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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#1 Old 17th Feb 2015 at 5:58 PM
Default Wollaton Hall/Mentmore Towers/Wayne Manor
By now it should be obvious that my passion is for enormous lots that brush up against the limits of "playability" at times. I had particular fun designing my Highclere Castle lot and my X-Men Mansion, and I find myself wanting to once again pursue that kind of gigantic English-Country-House-inspired design (especially since many of the lots I've been working on lately have been absolutely tiny by my normal standards!). When I was first working on my Highclere Castle lot, I wasn't 100% sure if it would actually end up being Highclere, since there were so many similarities between it and the two mansions used as Wayne Manor in the Dark Knight Trilogy. This thread proved to be IMMENSELY helpful, both in deciding to first go after a Sim-version of Highclere Castle, and in feedback and testing of the actual lot (a must with something as huge as that lot ended up being!). I figure the same should hold true for this next project.

I've fiddled with a rough draft based more on Mentmore Towers, and while I think there's definitely some worthwhile aspects, I'm not happy enough with it to keep it (plus, I think Wollaton Hall will probably translate better into the world of The Sims 2. This is what I've done with that lot so far though- things you like? things you don't?



I'll also no doubt be referencing some of my own work in this project, so if there are aspects of my Highclere Castle/Downton Abbey lot (mostly for the exterior and public areas of the house), or my X-Men Mansion lot (mostly for, again, the exterior, and this time, the superheroes' hidden basement) that you think I would be remiss not to include in this next lot, by all means point those out too.

Finally, here's a couple shots of the real-world estates of Wollaton Hall (Wayne Manor in The Dark Knight Rises)



And Mentmore Towers (Wayne Manor in Batman Begins)

Screenshots

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#2 Old 20th Feb 2015 at 11:09 AM
I have to say theres not one thing I dont like about it and many that I do! And Im sorry if Im not helping any but I hope you dont throw it out as its wonderful!

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Constant Contestant
retired moderator
#3 Old 20th Feb 2015 at 11:29 AM
Gorgeous as usual Z. It's looking very much like Mentmore Towers. I love all that you create I would keep it, perhaps if it's not easy to make it liveable you could make it into a community lot?

Want a specific style of house or community building? Why not take a look at my profile and see what I build and then come ask me to make it!
Scholar
#4 Old 20th Feb 2015 at 5:33 PM
Having been to Wollaton Hall recently and been 'behind the scenes', I've managed to take some photos that might be of use. I'm a little pressed for time at the moment, but I will get and upload the photos this weekend, by then I will have hopefully composed some text to accompany the photos to really.
P.S. Downton Abbey has nothing on the stuff that happened at Wollaton Hall in its hey-day.
Scholar
#5 Old 22nd Feb 2015 at 10:11 PM Last edited by Fergus' Mind : 22nd Feb 2015 at 11:52 PM.

The photos attached below in the 'Screenshots' section are ones that me and a good friend of mine took on our visit to Wollaton Hall as part of our uni course just before Christmas.
Constant Contestant
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#6 Old 22nd Feb 2015 at 10:51 PM
Gorgeous pictures, Fergus!

Want a specific style of house or community building? Why not take a look at my profile and see what I build and then come ask me to make it!
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#7 Old 23rd Feb 2015 at 12:03 AM
Fantastic! Those shots are great, and I have no doubt whatsoever that they'll be immensely helpful with this project! Some of those more ornate parts look pretty hard to reproduce... I'll have to experiment with some creative approaches towards them. I love the ceiling in the great hall in particular- I really hope I can find some way of doing it justice!

And I also have my first question! Is the Prospect room that you refer to the one located in the central tower? Windows on at least three sides kind of make it seem that way, but I also seem to recall towers like that often being decorative more than anything else... for instance, the tower atop Highclere Castle being servants quarters, as I recall.

