#Exmoor Archives

19
January

Supporting Exmoor History Research

Last year, 2023, the Friends were pleased to support research undertaken jointly by the Universities of Plymouth and Exeter which sought to reassess how the ‘reclamation’ of Exmoor under the Knights should be considered. This research, led by Leonard Baker, used information from two disciplines – archival material and paleoecological data. Material held in the Friend’s archive, particularly the digitised and transcribed sheep diaries of Scottish Head Shepherd, Robert Tait Little, fed into this research project. You can find out more about Robert on this link Robert Tait Little – hoaroak (hoaroakcottage.org) The researchers from Exeter and Plymouth felt that their findings enabled them to “position ‘reclamation’ within a sequence of long-term management practices that shaped these complex ecosystems” rather than reclamation being a one-off event of improvement during Knight’s heyday. They say that “Revaluating the ‘reclamation’ of Exmoor using archival and palaeoecological data reveals critical differences between what historical actors wanted to happen, what they believed was happening and what was actually happening to local ecosystems.” They explain that “Our work reveals that many of the schemes and projects that historians focus upon during assessments of upland ‘improvement’ were far less ecologically significant than previously assumed.” And that unfortunately, “this was not the exciting story of technological ‘progress’ and ‘conquest’ that the Knights, their agents, or subsequent commentators, wished for.” No doubt many – perhaps most? – of us have ‘bigged up’ what we or ancestors did and would like to be remembered by history in a positive light. But this new research suggests the need to sometimes reassess what the historical record tells us. The research team published in 2023 and their paper can be accessed on this link through Open Access Revolution and continuity? Reassessing nineteenth-century moorland reclamation through palaeoecological and archival research (tandfonline.com). * It is a fascinating read and the same team are currently working on a book revisiting the reclamation of Exmoor story – due for publication in 2024. For The Friends, it is a delight to be able to bring the record left behind by ordinary people, including Robert Tait Little, into this wider academic community. His descendants are thrilled that his diaries have, all these years later, been dug into to help tell the ongoing history of Exmoor. *Distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Posted by Bette Baldwin

Explore Your Archive November 28th: SMALL OLD CLAY PIPE

One of the smallest items in the Hoar Oak Cottage archive is a clay pipe discovered by one of the building conservation workmen when working on the chimney. It is approximately 4” in length and the bowl is less than 1” in diameter. The fingers clasping the bowl may be representing a claw – as in a bird’s claw – but others (who know a thing or two about clay pipes) have suggested it is actually a hand – as in the fingers of a human hand. The pipe, intact other than a small end piece missing, was found tucked away up inside the chimney built into the western end of the cottage. We know very little about this clay pipe other than it is likely to date from around 1875 to 1915 and could, therefore, relate to the occupants of the cottage around that period. We have learnt that in some cases, such pipes were hidden in a secret place and left as a tribute to a smoker who had passed away in the house or cottage where the pipe was found. It seems families might hide the deceased’s precious clay pipe as a sort of ‘in memorium’ to be found in the future. James Maxwell Johnstone was the shepherd living at Hoar Oak Cottage with his wife Sarah and 13 children from 1886 to 1904. James died at the cottage in March 1904 and records show that Sarah and the children were quickly moved out of Hoar Oak Cottage – a sheep farm always needs a shepherd, and those needs took precedence over those of the bereaved wife and family. Johnstone family memories include those of James smoking a clay pipe and its intriguing to wonder if when he died, Sarah or one of the older children, hid one of his clay pipes high up in the chimney as a little ‘in memoriam’. We shall never know but this small artefact is certainly a precious one in the Hoar Oak Cottage archive.

Posted by Bette Baldwin

18
February

The Hoar Oak Tree

There has been a Hoar Oak Tree from time immemorial, marking the boundary between the Royal Forest of Exmoor and Brendon Common. The term ‘Royal Forest’ denoted a hunting ground or ‘waste’ belonging to the Crown; more often a treeless area and not as we understand the word forest to mean now. According to McDermot, writing in the early part of the twentieth century, the original tree fell in 1658 and a replacement was planted close by soon after. This survived until 1916 when the tree now standing was planted. Despite being over 100 years old this tree remains small and stunted due to the poor soil conditions and the harsh and exposed upland climate. However, despite its appearance it is healthy and remains in fine condition.

