Akroyd Memorial Cross, Akroydon (5273314361)

The Akroydon model housing scheme is a Victorian-era

model village A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally phys ...

at Boothtown, Halifax, in the Metropolitan Borough of

Calderdale Calderdale is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England, whose population in 2020 was 211,439. It takes its name from the River Calder, and dale, a word for valley. The name Calderdale usually refers to the borough through which the u ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England. It was designed in the

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style by

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started ...

in 1859 for the workers at the mills of Colonel

Edward Akroyd Lieutenant Colonel Edward Akroyd (1810–1887), English manufacturer, was born into a textile manufacturing family in 1810, and when he died in 1887, he still owned the family firm. He inherited "James Akroyd & Sons Ltd." from his father in 1 ...

, who had bought, in 1855, the of land on which the houses were to be built. As Scott's original plan to have dormer windows in the cottages was unacceptable to members of the Akroyd Town Building Association, Akroyd employed a local architect – W. H. Crossland – under the supervision of Scott, to come up with an acceptable design. The plan was for a quadrangular arrangement of 350 houses, but only 90 were actually built. In the middle of the quadrangle, known as The Square, Akroyd had a monument called the

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...

built in 1875 and dedicated to

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

. Its inscription includes a long quotation from

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

's poem '' The Excursion''. The monument, similar in style to an

Eleanor Cross The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve tall and lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with crosses erected in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had them built between 1291 and about 1295 in memory of his beloved wi ...

, has been described as "a monument to the British constitution". According to Walter L Creese, this "suburb on the moors" was Akroyd's attempt "to justify contemporary upheaval, to rationalize for himself and others the improvement and purpose of the factory system as it was replacing the cottage industries". It was to be a model village not only in the architectural sense but also in a social sense, as the houses were built in various sizes for people from all economic classes, who were offered low cost mortgages to buy them.The village was built with the support of the Halifax Permanent Building Society which later became the Halifax Building Society.
The village was to be managed by a committee of residents. There was a working men’s college for self-improvement.

Notable people

Eric Portman, stage and film actor, was born at 71 Chester Road, Akroydon, in 1901. John Reginald Halliday Christie (the serial killer of 10, Rillington Place, London) was born in Northowram in 1899 and lived with his parents at Chester Road, Akroydon.

Notes

References

External links

Town Planning – A brief summary of some key dates and places and people, with links

Timeline: Model Village
{{authority control 1859 establishments in England Areas of Halifax, West Yorkshire Model villages

Notable people

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links