St Katherine Square Diorama
By Dave Burnett
“My name is Dave Burnett, and I am a volunteer at the Lower Laing Museum. I was first inspired by the list of Newburgh shops which was put together by my fellow volunteer, Sandra Carstairs. One shop’s address on that list really intrigued me – “The Cross, Newburgh”.
From past experience I knew that any town which had a marketplace would also have had a Mercat cross. I started going through the 19th Century book “Lindores Abbey and its Burgh of Newburgh” by Alexander Laing to see if I could find any evidence of Market Cross. Many hours later I found it.
In 1832 a Mercat Cross had been demolished along with the original St. Katherine’s Chapel, to make room for the building of a new church. The Mercat Cross had been built in the 15th century and the chapel in the early 16th century. Laing’s book stated that the original chapel had been mostly built of red sandstone, with a grey slated roof and it had a belfry at the west side. There were fleshers of butchers shops standing in front of the chapel and the Mercat Cross stood at the east side of those shops.
I began to image what it would have looked like 200 years ago and made a rough sketch of the scene. It was then that I decided to make a model of the old chapel. Having as a youngster done some railway modelling, I was off to a good start. Once I had made the chapel, I decided to make the other buildings which were described in the book. There was no stopping me – the Diorama was born. Every week I created another building made from bits of cardboard, wooden coffee stirrers, straws, cocktail sticks etc! I made the layout to “O” gauge scale in model railway terms (7mm to a foot). When I had finished the scenery, I then painted the figures. I couldn’t source any figures of the 1820s period, so my people are dressed in the fashion around 50 years later than the scene.
It took me six months to finish the Diorama and for me it was a wonderful experience creating this model layout”
The Diorama is on permanent display in the Lower Laing Museum, do come and visit.