At the time of the First World War, Bill Hobbs was the shepherd living at Hoar Oak Cottage; when he went to war John Jones, his brother-in-law, temporarily took his place. There is no evidence that either men planted the replacement tree but they certainly would have been aware of its planting.

The Hoar Oak Tree, as has been seen, has a long and important history and is marked on several maps including the current Ordnance Survey. It also featured on the Ordnance Survey map of 1890 and before that (as Ore Oak) on the Benjamin Doon map of 1765. An even earlier reference to Whore Oake Ball dates to 1651.

Extensive, natural oak woods do thrive on Exmoor along the coastal belt and also at Horner. The coastal oak woods are renowned for their wildlife and rare plant communities; the relentless gales and poor growing conditions have also stunted their growth but in a very different way to that of the Hoar Oak Tree.

Oaks are a valuable resource for wildlife. One of the most common yet overlooked sights are the Spangle galls created by tiny parasitic wasps. Each gall hosts a larva that is feeding on the leaf tissue beneath it and a single leaf can carry very many galls. In the autumn the larvae fall to the ground before the leaves and complete their growth cycle protected by the leaf litter, emerging in early spring. Despite the huge numbers of galls an oak tree can carry the larvae do very little damage.

Regardless of its diminutive size, the Hoar Oak Tree continues to be an important Exmoor landmark. Situated just yards upstream, it also stands as a living link to the shepherds of Hoar Oak Cottage and their families.

The Hoar Oak Tree of Exmoor, part of a series of blog posts exploring the flora and fauna that surrounds Hoar Oak Cottage.

Posted by Bette Baldwin

Exmoor Flora Nature Uncategorized

27
August

Heather on Exmoor

The vast tracts of open heather moorland are one of Exmoor’s glories. At the height of its flowering in August, the moors seem washed with purple although on closer inspection the flowers vary in colour from darker shades through to pale lavenders and pinks. The colour variation is partly due to the age of the flower but also to the species. On Exmoor, all three species can be found: Bell Heather Erica cinerea, Common Heather (also known as Ling) Calluna vulgaris and Cross-leaved Heath Erica tetralix.

For the Scottish shepherds of Hoar Oak Cottage, the view from the parlour window would have not been dissimilar to their home in the Southern Uplands. Was the sight of the heather hillside in full flower a comforting memory of a distant land or a trigger for home-sickness? Perhaps they brought with them their traditional uses for the plants – making brooms, stuffing mattresses or as a herbal remedy for coughs and as a general tonic. In the Highlands, heather was also used as roof insulation material but as the cottage was provided by their employer it is highly unlikely that this would have been carried out at Hoar Oak; no evidence of this was uncovered during the recent stabilising of the ruins.

To find out more of heather, or indeed many of the everyday aspects of the past life of Exmoor, it is often necessary to read through old books to glean information. One of our favourite sources is Red Deer, written by Richard Jefferies in 1884. About heather he mentions several things that we may have not appreciated such as how, when the weather is hot and dry, “the brittle, woody stems of the heather wear out the stoutest boots quickly.” He also describes the burning (“swaling”) of the heather each spring.

Swaling, which appears to be a West Country dialect word, is now tightly controlled by legislation but the principal of deliberate burning the moorland vegetation to promote regeneration dates back centuries. Recent research has found burnt deposits buried deep in the peat layers dating from the medieval period (source: ENPA). Swaling, like many other farming practices is carried out on a rotational basis over a number of years. In this way, there are heather plants ranging in age from the tasty, young growth of the newly burned providing food for the deer, ponies and sheep, and older growth giving cover and shelter to birds and other wildlife. For more information on swaling and the results of recent research visit this link.

Heather on Exmoor, part of a series of blog posts exploring the flora and fauna that surrounds Hoar Oak Cottage.

Posted by Bette Baldwin

Education & Schooling Exmoor Shepherd Little The Womens Life Uncategorized

23
March

Advice on Education From a Shepherd’s Wife, 1876

Sometimes, when doing archival research, a snippet of information which is a bit fun and seemingly not terribly relevant pops up its head. Suddenly you spot a word or phrase – in this case “Scotch [sic] shepherd’s wife” – and it becomes worthy of pursuing. Here is just such a case – enjoy!

