Film: A Model Community
Limestone Journeys Year 5 2015
‘A Model Community’ is a short documentary film by Ian Nesbitt and Friends Of New Bolsover, the newly-formed residents’ association. It is the third in a triptych of films (including Underground Music and Settlers in England) exploring peripheral social histories in the Bolsover area.
The 200 houses that make up New Bolsover were completed in 1896 by Ernest P Bainbridge, a Methodist, Nonconformist, Industrialist from Sheffield. He was also the owner of Bolsover Colliery Company. ‘The Model’ at New Bolsover was the first of its kind to serve a mining community, whose housing had been universally very poor up to that point. The film uses particular places within the geography of the village to explore the notion of community for residents past, present and future.
‘A Model Community’ was commissioned by Junction Arts and funded by Bolsover District Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund through the Limestone Journeys programme. It was created during the development period of Bolsover District Council’s grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to restore New Bolsover Model Village, considered by English Heritage to be one of the finest colliery villages in the country.
We would like to thank Bernard Haigh (Secretary of Bolsover Civic Society), Friends of New Bolsover (residents’ association), Jessica Holmes (Community Organiser for New Bolsover), Kim Wyatt (Heritage Conservation Manager) and all the participants for their support and enthusiasm.
