The narrow lane that extends from a small opening, on the south side of St Leonard's Road to Waitrose car park, is called Model Cottages. It is the name of the lane as well as the houses on it.

During the 1840s the Mortlake Labourers' Friend Society bought a paddock of grass with the intention of building brick semi-detached cottages on it for working class families. The first of eight pairs of cottages, on the southeastern end of the lane, had been built by 1852. Nos. 1 to 6 had red brick dressings and had three rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the ground floor with an entrance opening into one of these rooms. They had a 38-yard frontage. Nos. 7 and 8 were plainer, as were the subsequent cottages on the east side. They also had only two rooms on both the upper and ground floors. The pairs of cottages were built slowly – Nos. 9 and 10 were completed by 1854, Nos. 11 and 12 by 1856 and Nos. 13 to 16 by 1858. Each cottage was supplied with water from a pump. They were called the Labourers' Friends Cottages until the eastern side had been completed in 1858 when they were then known as Model Cottages. The surface of the lane was repaired with domestic ashes, but it tended to be a muddy thoroughfare. The cottages stood with large gardens to the front and side, and tenants were expected to grow their own vegetables.

EH Leycester Penrhyn of The Cedars in East Sheen took over the estate from the Mortlake Labourers' Friend Society in 1862. He then built the remaining five pairs of cottages on the west side, between 1866 and 1870 on what was known as The Spare Ground. These were Nos. 17 to 26. Former residents of Model Cottages had reported that, until Penrhyn's death in 1919, the head gardener of The Cedars would come down the lane on Christmas Day with a wheelbarrow bearing presents, and tenants could choose between a flannelette blanket or a half a pound of tea.

When the cottages were first built, lodgers were discouraged; overcrowding was seen as a problem leading to disease and, in particular, cholera (there had been a cholera epidemic in Mortlake in 1849 when some 20 people had died). However, in the 1901 census there were boarders in the cottages. Harry and Harriet Mist at No.1 had two daughters and three boarders. Harry was a railway porter. At No.2, a widow Frances Moors lived as a boarder with Emily Wakeford who was also a widow and her son William. Although many of the men worked in the market gardens, there was also a wide variety of occupations – there was a waiter, a cooper, a bootmaker, a footman, an electric lamp worker, a firebrick maker, a post office worker, as well as bricklayers and railway porters. 16-year-old Christopher Roberts at No.11 was a telegraph messenger boy: his mother Louise was a widow. John Goude at No.13 was a police constable, and William Justin, a 74-year-old widower who lived alone at No.20, was a retired policeman. Many of the women living in Model Cottages at the turn of the century were dress or shirt makers and Emma Bishop at No.23 was a nurse.

Following Leycester Penrhyn's death in 1919, Frank Yates, an East Sheen butcher, bought the Model Cottages estate. Yates offered the cottages for sale in February 1953 for £100 each but as there were no takers, the whole estate was put up for auction in April 1953. It was sold for £6,250. The buyer was a Mr Champaigne of Worthy Estates. The new owner had the lane planted up with trees and shrubs, and the lane was surfaced. In 1914 Model Cottages was described as a private road, and there was a barrier at the Waitrose end of the lane. However, in 1968 the local council removed the Private Road sign, and the lane became a public thoroughfare. The cottages have over the years been extended and are now desirable private residences. The large front gardens remain, complete with a variety of trees and shrubs, giving Model Cottages a pleasant rural atmosphere.