Anglesey Model Village- as featured in Garden Rail, April 2020

I (Ben) am something of an enthusiast of Model Villages; I like model-making anyway, and I had a visit at a formative age to the model village at Himley which was soon to close and lie derelict for many years; typically right up to the point I decided to see if I could get access for a photography project.  With typical bad timing, it was demolished just before the Uni project was announced.  The result was that I ended up making my own model village for my final major project, and a continuing interest in these tourist attractions.

Anglesey Model Village was known to me, given I spent pretty much every summer holidaying in Wales, but the jaunt over onto the island was always that bit too far when I was younger, and the place closed by the time I had access to my own transport.  Last year though, whilst on a holiday with The Childs, and with a couple of hours spare after a trip to the Sea Zoo nearby, on a whim we headed up to the model village which we'd seen had reopened.

It was a nice visit; the month before we'd done the grand-daddy of all model villages, Bekonscot (which is Down South), a massive, sprawling, busy place.  I actually enjoyed Anglesey a lot more for its compactness, and the fact is wasn't cluttered.  In fact we enjoyed the visit so much I decided to take a ton of photographs, and approach the editor of Garden Rail magazine to see if he knew about, or wanted some more info on the place.

There followed a request for an article on the visit and the model village- the origins, the new owners, the specifics of the model railway and the buildings, and so on.  I spoke to some interesting people with lots of information; the new owners, and also experts/historians in the field of model villages.

I won't go that much into detail on here, but it was a good experience writing the article, and it was a genuinely pleasant place to visit.  The Childs enjoyed it (especially the miniature train by the car park they could drive themselves).

The buildings are modelled on local Anglesey landmarks and structures in the main, and the refurbishment of the model village to its current state from miniature Day of the Triffids (whilst it was mothballed, awaiting sale) is remarkable.

The piece I wrote ended up as cover story and lead article in the April issue of Garden Rail- my first lead article and first photograph on a mag cover.

It looks great on the page (thanks to the editorial team at the mag), and has given me a taste for doing more of the same anyway.  I hope I've done the place justice, it deserves to succeed as an attraction as the new team there are throwing their heart and soul into resurrecting it all.

All in all, a nice start to the month, and at the risk of blowing our own trumpets, the first of four features of our work in print for this month... more on the others shortly.