ALICE LEWIS LILLIPUT LANE HOME PAGE

I hope you will find something of interest in my World of Lilliput Lane Dreams and perhaps in some little way I can help you to achieve your Dreams.

I am Graham, I also style myself as Graham in the South, for the simple reason their are other Lilliput Lane Cottage addict Grahams who I affectionately refer to as Graham in the North and Graham in the East, saves on confusion and at least in that way I know who I am, if no one else does. You have to be mad to collect little Cottages and I am as mad as they come!!!!!!!

I have been collecting Lilliput Lane Cottage in one form or another for about 15 years, as with all hobbies, it started in a small way, but has grown over the years, becoming an all consuming hobby, although since 2000, we have stopped buying all the new pieces due to cost, ever escalating new introductions and above all a lack of space to display our collection. When we were seriously building our Collection in the early nineties, in those days you could pick up retired pieces and sell on fairly quickly making a profit, which was immediately ploughed back into the Collection. However as time went by, we began to find different colours of the same pieces, our first was Secret Garden, followed quickly by Pargetter's retreat, initially the duplicates were going to be sold on. A few telephone calls, reading the odd books and early Gulliver's World, we soon learned that on at least two occasions David Tate had changed, that was in the days before Worldwide access to the Internet.

As Collectors will know this is the first version of Adobe Village, which forms part of the Roadside American 1984 Series, the collection comprises of 13 items, whilst details are shown for these pieces on my

individual pieces are not shown there for the reason stated. It has taken over ten years to acquire 12 of the 13 in the collection, regrettably I am still missing Covered Bridge. Should any Collector require information on the twelve or pictures, please contact me at the address below.

Prior to the publications which came out from 1996 onwards, I formulated the Chart relating to the 1990 paint change, this was a relatively simple exercise and the baulk of the information established then remains unchanged to this day, having felt that my investigation into that paint change was more or less concluded satisfactorily I began to look back to the 1985 Paint and Medium Change. Little did I realise then, what an immense task that would be, probably with hindsight, I should never have started, but it has been real fun and an education.

However Lilliput in its own way threw up a minor diversion at that time with the 1996 back stamp variation, with and without EEGG, not a major exercise in itself, but again moderately time consuming. Whether I have located all the Variations in this year remains uncertain, as the pieces are not accurately described on the Auctions sites, as the majority of sellers, will not be aware of the difference.

Turning now to the my consuming interest for the past 10 years, the Paint and Medium Change of 1985, the paint changes have been documented fairly extensively and was relatively easy to tabulate around 1997, however even in October 2002, it is still throwing up the unexpected, several variations which have come to light since that time, which are shown below, please use the links below to go to individual pages or the heading above for all cottages:-


*Kentish Oast*
*St Mary's Church*
*The Hermitage*
*April*
*Ostler' Keep*
*Clare Cottage*
Gulliver	Introduced in 1986, it does have two distinct paint variations.

Obviously it is too early to say which pieces will be effected by that change, however it may well be that all the pieces introduced in February and July 1985, will produce examples of paints, for both pre and post 1985.For that very reason the charts will only show the existing cut offs, but anomalies will be shown on this page, with the appropriate links on the other pages, those pieces where a known change exists.

Recent research as late as October 2005, has thrown yet another imponderable into the equation, please use the link above for full research to date. It has long been known that the early pieces from 1982/1985 were seen with different colour dips as shown in The Pocket Guide to Lilliput Lane Cottages, please use the links below.

As recently as April 2006, whilst restoring two early pieces, I noticed that the casting material on one was grey, whilst on the other it was beige. Subsequently I spoke with Viv Marston, co author of the Pocket Guide, who has learned that David Tate was not only experimenting with the casting material used, but also adding dips to the liquid prior to casting, which would be a plausible explanation for some dramatic colour changes I show on my web site. As we know the early records concerning these questions are sketchy and we are very much reliant on the memories of those involved with the company at it embryo stage. I don't believe, that we will ever know which cottages were cast with dip added or which of those were dipped in what colour. So the research will go on , pieces will be added to the list below on there merits.

The following are shown in the PG with colour variations-which I now believe are the result of beige and grey dips:-


Cottage	Version

Anne Hathaway	1-1 and 1-1C1.
Dove Cottage	1-1.
Miners	1-1.
Sussex Mill	0-1 and 0-1C1.