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#8 Old 23rd Feb 2015 at 7:52 AM
The Prospect Room is indeed the central tower, it's directly above the great hall. It has the top row of windows, the windows below it are the windows of the great hall.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#9 Old 31st Mar 2015 at 6:25 AM Last edited by Zarathustra : 31st Mar 2015 at 6:38 AM.
OK, since I've gotten irritated enough at several other projects to temporarily abandon them, I'm back to this one, and I have a couple more questions for @Fergus'_Mind !
First off- is the tower actually centered over the main part of the building? It looks like it is, but I remember being somewhat surprised at how off-center the tower of Highclere Castle was when I was working on that lot...
Second- It looks in several of your photos as though the garage area on the right(?) side of the house must have a patio or garden or something on top, but I can't see it, and I can't find photos that show that part of the building online- were you able to see what was up there?
Third- How does one get to the Prospect Room? I don't see room for a staircase, yet since you have photos from up there (and I assume they don't force tour groups to scale the outside walls! ), there must be one somewhere!

EDIT: Looking at a few different shots, I realize the symmetry of the building is throwing me off- which side is really the front? The one with a staircase that leads straight up to the door? Or the one with the right-angle staircases off to either side?

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#10 Old 31st Mar 2015 at 6:14 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Zarathustra
OK, since I've gotten irritated enough at several other projects to temporarily abandon them, I'm back to this one, and I have a couple more questions for @Fergus'_Mind !
First off- is the tower actually centered over the main part of the building? It looks like it is, but I remember being somewhat surprised at how off-center the tower of Highclere Castle was when I was working on that lot...
Second- It looks in several of your photos as though the garage area on the right(?) side of the house must have a patio or garden or something on top, but I can't see it, and I can't find photos that show that part of the building online- were you able to see what was up there?
Third- How does one get to the Prospect Room? I don't see room for a staircase, yet since you have photos from up there (and I assume they don't force tour groups to scale the outside walls! ), there must be one somewhere!

EDIT: Looking at a few different shots, I realize the symmetry of the building is throwing me off- which side is really the front? The one with a staircase that leads straight up to the door? Or the one with the right-angle staircases off to either side?

Yes, the tower is centered, the house is almost entirely symestrical, the symmetry is part of what lets you know that Wollaton is the real deal and that Highclere is the country house equivalent of a knock-off.
If you look at the aerial view or the birds eye view, you'll see that the garage area has a flat leaded roof. I believe it's actually the exterior/servant's access to the kitchens and vaults bellow the house. That whole side of the house wasn't really for guests to see. hence why the stables are just down the hill from it, so you wouldn't have had any of the grander bedrooms/reception rooms on that side of the house.
The prospect room is accessed by a spiral/turreted staircase located behind the two doors on the left end of the room. the rear staircase goes directly down the corner of the great hall below it and has a little window part way down so that you can look out upon the great hall. The other door on the left side of the prospect room has another spiral/turreted staircase which goes down a short way and takes you out onto the roof and the front left corner of the prospect room/great hall. You can just about make it out in this birds eye view. You then walk out along the front side of the flat roof and round onto the right side (overlooking the stables) where you will find a regular staircase that leads down into the brown paneled room above the other staircase with a bathroom in its centre. You can see the entrance to this staircase in the first link to the birds eye view.
I hope that helps? If not, I could try and draw a diagram to illustrate what I mean?
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#11 Old 31st Mar 2015 at 6:46 PM
No, I think I get it- is that what the little interior windows high up on the wall in the great hall are (on the side with the clock)? I'll have to figure out how best to make that work well in-game... I have a hunch that a spiral staircase that's essentially hidden in a wall like that is gonna be quite a bit narrower than any of the AL spiral staircases are... Thanks a lot for clearing those up... but...

AAAAA!!! You didn't answer the most crucial question I had!!! Which side is the front!?! I'm figuring to make this a corner lot, so that the garage area can face the road and be useable, so it's not quite as crucial as it might be if the front were actually going to be in front, but I still need to be able to match things up properly!

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Scholar
#12 Old 31st Mar 2015 at 10:41 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Zarathustra
No, I think I get it- is that what the little interior windows high up on the wall in the great hall are (on the side with the clock)? I'll have to figure out how best to make that work well in-game... I have a hunch that a spiral staircase that's essentially hidden in a wall like that is gonna be quite a bit narrower than any of the AL spiral staircases are... Thanks a lot for clearing those up... but...

AAAAA!!! You didn't answer the most crucial question I had!!! Which side is the front!?! I'm figuring to make this a corner lot, so that the garage area can face the road and be useable, so it's not quite as crucial as it might be if the front were actually going to be in front, but I still need to be able to match things up properly!

