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Liverpool Modelzone

The Modelzone

In another of our sporadic features on local hobby stores, I took another visit to a hobby shop I've been visiting for some years in the heart of Liverpool city centre, in the UK.
This model shop has had somewhat of a chequered history. St. John's Precinct, The huge shopping mall where it's situated opened in the early 1970's in Liverpool, having been built on the site of a market that had existed for hundreds of years. The shopping mall has suffered two major fires as long as I've known about it, requiring major building work after both.

The shop called 'Modelzone', is part of a National chain of model shops with 25 branches......but they're far from being all the same.

This shop has only been part of the ModelZone family for the last 9 months, although there has been a model shop in the same place since the mall opened. Before it was ModelZone, it was The Model Centre, and before that Beatties. Perhaps a sad reflection of the fact that it's harder and harder for model shops to survive, especially in city centres where leases can be expensive.

Enter the shop, which is quite large, and you'll find a friendly staff ready to answer anything they can. Bob, who has worked at the shop for some time, builds armour himself, with the occasional 1/16th figure, and even has some of his work on display in the wall cabinets.

The Manager's name is Mark Walpole, and although Mark doesn't model himself, he has worked at the shop throughout it's changes of ownership and of course is ready to help with anything he can.

The shop now stocks all the new Dragon, Tamiya, Italeri, AFV Club, plus a few of the other less well known manufacturers, and has a fairly large armour range. Of course, there is a large aircraft section too, and a healthy die-cast selection. The shop has always stocked a massive range of railway stock, all through it's changes of ownership, and of course this continues today.

If it's tools you're after, the shop has just begun to stock the Shesto range of tools, and also has a large selection of diorama scenic materials from 'Woodland Scenics' in stock. We all like to browse for aftermarket items though, and recently this shop has begun to stock selected lines from the likes of PlusModel, VP studios, and MIG.

A wide range of Osprey titles are on offer, as well as the full range of Tamiya Acrylics, and also Revell and Humbrol enamels. They have recently begun to stock Vallejo acrylics also. They also have a small selection of airbrushes.

It's nice to see a city centre model shop beginning to stock aftermarket items such as these, and I can only hope that it represents an upturn in the hobby!

shop details

ModelZone
36-37 Dawson Way
St John's Centre
Liverpool L1 1LJ
Tel (0151) 709 0799
Fax (0151) 709 8653