Nine UK Model Villages

Mention model villages to most people and a magical miniature wonderland comes to mind. But did you know that there are real-sized model villages up and down the UK, purpose-built for their inhabitants?

Model villages were self-contained communities built to serve a purpose. Some of these villages were dreamt up by caring landlords who said no to shoddy housing. Others? Well, they were the brainchild of kind-hearted business owners, created for the health and benefit of their workers. Imagine cosy villages popping up near factories, not just for work, but for living too! These places weren't just about putting a roof over workers' heads; they were all about making them happy campers with a short hop to work. Think lush parks and handy shops right on your doorstep.

If you’ve had a bash at our Virtual Trail: The Hidden Detective, you’ll have already visited our nine UK model villages from the comfort of your armchair. Now, join us as we delve deeper and discover more about these intriguing villages.

What: The original ‘Factory in a Garden’.

Where: 5 miles southwest of Birmingham.

When: Built in 1879.

Why: When brothers Richard and George Cadbury decided to move their chocolate business from Birmingham out into the countryside, they also wanted to improve the living conditions of their workers, which at the time were pretty squalid. They planned a model village that would not only house their workers right next door to the factory but provide them with a desirable place to live too.

Housing: Well-built houses in a mixture of styles, all with large gardens. 

Amenities: Women’s and men’s swimming pools, public gardens, sports fields, a park, shops, schools, places of worship and more.

In 1915, general death rates and infant mortality rates were much lower in Bournville than in neighbouring industrial Birmingham; the Cadbury brother’s vision really did improve people’s quality of life.

Master Swiss chocolatier, Herr Fruten Nutte, was well-known for his nutty outlandish chocolate product ideas. As each idea was ridiculed in the media, he buried his notes on Chocolate Island. However, his recently discovered diary has revealed a real gem: see-through chocolate that sparkles like diamonds! Your quest is to solve the clues to locate Herr Nutte's notes and help bring this glistening chocolate treat to life!

• Treasure hunt theme
• Walking Trail
• 2-mile circular route (approx. 2 hours)
• Wheelchair and pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly (with restrictions)

What: Arguably the finest surviving example of early urban planning in the UK.

Where: On the River Mersey just south of Birkenhead. 

When: Built in 1888.

Why: William Hesketh Lever, owner of the Sunlight Soap Factory, was seeking an alternative to sharing his business profits directly with his workers. What he came up with was ‘prosperity-sharing’, providing decent homes, welfare and facilities to ensure the loyalty and commitment of his staff.  

Housing: Over 900 houses, all with indoor bathrooms, were built by over 30 leading architects and a host of top craftsmen. All are now Grade II listed.

Amenities: An assembly hall, community dining hall, four schools, restaurant, gymnasium, post office, village shops, hospital, library, technical institute, fire station, allotments and several public outdoor spaces.

In 1929, the Lever Brothers joined forces with Margarine Union Ltd, a Dutch margarine maker, to form Unliver, the now multinational company. Unilever still produces Sunlight Soap, the world’s first packaged, branded laundry soap which gave its name to Port Sunlight.

Port Sunlight is in danger of disappearing under an avalanche of soapy suds and foamy bubbles. Somewhere in the cellars deep below the old soap factory the evil genius Professor Ivor Leek has hidden a fiendishly cunning device that is programmed to release soap powder into the water supply for the fountain and cause bubble mayhem. Can you complete this mission and deactivate the device before Port Sunlight is awash with bubbles?

• Spy mission theme
• Walking Trail
• 2-mile circular route (approx. 2 hours)
• Wheelchair and pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly (with restrictions)

What: The best preserved railway village in the UK.

Where: Swindon, Wiltshire. 

When: Built in the 1840s, with the layout planned by Isambard Brunel. 

Why: Great Western Railway (GWR) wanted to provide high quality housing and a sense of community to entice workers to the engine shed and new carriage works from Bristol, London, northern England and Scotland and make sure this skilled workforce wanted to stay.

Housing: Around 300 good quality cottages laid out in terraced streets, all of which are now listed.

Amenities: A school, church, hospital, health hydro, three pubs and a park.

GWR hosted an annual Children’s Fete. At the 1904 fete, 38,000 people drank 1,200 gallons of tea and ate 3.5 tons of cake.

Foreign agents are plotting to carry out a cyber-attack that will bring the entire rail network to a standstill, but we have an undercover mole working within their group. Our mole has uncovered a code which will provide us with backdoor access to the foreign agents' entire network, and thus bring their nasty little plan to an abrupt halt. Worried that he may be under surveillance by the foreign agents, our mole has now encrypted the code with a series of clues so as to avoid easy detection. Can you crack the code and save the day?