The side with the stairs leading straight up to it is the front as it is the façade you see when going up the drive from the road.
Yup, those little windows are in the spiral staircases, however, they're more than wide enough for two people to go up them side-by-side, which would translate them into the game as bigger than the AL staircases. But then you have to take into account how thick the walls are, so the AL staircases are probably the most appropriate ones to use after all.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#13 Old 1st Apr 2015 at 7:32 AM Last edited by Zarathustra : 1st Apr 2015 at 7:56 AM.
OK, here's my first rough pass at the exterior- I haven't done any of the embellishing with columns and Architecture Tab options that will eventually be part of this, at this point I'm mostly just trying to get the general proportions and spacing right. Does it look about like the real one does in that regard? or are there areas that need to be stretched or compressed more?

I'd gone with the brown stone wallpaper instead of the carved cream-colored stone as much to try to keep it from looking too much like my Highclere Castle lot as anything, and also because I was hoping a darker color would feel right for what will eventually not only be a (largely) accurate rendition of Wollaton Hall, but also Wayne Manor, but I'm kind of leaning towards changing that- as it is now, the building just looks too massive, and too... brown!
Screenshots

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Mad Poster
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#14 Old 1st Apr 2015 at 11:59 PM
And just for comparison's sake, the lighter stone version, which I'm pretty sure I'm going with... I wish there was a good way to make it look more aged and weatherbeaten though... I may have to cover some of it in ivy or something...
Screenshots

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Needs Coffee
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#15 Old 2nd Apr 2015 at 12:43 AM
What about grey brick? I do like the cream better then the brown though and the real one is a whole lot of cream.

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Mad Poster
Original Poster
#16 Old 2nd Apr 2015 at 12:50 AM Last edited by Zarathustra : 2nd Apr 2015 at 1:28 AM.
I tried a lot of different brick and stone wallpapers, but there's not that many that feel ornate enough for the kind of buildings I often do... the limits of working without CC, I think. I feel like I use that cream-colored stone one a lot though... it seems like there must be something else, but it might be the most ornately carved exterior wallpaper in the game, so naturally, I'd end up using it constantly!

When I started on the interior, I instantly realized that the central tower was too big (which I think is probably a consequence of trying to reduce the scale of a building like this enough to fit on a TS2 lot), so that's also been reduced by one tile on every side- I think it still looks about right, even if it's not quite as accurate, and it makes for a lot more useable space on the interior.

EDIT: @Fergus'_Mind , I feel like I must be bothering you by constantly asking for specific help on this, but you've been to the real building, and I've never been with 3,000 miles of it! I've been able to find rough floorplans of the first floor, but the second is still nowhere to be found- any chance you have one? Or remember the building well enough to do a rough guess?

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#17 Old 2nd Apr 2015 at 10:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Zarathustra
I tried a lot of different brick and stone wallpapers, but there's not that many that feel ornate enough for the kind of buildings I often do... the limits of working without CC, I think. I feel like I use that cream-colored stone one a lot though... it seems like there must be something else, but it might be the most ornately carved exterior wallpaper in the game, so naturally, I'd end up using it constantly!

When I started on the interior, I instantly realized that the central tower was too big (which I think is probably a consequence of trying to reduce the scale of a building like this enough to fit on a TS2 lot), so that's also been reduced by one tile on every side- I think it still looks about right, even if it's not quite as accurate, and it makes for a lot more useable space on the interior.

EDIT: @Fergus'_Mind , I feel like I must be bothering you by constantly asking for specific help on this, but you've been to the real building, and I've never been with 3,000 miles of it! I've been able to find rough floorplans of the first floor, but the second is still nowhere to be found- any chance you have one? Or remember the building well enough to do a rough guess?

