Tag: #hoaroakcottage #exmoor

Uncategorized

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
Exmoor Flora Nature Uncategorized

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
Exmoor Fauna Flora Uncategorized

The Flora and Fauna of Exmoor

Exmoor’s scenery: open windswept moorland; sheltered wooded combes; the highest sea cliffs in England; bog, fast-rushing rivers and man-made lakes.  With such varied habitats it’s not surprising that its flora and other wildlife are so diverse.  Living in one of the remotest parts of the moor and out in all weathers, the shepherds of Hoar Oak Cottage would have been intimately aware of the plants and creatures that they came across daily.

Country folk of the past utilised anything that could be readily harvested; not just those that could be eaten but also those that might make a hard life a little more comfortable.  These days worts (bilberries) and blackberries may still be gathered in the autumn for pies and jam but it’s doubtful whether anyone collects cotton grass seed-heads for stuffing pillows anymore. However, the great beech trees that still surround Hoar Oak Cottage continue to give shelter (and once firewood) and the trout in the river that provided the occasional tasty meal still dart for shelter whenever danger threatens.

The Hoar Oak Valley had been home to man for thousands of years from Neolithic and Bronze Age settlers through to the late 1950s.  Since then, Exmoor’s National Park status has protected the moor as well as many of the birds, mammals, wild flowers and insects they would have been familiar with.  Today, the wildlife provides a continuous and living link between ourselves, the shepherds and the earliest peoples.  In this occasional series of posts on the flora and fauna we hope to gather information from various sources; books and our research have already yielded many clues.  However, we would like these pages to also become a record of your Exmoor sightings and discoveries – new or old – especially if they should be from the Hoar Oak Valley.  If you have a photograph or story that we might share we’d love to hear from you – to reach us, click on the link at the foot of the page.

Posted by Bette Baldwin
Exmoor Johnstone Uncategorized

Looking for Sarah

Sarah’s Story
In 1881, Sarah Thomason married James Maxwell Johnstone in a tiny church in the beautiful Welsh village of Betws Garmon.  The couple moved to Keswick in the Lake District and had two children before moving to Muirkirk in the Scottish Borders and having another child.  In 1886, Sarah and James and the three children moved to Hoar Oak Cottage  where they lived for nearly 20 years had ten more children.  In 1904, when the last child was just ten months old, James died and Sarah was left on Exmoor with her thirteen children – a long way from parents and family in Wales and Scotland. Sarah died in 1945 after a long widowhood spent living and working in Lynton before going to live with her daughter Agnes Sedgbeer in Gunn and finally with her daughter Jane Johnstone in Porlock.  You can read Sarah and James story and find out more about their 13 children  on this link.
Looking for Sarah
The search for Sarah and her story and the hope to find a photograph of this amazing and courageous woman was, in many ways, what started two of her descendants – Bette Baldwin and Will Bowden – on the search into Hoar Oak Cottage and the setting up of The Friends.  Now after many years it is time to return to that simple, original aim – of looking for Sarah.

Might there be a photograph out there somewhere?  Might there be a photograph of Sarah and James out there somewhere?  When James died in 1904 photography wasn’t all that common – certainly not for poor people.  But when Sarah died in 1945 it would have been much more common.  The hope is there may be a photo of her somewhere and we can track it down.  We know so much about her life but we do not know what she looked like. How nice that would be.

If you think you may be able to help or need more information please get in touch by contacting Bette Baldwin on:

Email:   bette.baldwin@btinternet.com
Tel:        07967182903

 

 

 

Posted by Bette Baldwin