[3][4] In the Hinds household workshop, she learned machining skills and built her first models, including a scooter, warships, and aircraft.
In that phase, Cherry received special mention for her Sunderland flying boat model in a model-making contest.
"[1] As her career progressed past its early stages, Hill started building unusual models, many of which were insufficiently documented or had no existing original copies.
Hill needed to be resourceful and imaginative in various critical components, including the crankshaft, valve chest and eccentrics, boiler, steering, and front suspension.
[10][5] The models made at the beginning of Hill's career were given to family and friends, but she donated her more recent ones to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
[9][12] An expert on obscure 19th-century engineers, Hill explained that ‘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.’[7] In the 1950s, Cherrie Hill began working on the Stuart Turner No 9 early 20th-century steam engine.
[13] A notable project of Cherry’s later years is the Nathaniel Grew ice locomotive, which was used in Russia to carry cargo across frozen lakes and rivers in the 1860s.