A model village is a mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. "Model" implies an ideal to which other developments could aspire. 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.
Great Britain and Ireland
According to Jeremy Burchardt, 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. However, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (2024), the first use of the term model village is post-Victorian, dating to 1906.
Starting in the 18th century, 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.
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.
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 David Dale. Philanthropic coal owners provided decent accommodation for miners from the early nineteenth century. Earl Fitzwilliam
Europe
Czech Republic
- Zlín, located in Moravia, was organized and built by Tomáš Baťa to house and efficiently organize the workers of Bata Shoes.
Germany
- Stadt des KdF-Wagens was built for the Volkswagen factory.
Italy
- 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
Australasia
Australia
- Australian Newsprint Mills established a worker's village at Boyer, Tasmania to accommodate workers of the Boyer Mill
- Cadbury established the Cadbury's Estate in Claremont, Tasmania in 1921
- EZ Industries constructed homes at Lutana, Tasmania for workers of the nearby Risdon Zinc Works, commencing in 1916[13]
- Fyansford Paper Mill Workers' Cottages, Fyansford, Victoria
New Zealand
Asia
China
- Huawei Ox Horn Campus, research and development buildings of technology company Huawei
See also
- Company town
- New Towns in the United Kingdom
- Garden city movement
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)
External links
References
- Walker, R L (2008) When was Ripleyville Built? SEQUALS, ISBN 0 9532139 2 7^
- retrieved 10 May 2014^
- Hartley's jam village made a conservation area, BBC News, 16 December 2011^