Bekonscot Model Village and Railway is a miniature park built in the 1920s in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, UK at a scale of one inch to one foot. It portrays aspects of England mostly dating from the 1930s and contains several fictitious villages featuring replicas of notable local buildings. The model railway has almost 10 scale miles (400 m) of tracks and in 2001, a 7 1/4 in gauge railway was opened to transport visitors. Bekonscot has become both a popular tourist location and a part of English culture. It is commonly referred to as the oldest surviving model village in the UK and by 2020, had received over 14 million visitors. Authors such as Enid Blyton, Mary Norton and Will Self have been inspired by the village.
Creation
Bekonscot Model Village and Railway was created as a private
miniature park in the 1920s by Roland Callingham and his gardener W. A. Berry.
Callingham's wife had told him to take his
model railway hobby outside their house, so he purchased four acres of land in
Beaconsfield,
Buckinghamshire, and built an ideal English village with a church, railway and high street, illuminated by electric lights. Everything was constructed at a scale of one inch to one foot.
The railway was long and had stations including a London terminus called Maryloo (referencing real stations Marylebone and Waterloo). It was designed by Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke, who had also provided a train set made out of silver to the Maharaja of Gwalior.
It was opened to the general public in 1929 and three years later it had become a popular tourist attraction. By 1933, it was opened to the public every Sunday between April and September with the railway running and every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoon without the trains working. The entrance fee was donated to the Railway Benevolent Institution and the Queen's Institute of District Nursing.
History
In 1934, Bekonscot was visited by the young
Elizabeth II on her eighth birthday.
An article published in the
National Geographic in 1937 praised the "flawless miniatures of wood and stone, metal, stucco, bright paint, and glass".
Bekonscot, alongside
Pendon Museum in Oxfordshire and Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, inspired a trend for model villages in British seaside resort towns such as Babbacombe, Southport and Southsea.
By the 1960s it was owned and run by the Bekonscot Model Railway and Charitable Association.
It is commonly referred to as the oldest surviving model village in the UK, although the eccentric Charles Paget Wade constructed a village called Fladbury at his home
Snowshill Manor in 1907, which has been restored by
National Trust volunteers.
Bekonscot was updated with recent developments such as Concorde and office buildings until the 1990s, when it was returned to the 1930s. By 2020, it had incorporated a new town and added a replica of High and Over, a house designed by Amyas Connell in the nearby town of Amersham.
The model railway now has almost 10 scale miles (400 m) of tracks, with twelve stations and over 3,000 shrubs and trees. Trains run on a 1 gauge track and are powered by electricity.
In popular culture
Bekonscot is the oldest participant in the International Association of Miniature Parks (IMAP).
By 2020, Bekonscot had received over 14 million visitors and had become part of English culture.
The village frequently appears on lists of recommended family days out.
It represents an idealised version of traditional English villages and its brochure states it is a "little piece of history that is forever England".
was a Beaconsfield resident and friend of Callingham; she set her short story "The Enchanted Village" in Bekonscot.
The
Sunday Telegraph reported that Toyland, where her fictional character Noddy lives, was inspired by Bekonscot.
In tribute to Blyton, a replica of her now demolished house Green Hedges was installed in 1997.
Mary Norton was inspired by Bekonscot when she wrote
The Borrowers Aloft and
Will Self set his short story "Scale" in the model village.
Bekonscot also features in the non-fiction book
Dreamstreets: A Journey Through Britain's Village Utopias.
Historian Tim Dunn grew up nearby and has written the official guidebook.
See also
-
Bollocks to Alton Towers - a book about alternative days out in the UK which features Bekonscot
-
Madurodam - a Dutch model village
-
Tucktonia - a model village in Christchurch, Dorset which closed down in 1986
External links
Further reading
