A friend discovered it in a garage in Devizes packed with historical antiques for sale.
And when Val Compton saw it she fell in love with an architectural model of a slice of Marlborough’s past and bought it.
Now the model has taken over the dining room table of her home in Kennet Place, but local activist Val is delighted to show off the vision of Hughenden Yard, off the High Street, she now owns.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she told Marlborough News Online. “It’s all to scale, the cars, the trees, the buildings, everything about it is perfect and virtually as it is today.
“I knew I had to rescue it because it was really something that belonged in Marlborough.”
The model is of the phase two development by Chartwell Heritage plc, carried out in 1987 to a design created by architects Corstophine and Wright, based in London and Warwick, and shows one or two elements that were not completed.
Val hates the idea of the model being lost again and leaving Marlborough again. So has persuaded Marlborough town council to buy it for £35 – the price she paid – so that it can be put on display at some time in the future.
“There is the possibility of having a museum here one day, which is so, so needed,” she said. “If the town hall improvement project goes ahead, then this model would be ideal to have on display.”
And former mayor Councillor Andrew Ross, who chairs the finance committee, agrees and is asking the council to endorse buying the iconic model.
“It’s stunning, a piece of Marlborough’s history,” he said. “We must have it.”
