Walking down Hendersonville’s Main Street, you come upon a storefront that’s different from the rest. Jutting out from the wooden façade of the brick building, there’s a bowed window that looks like the transom of an old sailing ship. Peeking through the glass, you’ll see a collection of exquisite wooden models of classic brigs with painstakingly crafted details: masts and sails, tiny cannons and figureheads. Goldcrafters of London specializes in fine jewelry, custom designs and estate pieces. But the nautical theme reflects owner John Payne’s personal passion for the golden age of British Naval history.
An English ex-pat who has been at his Main Street location since 1990, Payne “isn’t much of a sailor.” He grew up in East London and made plastic model ships from kits as a child, although he never lived close to the water. But there’s something about model ships that captivated him. “I just love them,” he says. “Especially the shape of them.”
His set of 12 elaborate model ships is just part of a larger nautical memorabilia collection that includes historic scrimshaw, prints, vintage signs and other unique finds. While some of the models were purchased from shops and one is a rare antique, the others were made either from kits or from scratch, not by Payne, but by two customers who happened into his shop and noticed his love of naval memorabilia. One was an old sailor in his 90s who had retired to the Hendersonville area. The other was a retired gentleman who presented Payne with a model of the HMS Royal Sovereign, a 100-gun ship commanded by Admiral Collingwood at the Battle of Trafalgar. The ship was made without a kit and took 1,800 hours to complete, with its three masts, and elaborate riggings. “It was a labor of love,” Payne says. “They take too long to make for someone who’s got a regular job.”
All that effort goes into the wooden hulls, meticulously glued together by hand, and the incredibly elaborate riggings and sails. Some of Payne’s models features Union Jacks flying from the topmasts and tiny lifeboats equipped with oars.
Like the Royal Sovereign, most of the ships in Payne’s collection are replicas of vessels from what’s considered the glory days of British naval sailing power, between 1750 and 1850, before steamships came to rule the seas. The HMS Victory, for example, was Lord Nelson’s flagship, launched in 1765. The ship played a pivotal role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, handing the British a decisive victory over the combined Spanish and French fleet. It’s now docked in Portsmouth, England, where Payne was able to step foot on the real thing. The model Victory is Payne’s favorite in the collection.
There’s also a model of the Cutty Sark, launched in 1869, and known for its speed in the ‘tea races’ between ships making the long voyage from England to India to import the key ingredient for Victorian England’s favorite beverage. There’s another model that’s “a bit of a pirate ship,” and a 4-foot long model of the Titanic.
Payne isn’t adding to his collection these days. “I feel like I’ve gotten too many already. They’re my toys, essentially,” he says. The kind of craftsmanship and attention to detail that goes into making these model ships is quickly becoming a lost art. But, Payne says, while kids today may not be clamoring to build or collect model ships, he’s hopeful that at least a few in the younger generation will keep the tradition going.
Above the door of Goldcrafters of London, there’s a plaque engraved with the words of Britain’s legendary admiral, Lord Nelson. “England expects that every man will do his duty.” Payne says that he keeps it there to remind them that although he’s an American citizen and has lived here for decades, he’s aware that as an Englishman abroad, he represents his native land. “It reminds me to be an example of a ‘good’ British person and to uphold a certain amount of British tradition and to,” he says. His little shop, which looks like it could be on an English high street, does just that, bringing a little bit of the British Isles to the mountains of North Carolina.