got to be spot on.
17:51Right.
17:52It's got to be perfect.
17:53Now, Lee, our miniaturist, has sent me to get all your memories so we can build this little model.
17:58So, the whole family tree was there at the bakery?
18:00It was.
18:01I was born at the bakery.
18:02When did you start working at the bakery?
18:04Well, I used to do mostly delivery when I was about seven or eight and then just used to help my father on the round and carried on from there.
18:13Wow.
18:14We delivered the bread with a horse and cart which we carried on with for a long time and most of the customers thought as much of the horse as they did having the bread delivered.
18:24And on a busy day, how many would you be delivered?
18:26Probably 300 houses.
18:28What, in a day?
18:29Yeah.
18:30God.
18:31Wow.
18:32So, a busy life being a baker and Stephen got on board when he was a young lad, didn't he?
18:37Yeah, he used to come on the cart with us, yes.
18:39What are your memories of Stephen at that time?
18:41Was he a good lad?
18:42He was, you know, dedicated.
18:44Like, Stephen was what you call a proper baker.
18:47He just had it in his blood?
18:48He had it in his blood, yes.
18:49Yeah, yeah.
18:50Some people have and some haven't.
18:51I've got a photo here of the vehicle that Stephen used to help me on the baker's round with.
18:55So, who's driving the horse here?
18:57Me.
18:58Oh, is that you?
18:59Yeah, I'm driving it.
19:00Oh, very cool there.
19:01Yeah, yeah.
19:02I was young and...
19:03Yeah, dashing.
19:04Dashing, yeah.
19:05Dashing somewhere.
19:06This is Charlie.
19:07Yeah, he was one of the favourite horses.
19:09He was dedicated to the job, yes.
19:12There wasn't many like him, really.
19:14He's gorgeous, isn't he?
19:16I mean, in 63, when we had the terrible winter, we went round every day when the snow was two-foot.
19:24It was half way up the horse's legs, but we didn't let anybody down.
19:27Yeah, it was a different way of life, but that's the days gone by.
19:32Lovely, they'll bring them back.
19:34Yes.
19:35So, David, are you thinking what I'm thinking here?
19:37Probably.
19:38I think this has got to be included in the build, do you?
19:41Yes.
19:42Well, it was part of the bakery.
19:43I mean, everybody talked about the Aussie cart as much as the bakery.
19:46And for Stephen as well, this will be a big part of his childhood memories.
19:49This will bring back memories for Stephen and all the family to look at.
19:55OK, so this is a cracking photo.
19:57Have you got anything else that'll help with the detail and the colour of the actual...?
20:01Yeah, this one here.
20:02I've still got the vehicle in my garage.
20:04Oh, lovely.
20:05And it's still in very good condition.
20:07This is going to be so helpful for Lee, who's going to be making the model.
20:11Right.
20:12Because these colours are beautiful, aren't they?
20:13Yes, yes.
20:14The model of the bakery wouldn't be any good without the vehicle as well.
20:18It all matches up with what you're trying to do.
20:21So it'd bring everything back to reality as it was.
20:24It would be nice to see it all, you know, come back to life, like...
20:28Yeah, beautiful. Can't wait.
20:31Back in the workshop, Lee loses no time adding this new equestrian ingredient to his bakery model.
20:44I've never made a horse and cart before. No.
20:47It's going to be interesting to see how I approach this.
20:51Lee makes the cart by painstakingly gluing pieces of laser-cut MDF into shape.
20:58He's baked in every detail of the horse-drawn vehicle, from the standing platform to the crimson colour.
21:06Uncle David has actually given us some additional photographs which show that it's a nice red colour in reality.
21:13So that is what I'm doing right now.
21:17The whole cart was a deep, deep red colour with gold lettering saying Mansbridge is bread, which is quite a tongue twister.
21:27The cart takes Lee four hours. The Mansbridge Bakery logo is carefully hand-painted onto its side, and then a tiny axle made from slim polystyrene rod and laser-cut wheels are fitted.
21:42Something to remind Stephen of all those years doing morning deliveries.
21:46The horse and cart will add a nice little detail. The one he's not expecting, so I can't wait to see what he thinks about that.
21:53Next, for the shop awning, Lee makes a frame out of thin strips of laser-board, then glues a printed copy of the green and white striped hood into the curve across it.
22:05Then he fits the whole thing into place above the bow window.
22:10He builds the low wall for the front garden with laser-etched brickwork on the sides and a capping detail to create 3D depth.
22:20Bricks are hand-painted and aged individually in different shades.
22:27He creates tiny pieces of moss, made from old kitchen sponges, chopped up in a blender and stained green, and then adds them to the base of the wall.
22:39Then the wall is fitted into place. It's the very same one where Stephen's parents once leaned, caught in a family photo during the bakery's 100th birthday celebration.
22:52Next, the original Hovis sign, part of the building since the 19th century.
22:58It does hold special significance for the bakery.
23:01It's recreated from thin card with raised letters glued meticulously into place, and delicately painted in green and gold.
