Eric….I have had a quick look through a few of my references and have discovered that the second V4, 61701, was not officially named but became known as Bantam Hen for obvious reasons. I have photographs of the locomotives with their BR numbers and although they are in black and white the liveries are described. It would appear that the "Hen" was decked out in lined LNER Apple Green after receiving its BR number, from June 1948 to September 1949. During this period and certainly in 1949, Bantam Cock was in BR lined black. What happened after 1949 I have yet to discover, although a B&W photo dated 1952 shows the "Hen" in a livery which is definitely not black. Of course both locos were scrapped in 1957.

Sorry I can't give further or more accurate information at this stage but if you can give me a specific date that you are interested in I will keep looking and get back to you.

I am building a Gresley V2 in Gauge 1 and it seems that some of these locos also went through the Apple Green/lined black/BR Blue phases before ending up in BR Green, which is how I shall finish mine. I always thought that the V4's also ended up in BR Green but I can't back that up with evidence. I was born adjacent to the ECML, and at the time of the livery changing at the end of the war it was quite colourful.

As a mixed traffic loco (5MT) the appropriate BR livery would have been lined black but there were exceptions eg as in the V2 (6MT) which as mentioned above was in BR Green.