Akroydon

{{Short description|Model housing in West Yorkshire, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}} {{Use British English|date=October 2018}}

thumb|Housing in Akroydon [[File:Akroyd Memorial Cross, Akroydon (5273314361).jpg|thumb|180px|Victoria Cross, by William Swinden Barber, built in 1875 and dedicated to Queen Victoria]] The '''Akroydon''' model housing scheme is a Victorian-era model village at Boothtown, Halifax, in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It was designed in the Gothic style by George Gilbert Scott in 1859 for the workers at the mills of Colonel Edward Akroyd, who had bought, in 1855, the {{convert|62435|acre|ha}} 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,<ref name="Roberts">{{cite journal | url=http://ihbc.org.uk/context_archive/46/gazebo_dir/gazebo_s.htm | title=Gazebo | publisher=Institute of Historic Building Conservation | journal=Context | number=46 | accessdate=19 October 2013 | last=Roberts|first= Judith | pages=36–38 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041226221248/http://www.ihbc.org.uk/context_archive/46/gazebo_dir/gazebo_s.htm | archivedate=26 December 2004 | url-status=dead }}</ref> Akroyd had a monument called the Victoria Cross built in 1875 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. Its inscription includes a long quotation from William Wordsworth's poem ''The Excursion''.<ref name="Creese"/> The monument, similar in style to an Eleanor Cross, has been described as "a monument to the British constitution".<ref name = Whelan>{{cite journal | title=The Victoria Cross in Akroydon: a monument to the British constitution | last=Whelan|first= A. | journal=Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society | year=2004 | volume=12 | pages=104–121 | issn=1351-5705}}</ref>

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".<ref name="Creese">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/naturevictorian00knoe|url-access=registration |last1= Creese|first1= Walter L. |chapter=Imagination in the Suburb |editor1-last=Knoepflmacher|editor1-first= U.C. |editor2-last=Tennyson|editor2-first= G. B. |year= 1977|title=Nature and the Victorian Imagination |publisher=University of California Press|pages= [https://archive.org/details/naturevictorian00knoe/page/56 56]–58| isbn =0-520-03229-2}}</ref>

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.<ref name = Whelan/><ref group="nb">The village was built with the support of the Halifax Permanent Building Society which later became the Halifax Building Society.<br/> {{cite news | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bradford/hi/people_and_places/religion_and_ethics/newsid_8481000/8481292.stm | title= A Halifax church with a story to tell | work=BBC News | date=27 January 2010 | access-date=31 December 2023}}</ref> The village was to be managed by a committee of residents. There was a working men’s college for self-improvement.<ref name = Whelan/>

==Notable people== Eric Portman, stage and film actor, was born at 71 Chester Road, Akroydon, in 1901.<ref name="Bull">{{cite web | url=http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~calderdalecompanion/p112_2.html | title=Eric Portman Biography | publisher=RootsWeb | work=Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion | date=8 October 2013 | accessdate=19 October 2013}}</ref>

John Reginald Halliday Christie (the serial killer of 10, Rillington Place, London) was born in Northowram in 1899<ref>{{Cite news |date=22 June 2017|title=A timeline of John Christie's crimes and their discovery – and the bits Rillington Place missed out |work=Radio Times |url=https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/a-timeline-of-john-christies-crimes-and-their-discovery-and-the-bits-rillington-place-missed-out/ |access-date=30 December 2023}}</ref> and lived with his parents at Chester Road, Akroydon.<ref>{{Cite news|title=On this day in 1953: Rillington Place murders|access-date = 30 September 2021|date = 27 March 2017|work =Yorkshire Post|url=https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/video-day-1953-rillington-place-murders-605190}}</ref>

==Notes== {{reflist|group="nb"}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== * {{cite book|last=Binns|first= Sheila |year=2013|title=The Aesthetics of Utopia: Saltaire, Akroydon and Bedford Park|publisher= Spire Books|isbn=978-1-904965-45-9}}

== External links == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20080204002532/http://www.letchworthgardencity.net/heritage/townplanning.htm Town Planning – A brief summary of some key dates and places and people, with links]

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Category:1859 establishments in England Category:Areas of Halifax, West Yorkshire Category:George Gilbert Scott buildings and structures Category:Model villages