AN INTERACTIVE project to bring Tavistock's history alive has been awarded funding of more than £8,500.
The money from Awards for All and the Tamar Valley Service will give the historic Wynne map of Tavistock a new lease of life some 250 years after it was drawn up by the Duke of Bedford's surveyor, spearheading what could be a major heritage project for the community.
Awards for All has given £6,640 to Tavistock Forward's 'Tavistock 1752' project to make digital copies of the map by John Wynne which shows every house, shop and other building in the town at the time, and a number of other related 18th century documents.
The Tamar Valley Service is also contributing £2,000 towards the project.
'This is a really exciting project for the town,' says chairman of Tavistock Forward John Taylor.
'Not only will this be a major resource for the museum and others with a keen interest in the history of the town, but it will appeal to the wider community.
'We will provide DVDs and presentations of the maps to the library and local schools, and the maps will tie in to the World Heritage designation of this part of West Devon.
'We believe this particular project could possibly be the launch-pad of a much greater community/heritage scheme that attracts the interest of potential visitors to the area and draws them in to the town.
'A similar project in Bournemouth has won nearly half a million pounds of funding.'
The Wynne map with three other huge maps – the size of billiard tables and surveyed by Gilbert Aislabie — cover an area from Mary Tavy to Morwellham Quay and are linked to two books of estate maps which give accounts and details of land use throughout the 18th century.
Simon Thompson, who is leading the Tavistock 1752 project, said: 'The maps provide a unique insight into the layout of the town before wholesale 'improvements' were commissioned by the Dukes of Bedford.
'They also show the surrounding countryside as it was immediately prior to the development of the copper mining industry.
'The Wynne map was clearly still a working document even at the end of the 19th century as subsequent developments — such as the railway lines — have been pencilled onto it.'
The overall aim of the project is to establish the maps as part of the cultural fabric of Tavistock by making them as widely available as possible and getting everyone in the community involved with different aspects of the maps.
Tavistock Forward's deputy chairman Chris Hair said: 'We would like to create a shared, interactive online resource where people can add their own linked bits of history — whether it's memories, photos, videos, postcards or similar – to specific parts of the map.
'Others will then be able to click on those links and find out what people have to share – hopefully, something like a WikiTavistock.'
Tavistock Forward expressed thanks to Awards for All and the Tamar Valley Service for enabling it to get the project up and running, as well as the town council for giving permission to digitise the Wynne map and staff at the Devon Records Office in Exeter for their advice and assistance.