A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally physically separated from them and often consist of relatively high-quality housing, with integrated community amenities and attractive physical environments. "Model" is used in the sense of an ideal to which other developments could aspire.
United Kingdom and Ireland
The term model village was first used by the Victorians to describe the new settlements created on the rural estates of the landed gentry in the eighteenth century. As landowners sought to improve their estates for aesthetic reasons, new landscapes were created and the cottages of the poor were demolished and rebuilt out of sight of their country house vistas.[1] New villages were created at Nuneham Courtenay when the village was rebuilt as plain brick dwellings either side of the main road, at Milton Abbas the village was moved and rebuilt in a rustic style and Blaise Hamlet in Bristol had individually designed buildings, some with thatched roofs.[2]
The Swing Riots of 1830 highlighted poor housing in the countryside, ill health and immorality and landowners had a responsibility to provide cottages with basic sanitation. The best landlords provided accommodation but many adopted a paternalistic attitude when they built model dwellings and imposed their own standards on the tenants charging low rents but paying low wages.[3]
As the Industrial Revolution took hold, industrialists who built factories in rural locations provided housing for workers clustered around the workplace. An early example of an industrial model village was New Lanark built by Robert Owen.[4] Philanthropic coal owners provided decent accommodation for miners from the early nineteenth century. Earl Fitzwilliam, a paternalistic colliery owner provided houses near his coal pits in Elsecar near Barnsley that were "...of a class superior in size and arrangement, and in conveniences attached, to those of working classes."[5] They had four rooms and a pantry, and outside a small garden and pig sty.[6]
Crespi d'Adda in the Lombardy region, is a well-preserved model workers' village, and World Heritage Site since 1995. It was built from scratch, starting in 1878, to provide housing and social services for the workers in a cotton textile factory on the banks of the river Adda.[citation needed]
Spain
Nuevo Baztán outside Madrid dates from the mercantilist and entrepreneurial ambitions of an industrialist from the early-eighteenth century.[citation needed]
^Walker, R L (2008) When was Ripleyville Built? SEQUALS, ISBN 0 9532139 2 7
^Historic England, "Prices Village (1560975)", Research records (formerly PastScape), retrieved 10 May 2014
^Hartley's jam village made a conservation area, BBC News, 16 December 2011
^Burchardt 2002, p. 63
^Silver End - a window on the past, BBC, 22 July 2009, retrieved 20 June 2015
^Barrow Bridge Conservation Area (PDF), bolton.gov.uk, archived from the original (PDF) on 25 August 2012, retrieved 28 July 2011
^Vulcan Village Conservation Area appraisal (PDF), St Helens Council, retrieved 4 January 2023
^Sharlston Colliery Model Village, Heritage Gateway, retrieved 13 August 2015
^Historic England, "Port Sunlight (1362582)", Research records (formerly PastScape), retrieved 10 May 2014
^Historic England, "The Model Village (929805)", Research records (formerly PastScape), retrieved 10 May 2014
^Historic England, "New Bolsover Model Village (613327)", Research records (formerly PastScape), retrieved 10 May 2014
^The garden village of New Earswick (PDF), Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, p. 2, archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2013, retrieved 10 May 2014
^A study of Woodlands Model Colliery Village 1907-1909, Royal Institute of British Architects, retrieved 10 May 2014
^"Tasmanian Industrial Village Successful Co-operative Building (1 November 1923)", The Australian Home Builder (November 1923), Herald and Weekly Times: 50, 1923-11-01, ISSN 0819-7008
Burchardt, Jeremy (2002), Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change Since 1800, I. B. Tauris, ISBN 1860645143
Thornes, Robin (1994), Images of Industry: Coal, Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, ISBN 1-873592-23-X
Further reading
Gillian Darley's 'Villages of Vision: A Study of Strange Utopias' first published 1975 (Architectural Press, pb 1978 Paladin) and republished with fully revised gazetteer 2007 (Five Leaves Publications)