A beautiful miniature village that has disappeared

[kathi17]

In the 1960's, I went to PEI in Canada with my grandmother. One of the most interesting things I saw was Woodleigh Replicas. It was a village of replicas of castles and other buildings in Britain, built by two brothers who were WWI veterans. It was pretty amazing.

I was curious about it, and googled it, and found out that it no longer exists, at least in it's entirety. It's so sad that the province of PEI didn't keep it up as a historic site.

To see images of it in it's former glory, google "woodleigh replicas" and click on images.

[dooder85]

I grew up not too far away from Woodleigh, it was one of my favourite places on the island.  I wasn't aware it was torn down although I do know the property was up for sale a few years back for 200K (ballpark and from memory so likely not even remotely close).  It just wasn't much of a tourist draw so it fell into disrepair, seems an all too common story on the island these days.

[kathi17]

From what I've just been reading, after the son got too old to run it, it was sold to someone who went bankrupt, and the province acquired it. Apparently there were no buyers, so they sold the property in pieces or something to that effect. Some of it is still for sale. I guess it was a really large piece of property.

It's really a shame, because those buildings were beautiful, and so much love went into building them.

edit: I understand that PEI is much more commercial now than it was in the 60's. A lot of people don't like it as well, but I guess the younger generation needs amusement parks and things.