A MODEL engineer from Malvern was honoured for 40 years of meticulous craftsmanship and dedication with a champion-of-champions award.
Mrs Cherry Hill MBE, aged 75, specialises in scale models of road locomotives and is recognised as being one of the greatest living model makers in the world.
She was awarded the Duke of Edinburgh Trophy at the 100th Ascot Model Engineering Exhibition.
All competitors for this award were previous cup winners.
"I make the entire engines from scratch. Every nut and bolt is made in my workshop, so a full model will take about seven years to produce," explained Mrs Hill.
The meticulous process involves scouring 19th century patent drawings and recreating the mechanisms at a 1:16 scale.
Each model may contain up to 5000 separate parts and all are fully working reproductions.
In 2000, Mrs Hill, was awarded the MBE for her work in model engineering, and she recalls being invited to Buckingham Palace and meeting the Queen.
"It was a ceremony you would never forgot," recalls Mrs Hill, "She asked all the right questions and seemed genuinely interested."
Mrs Hill first picked up the model making bug from her father, and soon progressed to her own workshop. She remembers making her first ever model in 1966 of an early 20th century steam propelled fire engine.
Mrs Hill is a fountain of knowledge on little known 19th century engineers. She said: "Everyone has heard of Brunel and Stephenson, but there were a lot of very clever people in the background.
"I'm just interested in these people and how they thought about engineering."
