Description: Showing army recruits preparing to leave. The Model Village was an estate built by the Bolsover Colliery Company in 1896 to house the workforce at the newly opened Creswell pit. In the early 1980s, the National Coal Board handed the land over to Welbeck Estates although it was still a mining estate and stayed that way until the mid 1980s. After this time the houses on the estate began to fall into disrepair. A Heritage Lottery Bid was granted in 1999 with funding up to a total of 2.8 million for renovation and refurbishment of the properties.