Book celebrating model-maker Cherry Hill launched

Renowned among mechanical engineers, for many decades Cherry Hill has been creating scaled down, fully working versions of traction engines.

A new book celebrating Cherry Hill's life and work, by David Carpenter (pictured above left) was recently launched at the Institution. David is a former engineer and journalist, and is also editor of the Model Engineering website.

One Birdcage Walk is a proud home for several of Cherry’s amazing models and the book is a complete record of every engine she has produced.

David said that working with Cherry (pictured above right) to produce the book Cherry’s Model Engines: The Story of the Remarkable Cherry Hill, was “a delight”. 

He said: “I have known and admired the work of Cherry Hill for many years. It was in 2007, when persuading her to let us show all her models together for the Centenary Model Engineer Exhibition at Ascot racecourse, that the idea for a book first took shape.”

The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs, selected from the thousands that have represented her models over the years. It describes every one of Cherry’s works, explains how she developed as a model engineer from a young age, and reveals how she goes about researching, designing, constructing and painting the models.

Extensive research and meticulous design are the secrets of Cherry’s success. She has created almost 20 models over the 60-year period since her father gave her an old lathe from the workshop of his agricultural machinery business. Each model typically occupies 7,000 hours’ work, and every last part – even tiny chain links – is made in her workshop from metal stock. No parts are bought in.

Once completed, all the models are given away: early ones to friends and family and later ones to the Institution. Cherry is one of only two Companions of the Institution – she has also been rewarded with the highest honours, including nine gold medals, nine Duke of Edinburgh Awards and an MBE from the Queen for services to model engineering.

David commented that he is delighted with the quality of the book and the representation of Cherry’s skill: “If you think that art is applying a creative process to a subject, then what we have here surely is art. Cherry’s models – especially the most recent ones – start with often scant information about the original.

"So they cannot be copies. It also takes some creative ability to produce a model which is often taken further than the original, and made to work, unlike some of the originals. The work really speaks for itself; I hope that the book does it justice.”