Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Model Village, Finsbury Park
Model Village, built in Finsbury Park in the 1940s.
The village was built by a retiree called Edgar Wilson, a man of "humble circumstances". Wilson was a hobbyist who built this sculpture, along with at least two others, in his "little garden" at 70 Hamilton Road, West Norwood, south London. He donated the largest of the four villages to Melbourne, and gave the others to Vauxhall Park, Finsbury Park and Brockwell Park in London. (The model houses in Vauxhall Park were largely rebuilt in 2000-01, and Brockwell Park has just two badly damaged cottages that lie forgotten near a bush inside the park.)
Andrew Patience, whose company did the restoration work to Melbourne's village, says Wilson used found objects such as bits of brick, coloured glass, ceramics, lead and other materials to make his houses. He thinks Wilson most likely collected his materials from London bomb sites during the blitz; during the restoration process, he found Wilson's signature in the roof of one of the cottages, along with the date November 5, 1945. Wilson would have been 75 at the time the inscription was made.
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Comment by Teresa Wilson on February 11, 2017 at 18:37
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Lovely to see this photo. When I was a out 5 someone told me that there were fairies living in there!
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Comment by Richard Woods on February 12, 2021 at 12:32
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Fantastic to see it again after so many years. It was still there I think when i left Harringay in 1964 - am I right?
Thank you yet again Hugh and HoL - a favourite arrival every week.
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Aww I remember the village in Finsbury Park was thinking about it only recently. ..thanks for posting pictures
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Comment by Maureen Bamfield on March 22, 2024 at 17:39
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Teresa, of course that is where the fairies lived, they were the only folk small enough, well, that`s what my parents told me :-)
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I absolutely loved this model village growing up near Finsbury Park in the 60s. It seemed like a little rural idyll, so much detail in all the little cottages.
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