Dartmoor National Park, Devon
The fun really began when the team moved to Dartmoor to film the Barton Cottage scenes, the considerably more modest home the Dashwood women are forced to relocate to after their bereavement. It wasn’t easy to find the right place. The production team searched through around 50 remote properties across the region to find one that felt suitably isolated, in a process that started three months before production even began.
“A lot of properties in the area have had a lot of money spent on them to modernise them,” says Ian. “We were like, ‘How do we bring that look down?’”
They eventually settled on a completely derelict stone shell, devoid even of doors and windows, deep within the national park near Plymouth. Its insides were full of rubble so, to make it work, the crew built a custom two-storey stage set inside the ruined walls; a decision that allowed director Georgia Oakley to film characters seamlessly as they moved between the home’s tight interiors and out to Devon’s wilds without need to cut the scene. “We built a false floor to create an upper ground, created the stairs, and built a box within a box,” says Ian. “It created that massive contrast between Barton and Norland.”
It wasn’t without its challenges. For one, there was the bats’ nest to contend with, which required a bat specialist who had to spend three nights in the property to gauge how many bats flew in and out. If any were near the filming area, they wouldn’t have been able to shoot.
“Bats are very protected!” says Ian. “We had to do a whole ecological survey of the area. A lot of conservationists said, “No, you shouldn’t be filming there,” but we put measures into place – which takes time and is quite costly—and once we convinced everyone we wouldn’t disturb anything, we were given a permit.”