• Spy mission theme
• Walking Trail
• 2.4-mile circular route (approx. 2 hours)
• Wheelchair and pushchair accessible

You’ll be entering Swindon Railway Village after you’ve solved Clue 03 on this secret mission.

What: A complete and well-preserved industrial village and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

Where: On the River Aire between Bradford and Bingley.

When: Built in 1853.

Why: When woollen textiles manufacturer Sir Titus Salt moved his entire business from Bradford to a larger site with direct canal, river and rail transportation, he saw the opportunity to escape the polluted and overcrowded town centre for greener pastures and provide much improved living and working conditions for both himself and his workers.

Housing: Two up two down terraces, each with their own gas and water supply and an outside toilet, plus larger houses with gardens for the managers.

Amenities: A bathhouse, institute, hospital, almshouses, school, park and a church.

Not only is Saltaire named after founder Sir Titus Salt, combined with the River Aire, but his wife and all 11 of their children have streets name after them in the village too. Other streets are named after daughter-in-laws, grandchildren and the architects who built them.

Not many out there believe in the legend of the shiny Saltaire Silver Salt Cellar. In fact, fewer still can say its name without sounding like a slippery snake slurping slushies! Most historians over the years have dismissed this grainy story and have taken it all with a pinch of salt. However, as any good peppery pirate worth their salt should know, there's often no smoke without fire. That's why we need some well-seasoned treasure hunters to solve this mystery. Are you up for the challenge to reveal where the silver salt pot is buried? 

• Treasure hunt theme
• Walking Trail
• 2-mile circular route (approx. 2 hours)
• Wheelchair and pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly

What: A purpose-built village with a fantastic range of architecture and styles.

Where: Inverclyde, Scotland, approx. 16 miles west of Glasgow. 

When: Built in 1878.

Why: It was built by shoe retailer and philanthropist William Quarrier as the Orphan Homes of Scotland to house orphaned and abandoned children. The village was a vast improvement on being an inmate in a poorhouse, and gave the children stable homes run by ‘house mothers’ and ‘house fathers’ in a healthy countryside setting, as well as providing education and training. 

Housing: 40 large cottages with their own gardens, each housing around 20 children at a time. Each home was named after its individual donor and built in the architectural style of their choice. 

Amenities: A church, school, shop, post office, laundry, workshops, fire station and a village hall. 

The village had a fully rigged wooden training ship used to teach seamanship skills and prepare boys for a career in the navy. The only time the trainee sailors were allowed onto ‘dry land’ during their training was to attend church each Sunday.

Enraged at being thrown off the local council because of his increasingly outrageous ideas, you'll never guess what mad scientist Dr Ivor Plott has gone and done. Yup, he's completely lost the plot and vowed to wreak revenge on everyone associated with Quarrier's Village. Flying directly in the face of its residents who want to keep the village green and beautiful, he has hidden a number of devices in the woods that will emit strong sound waves designed to turn all of the trees into matchsticks! Can YOU work out the secret code to deactivate Dr Plott's dastardly devices?

• Spy mission theme
• Walking Trail
• 1.5-mile circular route (approx. 1.5 hours)
• Pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly

What: A model industrial community and UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Where: On the River Clyde in Lanarkshire, around 25 miles southeast of Glasgow.

When: Built in 1786.

Why: It was originally built by David Dale, along with cotton mills using the brand new water-powered cotton spinning machinery invented by Richard Arkwright. The village was then developed by Dale’s son-in-law Robert Owen to provide good quality, clean housing for millworkers along with worker, social and education forms which Owen believed were “the most important experiment for the happiness of the human race that has yet been instituted in any part of the world”.

Housing: Large tenement buildings with multiple homes, with each family living in one room, later two rooms.

Amenities: A school, recreation building hosting a library, balls, lectures and a weekly concert, a nursery, allotments for families to grow their own fruit and vegetables, and footpaths on the hillside for villagers to enjoy the surrounding countryside.

New Lanark had the world’s first workplace nursery. As soon as village children could walk, they were taken care of at the nursery during the day to allow their mothers to go back to work. 

Whilst cleaning up after a local street festival in Lanark town centre, fast food vendors Chris P Bacon and Barbie Cue were found brown bread in a ditch behind their mobile van. It looks like one of the visitors to the festival took them out and then burger-led their day's takings! Heading the inquiry into who doner them over is Chief Inspector Laura Norder who relishes the chance of getting some top detectives (YOU!) working this case. Solve the clues to find out whodunnit...

• Detective mystery theme
• Walking Trail
• 2-mile circular route (approx. 2 hours)
• Pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly

Lanark is just up the road from New Lanark, so combining this detective mystery with a trip to the model village makes a fantastic whole day of exploring.