23:13It's the first thing you see when you come down the street. There's a great big Hovis sign which people recognise, and even though the business is now gone, it's still there, and I think it's a great thing to focus on.
23:25And last but not least, Mansbridge Baker's very own wooden sign, proudly displaying the family name.
23:34Lee sticks a tiny scaled down photo of the real thing onto a piece of card, before cutting the unique shape with a sharp scalpel.
23:43Finally, it's glued into place below the moss-covered roof, the icing on the cake.
23:50It's the part of the building that's the most iconic, so I just want it to look spot on.
24:03It's been a month since Stephen first came to us, hoping for a model of his precious family bakery.
24:11How are you feeling, Lee?
24:13I'm nervous. Yeah, I'm all right.
24:16And now it's time to see if Lee's miniature has risen to the occasion.
24:22Stephen, hello. Hello.
24:23Come here, fella. Nice to see you.
24:25And you. How are you doing?
24:26Not too bad, thank you. Yeah.
24:27Good to see you, Stephen. Hello, Lee.
24:28All right, nice to see you again.
24:30So how are you feeling about seeing the model for the very first time?
24:33Just intrigued, excited.
24:35And Lee, for you, what have been the challenges about this build?
24:39So with the weight of four generations of bakers behind me, it was very challenging to make sure I got it right.
24:44Well, hopefully we're going to bring Mansbridge bakers back to life.
24:47Okay.
24:48Are we ready? Yes.
24:49V, two, one.
24:51Wow.
24:52It's small but perfectly formed.
24:58Lee's miniature masterpiece is our smallest model yet.
25:03Complete with pebble dash texture walls, a green striped awning, and the proud Mansbridge bakery sign, you can almost smell the fresh bread.
25:13It's brilliant.
25:14It's brilliant, really. You know, you can't fault it.
25:17If it was a cake.
25:18Yeah, you'd be scared to cut it.
25:20Is it cake? Is it real?
25:21Wrong show.
25:23Oh, right.
25:24Please don't try and slice into it.
25:26The Hovis sign and scarlet horse cart have been perfectly recreated down to the last brushstroke.
25:34Every detail a tiny tribute to Stephen's family business.
25:39Is this from how you remember it as a child?
25:41Yeah, this is how I remember it.
25:42So from sort of 1970s it would have been looking like this?
25:46Yeah, late 70s.
25:48Late 70s.
25:49You're getting younger.
25:50I know.
25:51When was it, 90s?
25:52Brings back memories of being a child with the horse cart there out on the round.
25:57Now I met the formidable Uncle David.
25:59Yes, he's a character.
26:00Yes.
26:01Who told me that Charlie was your favourite.
26:03Charlie was my favourite, yeah.
26:04This is the cart that was used for the deliveries.
26:07Uncle David supplied some photographs so I've painstakingly rebuilt it based off those photographs.
26:12That was a challenge.
26:13Another challenge was the curved bow window.
26:16But with glazing bars just half a millimetre thin, Lee pulled it off with precision.
26:22The bow window there, I mean that doesn't look easy to make, Lee.
26:25It's not at all, no.
26:26The curve is quite tricky to replicate.
26:29You didn't have grey hair before you started making that window, did you?
26:32No, I didn't, no.
26:33What's in there? It's so tiny.
26:34What's in there?
26:35We've got a tiny iced finger.
26:36And we've got a couple of little sort of baked cakes.
26:39And some bread, obviously.
26:41Mansbridge bread.
26:42Fantastic.
26:43I'd love to know how many loaves of bread and cakes have gone through that door.
26:47So much history in one little building.
26:49Yes.
26:50For Stephen, this model is a heartfelt tribute to four generations of family dedication, hard work and craftsmanship.
26:59And most of all, to his beloved parents.
27:02Definitely reminds me of my parents, yeah.
27:04I can just picture my mum and dad there.
27:06So the awning, I think we had that done around about the 80s when it was the 100th year.
27:11And there was a picture of my mum and dad leaning on the wall there.
27:15Do you miss it?
27:16Oh, I miss it, yeah.
27:17I lived right next door to it.
27:18I miss it all the time.
27:19But now you've got it back.
27:20Yes.
27:21Now you've done it justice.
27:24I think my first impressions were how realistic it looked.
27:29Lee's done a very good job of getting the detail of everything there.
27:34Seeing the model, it brought back my mum and dad.
27:37It puts a line under it, I think, in me.
27:40And then as the generations go on, it's something for them to look at and think,
27:44yes, it was a bakery, that was our trade.
27:47And it sort of gives it that false stop at the end of the sentence, really.
27:50Where is this scrumptious little model of Mansbridge Bakers going to live?
27:55Well, it's going to live on the shelf in the house so that the grandson can see it.
27:59And, you know, mum and dad will be looking down on it and be quite proud of it.
28:37Thanks.
28:40Hello, people.
28:41You're welcome.
28:43Bye.
28:54Bye.
28:55Bye.
28:56Hi.
28:58Bye.
29:00Bye.
29:02Bye.
29:03Bye.
Be the first to comment