Dickens' Village is a storybook you get to build. Snow on the rooftops, warm light in every window, and a whole Victorian London laid out across your table. Betsy Trotwood's cottage arrives with a novel attached. The Green Grocer, the Poulterer and Walpole Tailors each carry a story of their own. That is the magic of it.
And a few pieces carry something extra. Buckingham Palace is somewhere you could go and stand in front of tomorrow, on a real street, with the flag flying over it.
Those are our favourites to build around. When a display is anchored on a real place, the whole scene has something to say. So here is how we would build one around the palace.
Start with the palace
This is not a piece you add to a village. This is the piece a village gets built around.
You get the cream front, the tall columns and that famous balcony in the middle. Almost everyone recognizes it right away.
It comes as a set of four: the palace, two guards on foot and the palace gate. You also get a British flag, fencing, a light cord for the inside and a set of streetlights. It looks like somewhere the moment you unpack it.
Here is the part collectors love. Department 56 released it in December 2005 and retired it in December 2006. That is one year. It was also a hand-numbered limited edition of 12,000, so every single one carries its own number. If you ever get to hold one, find that number first. It is the best part.
A quick history of the real palace
This part is worth knowing, because most of it is not what people expect.
It did not begin as a palace at all. It was built in 1703 as a private home for John Sheffield, the Duke of Buckingham. King George III bought it in 1761 for £21,000 as a comfortable house for Queen Charlotte. For years, people simply called it The Queen's House.
The palace came later. Starting in 1826, the architect John Nash rebuilt it on a grand scale for George IV. George IV died before it was finished. Then Queen Victoria moved in during 1837, and she was the first ruling monarch to actually live there.
Now for our favourite bit. Between 1847 and 1849, Edward Blore added the East Wing and closed off the open courtyard. It was Prince Albert's idea to put a balcony in the middle of it. Victoria stepped out onto that balcony for the first time in 1851, to open the Great Exhibition. Every royal balcony wave since then started with her.
All of that happened while Dickens was alive. He died in 1870.
One last thing, and we really love this one. The cream stone front you picture in your head is not Victorian. Sir Aston Webb refaced it in 1913 so it would look right behind the new Victoria Memorial. The stone took a year to prepare. Once work started, the whole front was replaced in just thirteen weeks.
So your palace wears a face from 1913, forty-three years after Dickens died. The balcony underneath it, though, is one he could have watched from the street.
Now add the guards
The palace already comes with two guards on foot. These next two are a little more special, and they are what give your display a story.
The Yeomen of the Guard are the monarch's personal bodyguard. Henry VII created them in 1485, which makes them the oldest British military unit still going today. They are based at St James's Palace. They stand with the monarch at big ceremonies, and by tradition they search the cellars of Parliament before the State Opening.
People often mix them up with the Yeomen Warders, who guard the Tower of London. Both wear the same Tudor red and gold, and both get called Beefeaters. The easy way to tell them apart is the belt worn across the left shoulder. Only the Yeomen of the Guard have one.
That is handy to know when you are setting up your village. The Yeomen of the Guard belong to the royal household, not to the Tower, so a palace is exactly where they should be standing. That is why such a small, inexpensive set does so much for a piece as big as the palace. They were made for one year only, 1996 to 1997.
Those first guards stand at attention. This one rides: blue and white uniform, red plume, sword at his side, sitting on a sturdy brown horse. Put him out on the road instead of at the gate. Suddenly your two pieces stop looking like figurines and start looking like a parade. He was made from 2004 to 2006, so he and the palace overlapped by a single year.
Give them something to guard
Polished brass, royal crests, and a coach rolling through the streets with Her Majesty inside. This is the piece that gives everybody else a reason to be standing there.
It turns a nice arrangement into a moment. The Yeomen are lined up because something is coming. The rider is out front because something is coming. Everyone at the railings is looking the same way. This is what they are all waiting for.
Set it on the road a little way back from the gates. That way the scene looks like it is about to happen, rather than already finished. It was made from 1999 to 2000, one of the shortest runs of anything here.
Give the road some traffic
One royal coach on an empty street looks a little staged. Add a couple of ordinary vehicles and the whole scene turns into a real city that the royal coach happens to be passing through.
The Dover Coach is the classic choice. An enclosed cab, finely painted trim, and a driver urging his team along the cobbles. This is how people actually got around in the 1800s. It is also one of the oldest pieces here, made from 1987 to 1990.
And if you want a piece with a wink in it, here is a hansom cab carrying Sherlock Holmes through the fog. A hansom cab is about as London as a vehicle gets. Conan Doyle was writing a generation after Dickens, but they were describing the same streets.
Victoria Station, or how everyone got there
Another real London landmark, named after the same Queen. The real Victoria Station opened in 1860, ten years before Dickens died, and it is still one of the busiest stations in Britain.
It does something no other piece can. It explains how the crowd got there. Put it at the far end from the palace and run your road between the two. Now your village has a beginning and an end, instead of just a row of buildings. It had a good long run too, made from 1989 all the way to 1998.
Finishing the forecourt
A handful of inexpensive pieces do most of the work that is left. None of them are landmarks. They are the glue that holds the scene together.
The palace brings its own fence and gates. This extension carries that same railing along the road. It is the easiest and most inexpensive way to make the space out front feel like a real forecourt. It was retired in 1998.
Next, a lamplighter making his rounds at dusk. He is one of those small figures that instantly says Victorian London, and he tells your visitors what time of day it is. Department 56 kept him going for fifteen years, from 1989 to 2004, which tells you how much collectors liked him.
Then a trio of constables. Uniformed policemen keeping an eye on things fit a royal occasion perfectly, and they make the crowd look managed rather than random. Put one near the gates and one further along the road. They only ran from 1989 to 1991, so they are an early piece.
Then you need people. A palace with nobody outside it is a model. A palace with peddlers working the crowd at the railings is a morning in London. These are Dickens' Village figures, so the size and the period both match what you already have.
Setting it all up
Four tips, starting with the one that makes the biggest difference.
- Give the palace the back row, and some height. Books under a cloth make great risers. It should look down on everything else, because in real life it does.
- Leave the front courtyard mostly empty. You will want to fill it. Try not to. The real one is a wide open sweep, and that open space is what makes the building look so grand.
- Rider out front, Yeomen at the gates. That is the correct order, and happily it also looks the best.
- Use one road, not a grid. Palace at one end, Victoria Station at the other, and everything else along the way.
And do not worry about getting it perfect the first time. Half the fun is shifting everything around next year and finding a better arrangement.
One last thought
Building around a real landmark gives your village a heart. The palace anchors everything, and every piece you add afterwards has something to belong to. The guards have someone to guard. The road has somewhere to lead. The crowd has a reason to be out in the cold.
And it never has to stop, which is the best part of this whole hobby. Next year you might add another building, or a few more figures, or take over a longer table. The year after that you will rearrange the whole thing and decide it looks better that way.
A village is never really done, is it. That is exactly why we love them.
One real building is all you need to start. Where it goes after that is entirely up to you.
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