pucciManuli - A Remarkable Collection

Cross Keys Inn, inspired by typical coaching inns dating back to the 1600s, is an enchanting 1:24 scale Tudor-style Inn featuring its very own Ale house, market area and coaching entrance.  Guests at Cross Keys enter the inn from the stone staircase located in the stabling area. This staircase leads to the large, oak-stained paneled dinning hall.  After a good meal, guests pass through the door to the outside front balcony to reach one of two guest bedrooms. The remaining rooms at the inn are used by the owners and accessed by the internal gallery in the large hall.

As with all Trigger Pond Cottages, Cross Keys Inn 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.

About Coaching Inns…
Coaching inns were often situated in small towns along many coaching routes.  Since the coach was the only form of public transport prior to the railways, there were many routes throughout the country.  As it was necessary to change and feed the horses en route, inns were created to take care of passengers and horses by supplying food and lodging and stabling for the horses. 

Today some of these inns have been developed into 5-star hotels trading on their connection with historic coaching routes.  Others continue as pubs, while some have been converted into shops.  However, it is always possible to spot these old buildings because they all retain the wide coaching entrance that once gave access to the rear of the inn where stabling or change of horses was available.