THE historic cottages which form a distinctive feature of Tavistock and its outlying hamlets are to star in a new DVD.

Tavistock Museum has engaged Plymouth-based Denham Productions to make a short film of the Bedford Cottages in and around the town.

The neat rows of model workers' cottages were built by the seventh and eighth Dukes of Bedford and financed through the royalties they obtained from local mining.

Rod Martin, secretary of Tavistock Museum Charitable Trust, said: 'The cottages are important for two reasons. Firstly, they provided accommodation at a time when miners were flooding into the area, and secondly, it meant the money the Duke of Bedford gained in royalties was re-invested back into the town — today, they form a considerable part of the housing stock of the town.

'From a World Heritage Site perspective, there are relatively few mining relics here, but the cottages are a visible record of that era.'

In the Tavistock district there are approximately 300 dwellings built by the Bedford Estate between 1850 and 1870 which can be regarded as Bedford Cottages.

The largest group of cottages built in the town area are the 64 at Westbridge in 1850, the 24 in Parkwood Road in 1859, the 36 at Fitzford in 1862 and the 40 superior cottages built at Trelawny Road in 1866.

The largest groups of cottages in the rural area are the 20 built at Wheal Maria in 1853, the 24 at Mill Hill in 1855 and the 20 at Morwellham in 1856.

The earlier Westbridge Cottages served to re-house the town centre dwellers whose slum properties needed to be demolished to make way for a new town hall, guildhall, market and commercial centre, planned for the town by the Bedford Estate. Many of the other cottages within the town were built in the belief that their location would ensure a long-term rent income.

Francis, the seventh Duke of Bedford, whose statue is in Tavistock Guildhall car park, is credited with the building of this remarkable stock of model housing. After his death in 1861 the work of building the cottages was carried on for a further decade by William, the eighth Duke of Bedford.

However, in reality these projects only went a small way towards solving a desperate housing shortage; the model cottages let to the miners at Mill Hill, Wheal Maria and similar locations probably accommodated no more than 10% of the mining workforce.

During the mid-19th century the majority of the rural mining community continued to live in overcrowded squalor and the situation only really improved when mining went into recession and the population started to decline.

In his lifetime, Francis Duke of Bedford was reluctant to contribute much more than a small percentage of his vast income towards the model-housing projects, yet after his death he enjoyed a reputation as a philanthropic landlord and pioneer of model worker's housing.

The making of the film is part of the Discover the Extraordinary Project, a three-year programme of investments across Cornwall and Devon developed by the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site Office to enhance the visitor experience in the World Heritage Site.

The project is being funded by a European Union and Defra grant through the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE). The funds have been awarded through the Sustainable Rural Tourism theme, managed by the South West RDA, which aims to assist the growth of environmentally sustainable tourism in rural areas.

Filming will take place on Thursday September 15 and Friday September 16. This will involve mainly ground-level views but also some closer external shots of distinctive cottage features. There will also be some filming inside a small number of cottages but these visits will be separately pre-arranged.

The film will primarily be for showing to visitors from next season in the Tavistock Museum. However, it is also proposed to have copies available in a DVD format for sale to the public later this year.

Mr Martin added: 'One of the purposes of the DVD is for us to record the cottages at the present time. It's not being seen as a historical DVD — one of the aspects we will be looking at is how people conserve and improve the cottages from a modern perspective.'

It is hoped there will not be any inconvenience caused by the filming but should there be any problems, contact Roderick Martin

on 01822 616503 or