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Adding to the model village continues, with a strongman joining the circus, a milk float making its deliveries, bus stops around the model village and much, much more.

Coming soon

It came with great relief that the model village and cafe could continue trading throughout the winter without significant restrictions on opening to the public for the first time in 2 years.

Sadly, challenges came in a different form, being that of the winter climate. A series of storms came through Anglesey, some resulting in damage caused to the model village. Storm Arwen had the greatest impact with fallen trees and blown over models.

Thanks to the hard work of the model village staff, the model village was soon reopened to visitors each time a storm had come through.

Determined that the winter weather wasn't going to hold us back, we ploughed on with introducing new displays. This brightly coloured addition to the model village is our interpretation of the fabulous Market Square in Beaumaris.

There is no one date for the model village displays at Anglesey Model Village - there's the castle set in the 15th Century uprising of the Welsh against the English. Llangefni Town Hall set in the Victorian era, Newborough's Prichard Jones Institute from the Edwardian era as well as present day Beaumaris and Llangefni High Streets.

Now, the model village goes back much further in time; a time well before mankind walked the Earth - when dinosaurs roamed the island (well maybe). The dinosaur display has been a huge ambitious project for us, using technologies that enable the dinosaur figures to move.

The reaction to the new display (still being added to) has been fantastic, from delight to sheer terror of the sight of dangerous beasts in the model village.

Additions continue to the model village in many forms - extra characters, street furniture, further sound effects and so on.

We're also very grateful to those who have made donations to us - we've had buildings and characters provided as part of the ongoing effort to improve the model village. Pictured here is a building made by our local supermarket delivery driver, Tony, who had made this pub himself!

Covid-19 has had a significant impact on the model village - with the site being closed for 12 of the 15 months from the very first lockdown in March 2020.

Many changes were made to the site to help make both the model village and cafe Covid safe for both visitors and staff - a new exit gate from the model village removed the need to go indoors in order to leave, staff areas have increased in size to facilitate social distancing of staff.

The most notable change has been the introduction of the coloured dining pods to provide a safe and sheltered space for cafe customers to enjoy.

Whilst waiting permission to get the go ahead to re-open the model village to visitors once again, the model village buildings received a spruce up.

One such model that received a makeover was the model village holiday cottage. With April Fool's Day upon us, we advertised that bookings for 'Ty Bach' were now being taken - little did we know that we would be inundated with booking enquiries! Perhaps we should have said that the maximum head height in the rooms was 6 inches? 3 months on, we're still getting enquiries!

The model village re-opened to the visitors once again from the May half term holiday. We were delighted to be able to welcome visitors throughout the Summer.

Still with regulations in place regarding contact tracing, self isolation and group sizes, vistors showed how adaptable they were to making the most of being out and about. Outdoor dining was a big feature of this year and the model village's Whistle Stop Cafe expanded its Covid menu to include tasty German imported hot dogs, which proved to be the most popular item on sale.

It was great to see visitors enjoying the al fresco set up with picnic benches and the outdoor dining pods too. And with a fabulous ever changing view of Eryri (Snowdonia in English), it was a special time that was cherished by many.

Thank you to everyone who helped us work through the various requirements as well as being patient with us on days when staff shortages occured during the 'pingdemic'. Thank you for your kindness, it meant a lot to us.

Our long term objective at the model village is to introduce more sound, movement and interaction to the model displays. In order to do that, we need to research methods and techniques in model making that have not been used previously at AMV. First off is 3D printing of model components and figures. A series of projects over the Winter period will enable us to adopt these new methods, whilst producing new features for the model village itself.

With repairs making progress and new models appearing on display, we upped the ante with a old project to remake from scratch the model of Llangefni Town Hall. (The previous version had rotted beyond repair). With help from a local joiner who made a box with holes for windows, Pippa paintainstakingly created stone overlay, made windows and doors as well as a roof covering. We had found the Llangefni clock in two parts (the base was rotting away at the back of a shed), so this was repaired too and together took pride of place on display.

Just as we were hitting our stride with the model village enhancements, Covid-19 forced the closure of tourism in Wales from late March.

It was a time of mixed feelings for us - halted in our tracks, we were frustrated by closure, but concerned about the safety and wellbeing of staff and also the customers, some of whom we had come to know very well.

The cafe food at closure was distributed amongst the local community with short dated items dontated to Anglesey Foodbank.

We had hoped that closure was a temporary state, but it out to be 19 weeks with our doors shut and little did we know that the subsequent re-opening was to be short lived...

