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Mini Model Village In My Garden

ByKevin Simon

Jun 7, 2016

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I have always liked model villages, have visited a lot around the country In the past I have collected little model cottages like the Lilliput Lane type and similar. Over the years I had collected a fair few of these, though some of the larger ones I have sold and others got broke. As not had them on display for at least 8 Years, and to be honest forgot about them until found an old box of mostly Lilliput Lane cottages. I did look at what they were worth but most only worth about £1 or less, so decided would make a little model village in the garden somewhere, we’ll that was last year and didn’t get round to doing it.

This year we have done the garden with bigger borders, artificial grass and more pebbled areas, though as our garden is flat I couldn’t find a suitable place for them as if they were on the ground and the cottages at only an inch or two high you wouldn’t see them that well.

But between our house and the shed there is a gap of about 6ft which is where we keep the main two bins, so I had an idea of first building a shelter to hide the bins underneath. To do the shelter I had just replaced internal doors in the house upstairs, so I had the old hollow doors spare (ie the ones with corrugated cardboard in) so I first cut one down to the length I needed then attached this to the fence panel by a long bit of 3×2 then cut another door down so this would make the side this was sloped down, so the top would have a gradual angle down, for water to drop off and the other side was held up by a wooden pole. The top ie the door was then covered in an old green house cover and then stapled to the door, this is to protect the wood from the rain and damp.

Then I spaced out the cottages that I had, which there were 30 of them, though one was a watermill so had an idea for this one, so this went in the centre towards the back. At the back in the two corners I used some old planters with a few bedding plants in. The space between the cottages was covered in fine 10mm pea gravel. I had got some aquarium blue gravel, so from the watermill cottage I made channels in the pea gravel and put in the aquatic blue gravel, to look like rivers or streams.

I also found some little toy cars, so put these by the houses. I Still have got to put some edging around the whole village. But unfortunately a few days after doing the display we had really heavy rain which overflowed the gutting, which then in turn poured out onto the one side of the village, so this was the first flood lol (this did wash away some of the gravel) Though within the next few weeks will sort out the village again and the guttering so this doesn’t happen again.

I have still to improve the layout as got a few inches strip of artificial glass spare so will be making some grassed areas. The setup is in the perfect position for me, as right next to the window by the back door, which is where my computer is, which means when I have work to do, it is nice to look out at the little mini Model village.

Once I have improved the village a little more will add some more photos, but here are some so far.

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By Kevin Simon

I run this blog & also self employed cleaning out fish ponds, but due to spinal problems not able to do as much, now started a youtube channel showing my converted Peugeot Partner micro camper also as interest in photography so now vlog about the trips and of course Lego figures out in the wild photos.

One thought on “Mini Model Village In My Garden”
  1. I have a village in my bedroom of over 400 house s I would like 2have 1 in my garden have you put varnish on them so the weather will not damage them

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