pucciManuli - A Remarkable Collection

The Swan, inspired by a typical rich merchant’s town house dating back to the 1500s, is a delightful 1:24 scale three-story Tudor town home with a marketplace below that dates back to the 1500s. The elaborate decoration on the front of the building is an indication of the owner’s wealth.  The house is reached, from the open marketplace, by a wooden staircase.  Underneath the staircase is a lock-up, where local market thieves would be incarcerated for the duration of the day if caught in the act.  The outside of the home includes intricately patterned traditional Tudor carvings, wood encased windows to the side, and a beautifully eccentric crooked chimney.  Decorative finials adorn the roof.  Legend has it that these finials were put in place to prevent the devil from sitting on the rooftop and bringing trouble to the house.

As with all Trigger Pond Cottages, the Swan is an original design inspired by the craftsmanship of centuries ago.  The bones of each cottage are made from premium Birch plywood while the decorative carvings come from finely grained soft wood that accurately represents 1:24 scale.  Once completed, all of the floors and exposed woodwork are treated with high-quality beeswax to preserve the natural features of the wood.  Most models come with three electrical circuits that provide hidden lighting, giving each room its overall glow as well as flickering wall candles and burning fires.  And each building comes complete with intricately detailed, leaded light-effect windows, wooden doors with ironwork hinges and doorknobs and an individually tiled red roof typical of the period.

Trigger Pond cottages, pubs and inns are to be admired as much as they are fully functioning dollhouses.  A 1:24 scale, half-timbered English Cottage sitting on a coffee table or displayed on a corner bureau with its lights twinkling in a darkened sitting room is captivating, and evocative of years past.