I think the creamy coloured wall covering looks better, but I'd suggest seeing if there's another wall covering that could be used alongside it for variation, especially around the tops of the four corner towers.
It's no bother to me, I'm just glad I can help.
As for the second floor, as it stands now, the majority of the rooms on that floor have been knocked into one larger room that runs all the way around the area open to the great hall below. From what I saw, the only "rooms" still in tact on that floor were the stairwells, so I'm afraid I can't offer much advice on the matter, although I did find this post which might be of interest: http://chickenandcustard.blogspot.c...n-wollaton.html
I may be going back there in a few weeks time, if I do, I'll be sure to take more photos and notes on the floorplan, although I can't promise anything as I don't know how things at University are going to pan out for then.
But I'm more than happy to answer any questions you may have in the meantime.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#18 Old 3rd Apr 2015 at 5:19 AM
Glad you suggested a different color for the tower tops, since I'd already come to that conclusion too! This is an area where I'm always kind of unsure of myself though- since I'm not going to use any CC, it means I have to find different ways of using other game elements than they might have been intended for (ex: the Bust of Tylopoda on top of each side)... I feel like each item on its own is appropriate, but I'm never sure how many is too many, how many I can use before it just starts to look busy instead of ornamented...
And I'm glad I'm not bothering you- I really really appreciate all the pointers you've been able to give! There's really no equivalent to actually having walked around the building when it comes to having a feel for a location!
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Mad Poster
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#19 Old 8th Apr 2015 at 1:44 AM
I'm almost to the point now where I'll start work on furnishing and decorating the interior (as opposed to the way it is now, just walls and staircases- all the doors aren't even there yet...), and in my searching online, I'm not finding any photos of the interior that are furnished in the way you'd want a house (even an obscenely large one) to be. This doesn't surprise me too much, since the building isn't functioning as a house (the useable space inside is almost all a museum now, right?), but it does present something of a problem when it comes to interior decorating. Are ANY of the rooms in Wollaton furnished as a livable space? And more importantly, are there photos available anywhere? Or should I follow what is currently my inclination, and use other houses (especially Mentmore Towers) to guide my room-by-room stylings?

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#20 Old 8th Apr 2015 at 1:53 AM
I like that. The shapes and the two tones really make it.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
Scholar
#21 Old 8th Apr 2015 at 6:00 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Zarathustra
I'm almost to the point now where I'll start work on furnishing and decorating the interior (as opposed to the way it is now, just walls and staircases- all the doors aren't even there yet...), and in my searching online, I'm not finding any photos of the interior that are furnished in the way you'd want a house (even an obscenely large one) to be. This doesn't surprise me too much, since the building isn't functioning as a house (the useable space inside is almost all a museum now, right?), but it does present something of a problem when it comes to interior decorating. Are ANY of the rooms in Wollaton furnished as a livable space? And more importantly, are there photos available anywhere? Or should I follow what is currently my inclination, and use other houses (especially Mentmore Towers) to guide my room-by-room stylings?

You could have a look at the old photos of the house here, from what I've seen they're mostly late Victorian/Edwardian/1920s and 1930s.
Hardwick Hall is a much better example to look at than Mentmore, which is a Victorian knock-off of original old houses such as Wollaton and Hardwick. Burghley House, an Elizabetham Prodigy House might be another good one to look at.
It really depends which side of the Georgian renovations you want to go?
If you want to go post-georgianised then the parlour's setup is the kind of style you should aim for (minus the modern lighting and the fact that all the furniture is pushed to the edges):

The Prospect room is almost furnished as originally intended:

There would have never really been much in the way of furniture up there as it wasn't intended for regular use.
If you want to go for how it looked when it was first built, then you need to have a look and study of some Elizabethan and Jacobean interiors:






Or you could go for an interior more fitting of the following Stuart/Restoration era:


A good example to study for the Restoration era has to be Belton House.
It's up to you as to how you want to capture the essence of the house.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#22 Old 8th Apr 2015 at 6:23 PM
Well, I mean, once there's a Batcave under the house, staying perfectly true to the real-world building kind of goes out the window, doesn't it? Thanks a lot for the links and photos though, they definitely gave me some more ideas- I may not by trying to make a period-appropriate house as much as I did with my Highclere lot, but I do still want it to have the right feel... (although a Victorian knock-off might be appropriate... after all, Wayne Manor would certainly have been built much later than the real houses it'd look like) At the same time, I want people who know nothing about English architecture, but everything about the Dark Knight films, to still enjoy the lot, so there's a few rooms used in Nolan's films I'll want to draw on too... The house is definitely oversized enough in-game that I have plenty of space to use a variety of sources for my inspiration, I'm just not sure where I'll end up striking a balance there!

I'm also working on copying a gardening store and plant nursery from my city at the moment though (for the April challenge), and being time-sensitive, that may be taking a bit more of my time... plus, I'm still not happy with all my stairwells in this lot, and I don't want to put so much time into perfecting a room when it may turn out that the wall needs to be pushed in two tiles to make room for a grand staircase!

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