A newly-restored model yacht, Britannia, went on show in Barrow museum in 1985.

The model was lovingly restored over a 12-months period after lying for years in a shed in Windermere.

The only one of its kind, the model stood 10ft 6ins high and 9ft 6ins long.

Built in 1897 by the Rome family, the teak and yellow pine yacht, complete with new sails, was set up for a meeting of the Maritime Society in September 1985.

The team behind the restoration decided to sail it on Cavendish Dock.

Jack Quayle, one of the restorers, said: “It sails exceptionally well.”

In 1997 The Mail reported how south Cumbrian modellers had restored a 20ft-long encased model of Lakeside and its station and piers earlier in the century, which was back on public display in the actual location it so closely copied.

The model included an 0-gauge version of the station complete with steam trains and signal boxes, as well as the Lakeside pier with the steamer Tern alongside.

Made by the late Jim Parker, a Kendal man who had it in his home, the trains and model passengers reflected both the Furness Railway’s Edwardian heyday and the 1930s Lakeside of the old LMS railway.

After Mr Parker died in 1989 the model was moved to the Lakeside passenger building of the Windermere Lake Cruises steamer company.

Recent internal changes to the building caused by the opening of the Aquarium meant the model, in which buildings lit up when buttons were pushed, had to be moved to a new position and a band of modellers took the chance to refurbish it.

Mr Parker took seven years to make it, ballasting the mini rail tracks with sand from the lake and making the buildings out of plywood overlaid with plastic card.

The model of the Tern was based on its original 1891 appearance and was made of plywood and plastic with brass fittings.

The refurbishment, which included repainting the backdrop and cleaning all the item, was completed by Fred Firth and Bob Watson of the Furness Model Railway Club, Ken Ormrod and Peter Robinson of the Cumbrian Railways Association.