Imagery ©Google

What: A square horseshoe-shaped colliery village.

Where: Next to the town of Bolsover, Derbyshire.

When: Built in 1896.

Why: Built by the Bolsover Colliery Company to benefit and improve the lives of workers at Bolsover Colliery. It was also hoped that workers would have better attendance at work and follow the rules, for fear of losing their housing if they lost their jobs. 

Housing: 200 houses in double rows of terraced housing, built around a central village green, with a tram track to the colliery allowing direct delivery of coal to the back of each house.

Amenities: A large village green complete with bandstand, a school, store, post office, allotments, pig sties and a cricket pitch.

Even though workers were only permitted a maximum of three glasses of beer per day at the worker’s institute, the village had its very own policeman, employed by the colliery, to ensure that there was no anti-social behaviour. 

Locals are shocked over the latest news coming out of Chesterfield this morning. Someone has done in the local sculptor and all-around good egg Donna Breakit the night before her big exhibition! Police suspect foul play and fingers are pointing to the famed thief and Donna's rival, Artie Work. However, the proof is sketchy, and he swears he's being framed. Can YOU whittle down the list of suspects and paint a picture of what REALLY happened at Donna's workshop?

• Detective mystery theme
• Walking Trail
• 2-mile circular route (approx. 2 hours)
• Pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly

Chesterfield is six miles away, making it an easy stop off to admire the village green at New Bolsover before or after completing your detective mystery Trail.

What: A multi-coloured Italianate style tourist village.

Where: On the Gwynedd coast, North Wales.

When: Built in 1925.

Why: It was built by Welsh architect Clough Williams-Ellis who wished to to create an ideal village. It was also an architectural experiment in the hope that the village might inspire others by showing how a naturally beautiful site could be enhanced rather than spoiled by development.

Housing: The village was built purely for tourism, with a hotel being completed first, and more houses and villas added for extra accommodation.

Amenities: A ‘town hall’, now used for wedding ceremonies and other occasions, shops, restaurants, a pottery, gardens, viewpoints and a giant chessboard.

The village is well-known to some as the set of cult 60s TV series The Prisoner. Portmeirion also once featured in an episode of Treasure Hunt in 1984, with Anneka Rice dropping in to find a clue!

Legend has it that Davy Jones, an old seadog from the time of the slate trade, brought back a golden ship's bell from his last voyage delivering slate to Porthmadog. For years the bell proudly adorned a steam train transporting the slate from Blaenau Ffestiniog. However, one day the bell mysteriously vanished and is still missing to this day! Can YOU decipher Davy's scribbled notes to solve the clues and recover the golden bell?

• Treasure hunt theme
• Walking Trail
• 2.2-mile circular route (approx. 2.5 hours)
• Not wheelchair or pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly

Porthmadog is just 2 miles up the road from Portmeirion so ideal to combine visits for a whole day of exploring.

Imagery ©Google

What: An octagonal shaped retirement village.

Where: Near Weybridge, Surrey.

When: Built in 1917.

Why: When William Whiteley, who opened the first British department store, died in 1907, he left £1 million in his will for the creation of a village for retired commercial traders and for the benefit of the poor and elderly. He wanted the village to have a community feel with social facilities accessible to all, as an alternative to the almhouses that were usually built for retirees. 

Housing: 240 cottages, mostly single-person dwellings. They were built in the ‘Arts and Crafts’ style, meaning they used traditional craftsmanship, were asymmetrical and used local materials and styles.

Amenities: A shop, church and village hall were among the original amenities along with plenty of green outdoor spaces.

The octagonal layout puts many of the shared facilities in the middle, making them accessible to all residents without having to travel too far. It was designed by Frank Atkinson, who designed the Selfridges store on Oxford Street.

Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once stayed in Weybridge whilst correcting proofs of his classic novel, Treasure Island. Evidence has now come to light of the existence of a priceless first edition of this famous book, but sadly no one knows where it is! The author's descendants want it found, sold and the proceeds donated to charity. Unfortunately, a greedy gang of villains known as the Long John Silvers (or 'Long Johns' for short!) are also hunting down the book, but for their own profit. Can YOU help the Stevensons retrieve this treasure first?

• Treasure hunt theme
• Walking Trail
• 2.5-mile circular route (approx. 3 hours)
• Pushchair accessible
• Dog friendly

Weybridge is just 2 miles up the road from the village. Whiteley Village is a privately owned estate, but respectful visitors are welcome. If you do plan to stop off on your way to or from your Weybridge Trail adventure, please do take a look at the village rules before you set off. 

Above are just nine of over 1200 self-guided adventures across the UK. To find your nearest Treasure Trail, simply type your town or postcode into the search box and see where your curiosity takes you.

Happy Trailing!