You may remember my Christmas presents post where I showed off what I got in the way of Blytonian gifts.

One of those things was Noddy’s Toy Village, which I have now built and am ready to show off.

Noddy’s Toy Village

Although the box reads Noddy’s Toy Village there are actually four sets in the series, each with the same design on the lid. The yellow box at the top right indicates which of the four sets is inside – Mr. and Mrs. Tubby’s House, Noddy’s House and Garage, The Toyland Station or Golly’s Garage.

Mr and Mrs Tubby’s House is shown here, while mine is The Toyland Station.

The box also reads simply put the pieces together and build it yourself. So let’s see what happened when I did just that.

Inside the box

On opening the box I was faced with around a dozen printed cardboard pieces. Crucially, I was not faced with any instructions or even a parts list so I was building blind and hoping for the best!

The bottom of the box turned out to be the base for building on, once it was turned over, which I thought was clever.

I had no idea how many pieces I should have had, but I sorted them out anyway.

There were two parts to the station and the platform.

Four parts to the train (not pictured is the funnel as I didn’t know what that was at the time!). There were no numbers or letters to show you how to form the engine/cab, tender and carriage but there was really only one way that those could go.

Seven character pieces – as you can see they had run through the whole alphabet already and had to move on to AA to DD.

Construction

Thankfully, being aimed at children, the lack of instructions did not pose any great challenge for me. I doubt there were any instructions to begin with as it’s so simple. You just find tab A and put it into slot A, and so on.

In hindsight I should have started with the numbers and then done the letters as I put in the station building and the train, then tried to squeeze the platform in the middle. Starting with the platform would have been a lot easier. I should also have attached the cab to the engine before putting the engine on the box, but I was more or less picking up things at random at this point.

One downside of using the box as part of the construction was that, over the years, the box has gotten a little bashed and so the bottom has bowed. This made it a bit difficult (or in one or two cases impossible) to get a tab into a slot, but enough went in that it didn’t really matter. Obviously the makers weren’t considering people building it in the 2020s when they designed it in the 1950s!Other than the dented box and my haphazard building order it all went together fairly well.

I only realise now that I didn’t take a good front-on picture more level with the build. I’ll have to add that later.

Playability

Being so simple to construct I doubt it would have taken children very long to put it together. On its own it doesn’t have much in the way of “playability” (or many play features as Brodie would say) as it would be difficult to move the train around (it is in three parts) or even the characters. Perhaps children would remove some of the characters from the platform and pretend they are boarding the train etc. If they had any little Noddy figures or any other small dolls they could use those too.

Once built it is easy to take apart to be built again another day.

Finished item

I’m actually very impressed with it once built (and that has nothing to do with my construction skills!).

There is detail all the way round the station building which so easily could have been a Ciné-Town construction – all front and nothing else! For some reason Brodie was particularly impressed with the back view – that earned a gasp and an the back is incredible! from him as he walked around to see it from all angles. I think he liked the policeman as he said he remembered him from the stories.

Even after several decades the colours are still bright and it looks really good and there’s lots of details on the train and characters. The engine has a nice curve to it – though the cab perhaps could have done with a flap to close it off a little as if you look at it from the right you see the plain card inside. A driver character would have been fun too (but maybe adding too much complexity into fitting it together).

The tabs show some sign of wear and tear, suggesting this has been constructed many times over already, but with the exception of one (which was still in the box!) they are all there. One or two of the slots have torn but still held things together. The funnel of the train had also torn off but I was able to simply push it into place and it stayed. If I had the time and inclination I could probably do a few minor repairs to it, but it all holds together just fine as it is.

Pretty incredible for a cardboard building set! The first production of these building sets was 1953, though they were probably produced for several years and the one I have could easily be from the 60s. Still, it’s likely to be 60 years old at least and was never intended to have that long a life!

Your mileage may vary if you buy one (especially online) as not everyone will have looked after these sets so carefully, but if you do see one for sale it’s well worth a punt!