State visit at Imperial dockyard from Reading Brick Show 2026

[Franco Clarke]

Last weekend was Reading Brick Show, which was the debut of mine and @berninhr's main display for this year. Despite a bit of a last minute rush, everything came together alright. Being a long, thin display, it didn't photograph all that well, so I'll present it in chunks.

Centre stage was @berninhr's first rate, Monarch. These large ships really have a great presence on display, even in a large hall like this.

Bow on, Monarch provides a menacing view. However, all is peaceful for one, with the Emperor of the Redcoats paying a visit.

At the other end of the display was my contribution, an imperial dockyard. This reused a lot of the parts from Toulon in 2024, which helped keep costs down.

Drawing inspiration from the Danish Royal Dockyard, I built a version of the Mastkran to sit on the dockside. In front is an old ship that was looking rather tired - so I chopped it in half.

Making ready for the Emperor's arrival, the Bluecoats put on a parade of troops. 

The wall needs some bigger doors, they can only fit two abreast currently.

At the far end from the Monarch, I put this steam factory. Whilst the machines' designs are a little to modern for the period, steam powered factories did first appear in dockyards during the Nelsonic era.

My main focus for this year's display was motorisation, as this is always very popular with visitors. I have linked at the end a video of everything in motion, which thankfully had no major breakdowns over the weekend. However it did consume an awful lot of batteries.

If anyone is interested in seeing this in person, we're aiming to take this to the Swindon show in October too. If anyone is interested in particular details, let me know, and I will take some close ups.

Edited 1 hour ago by Franco Clarke

[Jack Sassy]

As always, an impressive display! I find the steam factory a particularly pleasing addition. Ye both have managed to masterfully use the given space, especially considering how challeging it can be to work with a narrow display. Astounding work by ye and @berninhr!