The model village re-opened to visitors on 3rd August 2020, looking quite different to before - there were hand sanitising stations, queue barriers, a new one way system for the cafe, and an outdoor handwashing sink in the picnic area being part of the required changes in our new 'Covid safe' environment. But we were pleased to be able to welcome visitors again, albeit in a strange 'new normal'. 

Sadly, the Summer re-opening turned out to be short lived. Anglesey slowly headed back into Lockdown and by late October our doors had closed once again under order by Welsh Government.   

After all the effort that had gone in to re-opening the model village in 2019, we were determined that this was not to be the end of Anglesey's model village.

After 16 months of renovation work, the time had come. New Year's Day may seem an unusual day to choose to open a tourist attraction to visitors for the first time! However, we needed to learn about the business; what visitors want, what they didn't want and also give time to ease ourselves into day to day operations.

The first day was just Nick & Larry with no staff - the coffee machine was on and ticket window open. We hadn't told anyone we were opening (because we weren't really fully ready, but wanted to see what would happen). The initial quiet was soon changed by a facebook announcement. By the end of the first week the model village had received 1500 vistors!

With the show on the road, keeping up the momentum became important. Our plan was to keep up the renovation work and also introduce new models and displays too. The model village first opened in 1992 with just six models and by New Year's Day 2019, this had grown to 48 - but we wanted to add many many more. Starting small with a Candy Floss booth and Amusement Arcade at the fairground display, the additions started to grow. 

Summer saw our very first summer season for the re-opened model village. It certainly was busy! We recruited a fabulous team of local staff to help run the model village and cafe. Outdoor games were introduced to the cafe picnic area too - let's just say in the few quiet moments we had, the games were popular!

The work that had been done by the original owners of the model village was to a high standard. Our challenge therefore was to be able to produce models to that quality. First though was to continue with the repairs of those original models - our new model technician, Pippa certainly raised the standard with this faulous repair to St Mary's Church model, part of our LlanfairPG display. The entire model was fully stripped back to its bare shell, treated and redecorated. The end result is stunning!

Winter 2018 - A hard slog

Whilst a wet winter continued, the work carried on at the model village. The big project in the gardens was the cleaning of the pond. Thick with sludge over 12 inches deep making it too thick to pump out, it took over 150 mega buckets to empty the pond by hand. The water feature was cleared too, meaning that we had an operational stream and waterfall for the first time since 2015.

Work also continued on the model village renovation, with the initial clearance of the gardens finally nearing an end. Flowerbeds had been reinstated, borders cleared up, hedges trimmed and the first of the new plants had been brought in too.

Winter had a final fling with the 'Beast from the East' bringing more snow to Anglesey and strong winds bringing down a tree in the model village. Thankfully only minor damage was caused.

Spring 2018 - A new dawn

With the model village set in one acre of gardens, work to make the gardens presentable again took a big step forward in Spring 2018. As well as creating new flower beds and restoring old ones, we wanted to enable the gardens have greater impact. We commissioned a local willow sculptor to create an enormous red squirrel and what was delivered to us was absolutely fantastic! A social media competition to name the squirrel, produced 'Helyg' (Welsh for 'Willow').

Preparations of the model displays picked up speed in May with a number of the existing models being repaired and painted. New display items started to appear too in the model village - more on that in a later blog post!

As part of the revamping of the high street shops, we ran a social media competition to name a new shop which sells fancy hats and designer bags. There was a huge response to the competition, many having excellent suggestions for the new name.

With the model village gearing up for re-opening to visitors once again, focus turned indoors to prepare the cafe. The cafe kitchen and counter was fully refurished, including new units, flooring and lighting. The coffee machine arrived too enabling our drinks breaks to be a good opportunity for making espresso coffees.

Summer 2017 - A new beginning

After 27 years, the model village creators, Jim and Anne Lympany, pass the reins over to Larry and Nick. With the models having been in storage for the previous 2 years following closure of the model village in 2015, the first job for the new owners was to lay out the model village and draw up plans for its refurbishment.

Autumn 2017 - The work begins

During the time that the model village had been closed to visitors, nature had taken hold, so much so that even walking around the paths had become a challenge! So the initial work on the site began at the gardens with tackling overgrown and dead plants, trees and bushes.

Winter 2017 - Interruptions

Work was progressing well with the gardens, but was briefly interrupted by bad weather. Storm Ophelia had wreaked havoc across Anglesey; at the model village, we escaped quite lightly in comparison with some others, with a couple of fences blown down and some minor damage to the models.