Just how many Ideal Homes are there?
The answer is at least 41, because in 1921 the Daily Mail, as part of its efficiency drive, built a village to demonstrate the latest house-building techniques to local authorities. The village was built in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, and it was the Daily Mail’s generous gift to the nation as well as a useful form of publicity.
The village opened on March 2nd 1922 to coincide with the start of the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition where a scale model of the village was on display at Olympia, but visitors were invited to make a special excursion to Welwyn Garden City to see the village in all its glory. The village itself consisted of 41 cottages representing 16 different systems of housing construction, planned along Garden City lines and taking advantage of the financial aid offered by the 1919 Housing Act.
Some of the properties were left partially finished so the visitors could appreciate the construction methods, most of which featured new techniques such as a steel frame, as well as various labour-saving devices and, the all important bathroom as standard.
After the exhibition the houses were offered for sale with prices ranging from just over £750 for a three bedroom cottage, to £2,100 for a Georgian style home, which made them only affordable to the middle classes of the time.
The Daily Mail village still survives today, although now known as Meadow Green. A lot of the houses have had further improvements made to their structures, with extensions and conversions. However, a few of the original features survive with current residents still appreciating the original design of their houses. It’s been reported that in one of the houses a laundry chute was still in active service up to 1994 and hopefully it still is to this day!
If you live in one of the 41 houses, or know someone who does, we would love to hear from you as part of the ‘Who Lives in an Ideal Home?’ series that will appear on this website over the next few months.
Posted on November 9th, 2007
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