A FINELY DETAILED AND WELL-PRESENTED 1:64 SCALE BUILDER'S ST...

Estimate

£6,000 - £8,000

A FINELY DETAILED AND WELL-PRESENTED 1:64 SCALE BUILDER'S STYLE MODEL FOR THE 'DEVONSHIRE'-CLASS ARMOURED CRUISER H.M.S. HAMPSHIRE [1903]

the 84in. laminated and carved hull with bilge keels, twin propellers and ram bow, oxidised brass anchors and chain, portholes with rigols, sponson guns mounted in barbets, silver wire deck rails, planked wooden decks with fittings including main and secondary armament, glazed bridge with binnacle over, searchlights, stayed funnels with safety valve extension pipes, numerous fully fitted boats and davits, masts with yards and signal lanyards, and much other fine detail, mounted on four turned columns to wooden display base with name and historical plate with glass cover -- 29½ x 91 x 17½in. (75 x 231 x 44.5cm.)

H.M.S. Hampshire was an armoured cruiser built at Tyneside in 1908. Departing from Scapa Flow in poor weather at 4.45pm on the 5th June 1916, she rendezvoused with escort destroyers which, now in dreadful conditions, were sent back. Aboard was Lord Kitchener and staff whom the British Government had entrusted on a secret mission to discuss the financial and material difficulties of Russia with the Tsar. At 7.40pm Hampshire hit a minefield laid by U-75 a few days before and took less than fifteen minutes to sink. It was impossible to launch any boats and one warrant officer and thirteen men clinging to a raft were washed up on the coast of Marwick Head the next morning, of these two died almost immediately.