The full history of Bekonscot, with accompanying previously-unseen photos and pictures of Royal Family visits over the past 75 years, is in our 2008 guidebook. All profits from its sale go to charity.
The paths may be narrow and the buildings 79 years old, but Bekonscot remains an intriguing, unique and eccentric folly. It was the vision of an archetypal English gentleman wanting to create something unlike anything seen before. Bekonscot is not just remarkable to the millions who have visited and fallen under its whimsical charm, but also the countless thousands who benefit from its fundraising.
Bekonscot began as a hobby for Roland Callingham, a London accountant. He bought a meadow of several acres next to his home in Beaconsfield in the mid-1920s to expand his garden. The high society and gentry of London would come to garden parties and tennis games held in the grounds. In the mid-1920s, he and his head gardener Tom Berry built some model houses as a feature of the alpine garden to the simple scale of one inch to one foot (1:12 scale, now the accepted size for dolls houses worldwide).
The swimming pool later became the main lake at Bekonscot, with its two islands. The world-renowned Bassett-Lowke Model Railway Company installed what was at the time the largest Gauge 1 garden railway in the UK; local schoolboys helped run the railway and maintain the models. Roland and Tom set out the landscape with their own visions of how town and country planning should be.
Following suggestions from friends and family, Roland opened Bekonscot to the public in 1929. Thousands flocked to see the “Real-life Lilliput” and the village was seen in newspapers, newsreels and magazines across the world. No admission charge was made, the public being invited to put money in collection-boxes for charity if they wished. In 1932, however, the Bekonscot Model Railway & General Charitable Association was set up to administer the village and distribute surplus money to charity.
Since then, all excess profits have gone to charity and in excess of £1 million has been raised (in excess of £4 million at today’s prices). In 1978, a company was set up by the Church Army and the Callingham Foundation to preserve Bekonscot and its fundraising activities for future generations.
Throughout the 20th century, Bekonscot grew and modernised. High-speed trains and tower blocks rose from the original railways and villages, as happened in the real world. In 1993, a decision was made to preserve Bekonscot in the way its founder would recognise; to depict an idealised view of life in the 1930s. There are no electricity pylons, no motorways and certainly no Eurostar trains! Model steam trains meander through the countryside, windmill sails slowly creak round and a brass band plays on the pier.
The popularity of Bekonscot encouraged other model villages to spring up; many British resorts had similar miniature parks built, unashamedly based upon the original. At one time in the 1960s, several dozen existed. Babbacombe in Torquay, Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, Godshill on the Isle of Wight and Merrivale in Great Yarmouth are some of the few which have survived the test of time. Highly successful miniature parks, openly based up Bekonscot, opened up across the world, including Madurodam in the Netherlands. Even Legoland Windsor's creators make a nod to Bekonscot's influence. More recently, there has been a surge in interest of model villages and such ventures as the Forest Model Village in Gloucestershire have appeared. Others, such as Merrivale at Great Yarmouth, have been lovingly restored and are once again pulling the crowds. In 2000, the International Association of Miniature Parks was set up, of which Bekonscot is a member.
Since 2006 Bekonscot has reverted to its original name: Bekonscot Model Village & Railway.
If you would like any more information on (or have memories about) Bekonscot's history, then please contact our historian, Tim Dunn, by using the Web Contact Form here . |
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