Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries saw a trend for ‘model villages’ – idealised communities built to house workers by philanthropic employers.
In Dreamstreets, Yallop relates the history of the trend in a series of visits to seven such ‘village utopias’ – among them Saltaire in West Yorkshire, Port Sunlight in Wirral, and the folly-like Portmeirion in Gwynedd.
On her way, Yallop teases out the paradoxes and tensions of the paternalist philosophy behind the model village idea. Many of the founders were non-conformist entrepreneurs with radical views about the importance of educating the poor, but they were also unabashed social engineers whose generosity demanded conformism and moral compliance.
At the height of the vogue, manuals and pattern-books on how to build your own village abounded; but by the time of Port Sunlight, this Stepford-like quality had become oppressive.
Yallop tells an interesting story well and is a skilled describer of the built environment, but what’s lacking is any first-hand account of what it was like to live in these contrived environments.
