Bondville Model Village: Big smiles as small village set to open for 2026 season

The last thing Rachel Hill was thinking about back in 2023 was buying another business. She’d spent 16 years building up a chain of children’s nurseries in Wakefield and was “exhausted”.

“It came onto my screen when I was having a coffee and a scroll,” she recalled. “I was drawn in. The rest is history.”

Rachel’s favourite part of running nurseries was setting up miniature farmyards for the children in her care. Bondville Model Village offers the chance to play every day. “It’s all about the detail,” she says.

Bondville was built in 1986 by Geoff and Carol Cooper and was originally known as Minningham.

It started in Withernsea, moved to Hornsea Pottery, and finally found its permanent home on the outskirts of Bridlington.

Over the decades it has had several owners, each bringing their own ideas about how to present it to the world.

Today, the village includes over 200 hand-crafted buildings, set in a lovingly maintained one-acre garden. A working harbour, with fishing boats and yachts.

There’s a waterfall, and a canal complete with barges. An abbey, three churches, three pubs, all built at a true 1:12 scale. Even a tiny cricket pitch.

And a reference to The Yorkshire Post, splashed across a billboard on the side of a bus.

Rachel says it attracts a wide audience, both young and the old, and she uses it to tell stories and raise awareness about disability – one of her sons is a wheelchair user.

She has introduced a couple of new figures among the hundreds that throng the picture perfect village – one in a mobility scooter and a younger one in a wheelchair.

Last year she put a mural of Leeds Rhino star Rob Burrow, who died in 2024 of Motor Neurone Disease and depicted teammate Kevin Sinfield running a marathon with his team around the cricket pitch.

It sparked quite a response.

“We had half a million hits (on social media) – and hundreds of rugby lads came to have a look,” she says.

The village takes a battering from the elements, being so close to the sea and every year it has to be repainted, an effort which takes weeks and involves her parents and a team of volunteers, Friends of Bondville.

“My husband, myself and my Mum and Dad are involved,” she said.

“It’s a family business, it’s the only way to keep it feasible, you just wouldn’t be able to do it (otherwise).

“They thought they were going to retire then I bought a model village right near them.”

Visitors seem to appreciate the attraction, just a few minutes walk from Sewerby Hall.

One happy punter wrote: “I challenge anyone to visit and not smile all the way around and feel like a kid again."

Others enjoyed the quiz, adding: “Such fun to go round and spot the little people and the little witticisms.”

Bondville Model Village, which has a tea room and free parking, opens for the 2026 season on March 19.