An article in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette for Thursday April 20th, 1876 appears primarily to do with North Tawton* School. It starts as follows:

“The Earl of Portsmouth was the means of conferring a great boon upon Devonshire when he initiated the foundation of the Middle-class School at Northtawton [sic] and he has obliged the country at large by inducing the Liberal ex-Minister of Education to come and speak at its anniversary this year, his lordship thereby proving himself instrumental in giving to the country the very important utterances which Mr. Forster delivered yesterday.”

A chummy, if somewhat dry, start to the article but a paragraph further on begins to get to the issue to hand. It tells us:

“The speech made by Mr. Forster at Northtawton yesterday will send confusion and dismay, to be quickly followed by deep-seated resentment, into the camp of the Birmingham Leaguers. Nothing could be clearer or more unmistakable than the right hon. gentleman’s pronouncement in favour of religious education.”

Clearly, at the heart of this newspaper piece is the issue of non-denominational education and the concern that should ex-Education Minister Forster ever become re-elected Education Minister, a wave of worry will spread through the Secularists. However, hard on the heels of this journalist concern comes the next paragraph (and the one that interests us) which states:

“Mr. Forster imported a whole cargo of Scottish educational ideas into Northtawton yesterday. Doubtless it is to the lessons received by the right hon. gentleman during his visit to “the land o’cakes” last year, supplemented by the impression made upon him by his conversation with the Scottish shepherd’s wife whose cottage he entered during a recent ramble over Exmoor, that we owe the glorification of Scottish education to which Mr. Forster treated his hearers at Northtawton yesterday. In truth, his speech favoured a great deal too much of Caledonianism.”.

Oh dear, Mr Forster – they weren’t liking what you were telling them! And some more rhetoric along a similar line is followed by this critical warning:

“Devonshire people are not going to fall down and worship John Knox and adapt their modes of thought and actions to Scottish fashions, because Mr W. E. Forster happens to have been across the Border, and to have talked with a Scotch (sic) shepherd’s wife on Exmoor. The right hon. gentleman’s reference, by-the-way, to the latter, did not seem very relevant to the eulogium of the Scottish school system in which it was introduced, seeing it appears that the good woman does not send her children to school at all, but instructs them at home.”

So who was this ‘good woman’ quietly minding her business in her cottage on Exmoor when the Liberal ex-Minister for Education calls in and asks about how she educates her children! Whatever did she think about it all? Did she know he was coming or did he literally just stroll by and drop in? We know from first hand reports what one woman in a lonely cottage out on the moor did when a stranger came by. Perhaps Mr. Forster caught this one unawares? And which Scottish shepherd’s wife might it have been?

In 1876, it could have been Mrs Tait Little – she arrived on the moor around 1872 to join her husband Robert Tait Little. They already had 2 children born in Scotland and by the 1881 census had two more so very likely to be home-educating them. Jane Little (below) looks potential ‘home teacher’ material.

Or maybe it was Mrs Fanny Davidson, wife of Scottish Shepherd William Davidson, out at Hoar Oak. By 1876 when this article was written they already had three children (four more were to follow) and were living at Hoar Oak Cottage. Perhaps Mr Forster had strolled out to see the Hoar Oak Tree on the Devon/Somerset boundary and stumbled across the family at Hoar Oak Cottage? Unfortunately, we have no photo of Fanny – if any of our readers are connected to the Davidsons and can tell us more we will be delighted to hear from them.

* the ancient town of North Tawton lies some forty miles to the south-west of Hoar Oak Cottage

Posted by Bette Baldwin

Johnstone Messines WW1

24
June

Thomas Johnstone on The Somme

Thomas Johnstone

100 Years Ago at Messines, Belgium June 1917
On the night of 9th June 1917, the 5th Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment took over the forward trenches at Torreken Farm just north of the wrecked village of Messines on the night of 9th June 1917.

They faced enemy artillery which was located on the Messines Ridge overlooking the area and as a result had heavy casualties – men killed and wounded – every day. They remained in these positions for 10 days until relived by an Irish regiment on the 19th June.

This is a link to the a You Tube clip which tells the hideous, courageous, unbelievable but successful story of the battle at the Messines Ridge. It is told from the perspective of the Irish regiments but gives a clear picture of what life would have been like for Thomas in the June of 1917.

These two links tell Thomas Johnstone’s story:

Thomas Johnstone Goes To War
Letters to Sarah Johnstone

Posted by Bette Baldwin