The village of Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire, UK, is so picturesque that Mr. C. A. Morris, who ran a local inn, thought it would make a nice village of dollhouses. So he built a one-ninth scale exact replica of the village for the many tourists that visit.
Built in the 1930s and opened in 1937, the replica accurately reflects the village as it appeared in 1936 and was constructed using authentic materials - locally-quarried limestone for walls, and miniature Cotswold stone slates for roof coverings. The replica model was built to the last detail including traceried windows of the churches, the dry-stone boundary walls and the vernacular details of the buildings. For trees the craftsmen used miniature bonsai type trees which are carefully pruned to keep them to scale.
That’s nice, but in order to be an exact replica, the small village also had to have its own one-ninth scale replica near the inn. And that replica had to have its own replica, even smaller. You can see where this is going, but the recursion stops after level four (or five, if you count the full-size village people live in). A one-ninth scale village smaller than that might require a microscope to see. Amusing Planet has the story of the replicas and pictures of all the levels. -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Flickr user Kyle Williams)