My research suggest that the grey dip examples can be seen in the following:-


Cottage	Version	Cottage	Version

Acorn	1-1.	Honeysuckle	1-1.
April	0-1.	Old Post Office	1-1.
April	1-1.	Oak Lodge	1982-1.*
Croft	1982-1.	Stone	0-2.
Coach House	1-1.	Stone	1-1.
Dale Farm	1-1.	Stone	1982-1.
Dale House	0-1.	Sussex Mill	1-1.
Dove	1-1.	Troutbeck	1983-1.
Draper	1-2.	William Shakespeare	1983-1.
Holly	1-1.	William Shakespeare	1984-1.
Holly	1982-1.	Woodcutter	1-1.

However in a number of cases sellers on E-bay could be forgiven, for selling, what they believe to be unpainted pieces, where in fact the pieces are either of grey dip or have been painted early in the day, before the paints become darker later in the day due to evaporation.

I have also seen a grey dip Coopers, but was out bid on E-bay at the both time!

PLEASE LOOK CLOSELY AT THIS CHART AS YOU WILL FIND LINKS TO PICTURES, WHICH THE KEEN COLLECTOR MAY FIND OF INTEREST

However the medium change is a far more interesting field, to a certain extent it happened purely by chance, when I attended an Auction on the South Coast to find Tintagel, with a label called Tintagel Post Office, did not sell for a great deal. When I got it home, compared it to my original, only to find the following weights for the same model 467grams and 559 grams, what a difference and so was born my research into the medium change. One brief side issue here is the question of labels, which must be an area for research, given the fact that they come hand written, rubber stamp, italic, upper and lower case, upper case and different colours, now there is a challenge for some Muppet, but not this Muppet!!!!!! The same rubber stamp method, can be found on the very early plain white boxes. The cottage industries, David Winter and Lilliput Lane, were both spawned in the very early eighties and pieces in both ranges, have a certain attractive naivety, which to some extent was as a result of the material used for manufacture, Crystacal, this product, was light, brittle and did not lend itself, to the greater definition and details for which David Tate was looking. With this in mind he was constantly experimenting with casting materials, eventually settling for Amorphite, which is still in use today and provides the exquisite detail for which Lilliput Lane are renowned.

It should be remembered that these early pieces, pre 1984 do not come to the market very often and indeed when they do they are contested fiercely on a world wide basis. It is therefore becoming increasingly difficult to continue research in this field. It does however provide a great buzz, when something comes to hand. At the end of the day, collecting is all a bit of fun, some off us are sadly more funny than other. To those who help me in the pre internet days, a very great thank you. If there is any one out there who would like to become involved further, please contact me.

PLEASE LOOK CLOSELY AT THIS CHART AS YOU WILL FIND LINKS TO PICTURES, WHICH THE KEEN COLLECTOR MAY FIND OF INTEREST

I am always looking to acquiring early pieces or even collections, if they contain pieces of interest, if you think you have any items in which I may require, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail at the address below

Whilst this site has been designed to show the different versions of early pieces. Over the years I have attended auctions and bought on line to grow my Collection, during this period I have maintain records to show various prices realised, however in the early nineteen nineties details of versions were rather sketchy, This improved initially with Annette Power's first book.

However details of versions were fully investigated initially by Dan Komar and Viv Marston, with the publication of their book in 1996 LILLIPUT LANE, THE COMPLETE COLLECTORS GUIDE, this publication is update half yearly by Viv Marston in conjunction with Don Gibson.

Since August 1998 Viv and Don have produced THE POCKET GUIDE TO LILLIPUT LANE COTTAGES, which is now in it's fifth edition.

The Cottage version references from this fifth edition have been used on my web pages, for the early material and I am extremely grateful to Viv Marston for allowing me to use them. Hopefully it will help visitors to my web site cross reference to the Pocket Guide.

The latter two publications have been used to compile my information on the 1985 paint/medium change and the 1990 paint change, by combining the information in both books it is relatively easy to identify versions without the need to contact E-bay Sellers. Please use the link below to visit a precise of Auction Prices.

If you have any questions on the above issues or anything else relating to Lilliput Lane, I will make every effort to give practical advise, with a reasoned explanation, whilst I have acquired a little knowledge over the years, in no way do I claim to be an expert and in this respect, I would welcome any observations or indeed suggestions which may help my ongoing research.

During the passage of time, I have discovered many interesting Lilliput Lane related web site, there is none more informative than that run by

which examines the location of each cottage, with illustrations of the original and the Lilliput Lane interpretation.

Finally I would like to thank everybody, who have taken the time and trouble to read my thoughts and I sincerely hope in some little way I have helped you to achieve your own World of Dreams