Model village

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.

[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.

[3] As the Industrial Revolution took hold, industrialists who built factories in rural locations provided housing for workers clustered around the workplace.

The architect who designed Woodlands and Creswell Model Villages, Percy B. Houfton was influential in the development of the garden city movement.