A model village has been updated to represent modern life – with street protests, a new-build housing estate and kids filming TikToks.
Babbacombe Model Village in Devon has unveiled its latest miniature creations. The miniature world, which is built within four acres of award-winning gardens, showcases hundreds of uniquely hand-crafted model scenes, vehicles and people.
The village portrays versions of Britain through the decades including the Globe Theatre, a modern high street and Stonehenge – and depicted the Coronation of King Charles III.
And now, the village has been updated to reflect contemporary life with the additions of protesters holding up traffic, school children filming a TikTok, an ‘upcycling’ initiative and a nod to the housing crisis.
The village includes an ‘unaffordable housing development’, complete with show homes finished with ‘pain in the glass’ window fitters. The scene depicts a building a site where houses are being built under the name Hovis Homes – costing £650,000 for starter homes and £2million for executive ones.
In one scene, figurines of protesters are seen blocking the street and holding signs saying ‘Save our village’ and ‘No HGVs, no digging, no development’
In another scene, a teacher figurine is seen recording a group of schoolchildren as they appear to do a TikTok dance. Some children also appear to have ice cream cones
In April, a tiny coronation scene which showed King Charles and Queen Camilla being taken through the streets of Windsor as part of a royal procession was built for the model village
The village includes an ‘unaffordable housing development’, complete with show homes finished with ‘pain in the glass’ window fitters. The scene depicts a building a site where houses are being built under the name Hovis Homes – costing £650,000 for starter homes and £2million for executive ones
Adding to the humour of the site, builders are seen topless using a skit as a swimming pool.
Protesters can be seen blocking roads in the village, with some figurines holding signs saying ‘Save our village’ and ‘No HGVs, no digging, no development’.
An HGV carrying wheels is seen stopped in the road as the demonstration occurs, while figurines from neighbouring houses stand and watch the protest unfold.
A scene of figurine protesters is also seen on a field – this time for banning hunting.
Police stand with hunters as a crowd of demonstrators hold signs saying ‘Stop the hunt’ and ‘Ban the hunt’.
Protesting is very much a theme of the village update, as in another scene a house is painted with the words ‘Squatters’ rights’, while builders and police wait outside.
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In another scene, a teacher figurine is seen recording a group of schoolchildren as they appear to do a TikTok dance.
Another new scene in the village consists of a group of people in brightly coloured patterned clothes, beside a skip that has ‘upcycling’ written on it attached to a van that says ‘Peace’.
Managing Director, Mike Rhodes, said: ‘Right through its history the model village has always tried to portray contemporary life – with a touch of humour.
‘The team come up with ideas all the time and then we have to decide what ones will work well in miniature, not everything does, which ones will work well for humour and which ones will resonate best with customers.
‘One problem facing model villages is that because everything is in miniature, people can easy walk by missing so much.
A scene of figurine protesters is also seen on a field – this time for banning hunting. Police stand with hunters as a crowd of demonstrators hold signs saying ‘Stop the hunt’ and ‘Ban the hunt’
Another new scene in the village consists of a group of people in brightly coloured patterned clothes, beside a skip that has ‘upcycling’ written on it attached to avan that says ‘Peace’
Protesting is very much a theme of the village update, as in another scene a house is painted with the words ‘Squatters’ rights’, while builders and police wait outside
A man is seen cleaning part of the model village – where beautiful tall houses curve round and tiny cars are parked up
The Coronation scene supposedly took around three months to create and showed military personnel on horses carrying the cart the King and Queen were riding in
‘Adding more depth to the displays does slow people down and it also ensures that everyone will see something interesting, funny, strange, quirky to them.’
In April, a tiny coronation scene which showed King Charles and Queen Camilla being taken through the streets of Windsor as part of a royal procession was built for the model village.
The scene, designed by artist Wayne Stott, featured dozens of thumb-sized figurines – including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Babbacombe Model Village spokesman Mike Rhodes said at the time that the scene took around three months to create.
