Category: Agricultural History

Agricultural History Exmoor Heritage History HistoryThroughStories Life@Hoar Oak Cottage

Exmoor Extremists 1966

We are loving these recent donations to the Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage Archive of two photos from Chris Jones. The first, left, is of the cottage in 1966 when it was only recently taken over for incorporation into the Exmoor National Park Authority and Abe and Gert Antell had just been moved out. The cottage is in such good fettle, the roof in great shape as are the chimneys, doors and windows. The outbuildings are also in good shape and their roof intact. There was still no water, electric or gas laid on in 1966 but many people have expressed the wish that they could have lived there then and would happily live there again now if allowed by the ENPA. The second photo, below, tells a slightly different story…….. This is an image of a ‘poster’ found stuck on the inside walls of Hoar Oak Cottage in 1966 – again just after the cottage was purchased for inclusion in the Exmoor National Park Authority and the Antells being moved out to Black Pitts Cottage. Perhaps it was a protest against the cottage’s loss as a home and farm by these three ‘Exmoor Extremists’ and an admonition to Lynton Urban District Council to ‘Get Organised’. Who knows? Do you? Any intel would be gratefully received to get to the bottom of this intriguing bit of heritage to do with Hoar Oak Cottage and this remote part of Exmoor. You can find more archival images of the cottage as a structure in our ‘The Place Collection’ on this link https://hoaroakcottage.org/record-photos-pre-2010/. We have so many photos to share – so this is a labour of love AKA a ‘work in progress’. And we are always happy to receive more if anyone has images. We never ask for your originals – whether they are of people, buildings, animals etc – but merely for a digital copy. Thanks! Please dmail info@hoaroakcottage.org or DM through our FB or Insta pages.
Posted by Bette Baldwin
Agricultural History Exmoor Scottish Exmoor Links sheep Uncategorized

Pasturage of livestock on Exmoor

How much did it cost? The Friends continue to research the Scottish shepherds on Exmoor – how they came to be there and what their impact was.   One of the first known to arrive with a cargo of Scottish sheep was Gerald Spooner who took the lease of Winterhead Farm from John Knight in 1852.  More can be read about Spooner on this link    Gerard Spooner – hoaroak (hoaroakcottage.org)    One of the Scottish shepherds who came with Spooner was William Scott who went on to become John Knight’s Bailiff.  Recently, a research partner of The Friends, based in Scotland, found an interesting newspaper advertisement from 1865 that William Scott is advertising ‘pasturage’ on Exmoor – in other words charging farmers to take their cattle: bullocks, horses, ponies, sheep with and without lambs etc., up on to the Forest of Exmoor for a fee which ranged from 2/6 to £1 per animal.  Edward T MacDermot’s book, ‘A History of the Forest of Exmoor,’ gives an insight into this ancient practice and helps us to understand that the sale of pasturage to local farmers is a method to earn income from Exmoor which has a very long history.  McDermot records some of the charges for pasturage.  For example, in 1655, the charge would be 4d a head for sheep taken onto the Forest for pasture.  Equivalent to £1.73 in modern times.  MacDermot page 202 Knight’s purchase of the Royal Forest of Exmoor was part of an ambitious aim to introduce a modern agricultural reclamation project, but it seems the tried and true method of making the Forest pay – to charge local farmers to pasture their livestock on the moor – was still in place in 1865.  The advert from The Taunton Courier in April 1865 shows that Bailiff William Scott would be charging a fee of 2/6 a head for sheep in 1865.  Equivalent to £7.39 in modern times.  Hoar Oak Cottage began life hundreds of years ago as a one roomed shepherd’s cott used for the shepherd responsible for sheep taken up onto the hills of that part of Exmoor for the summer pasturage. MacDermot Edward T, 1973, A History of the Forest of Exmoor. Image courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive © Currency converter: 1270–2017 (nationalarchives.gov.uk)
Posted by Bette Baldwin
Agricultural History Exmoor EYA 2023 Scottish Exmoor Links sheep Sheep Farming Shepherd Little

Explore Your Archive – December 1st  2023  Hobbies

Did the occupants of Hoar Oak Cottage have hobbies? It’s very hard to imagine them having any time for hobbies.  Easier to imagine that some of the things we may consider nowadays as hobbies were part of their everyday lives – knitting for example or dipping candles or felt making or growing herbs.  However, one thing that is a characteristic of many of the shepherds at Hoar Oak is their huge interest and skill in breeding and training sheepdogs. Certainly, the sheepdog was a part of the sheep farmer’s working life, but it might be said the interest and devotion given to these dogs went beyond simple work.  Perhaps, almost a hobby. The archive is lucky to hold several photographs and digitised copies of certificates and programmes of Exmoor Sheep Dog Trials linked to the Little family and their ‘hobby’ of breeding and trialling sheepdogs.  Below is a photo of William Little of Hoar Oak trialling and the front cover of the programme for the 1976 Exmoor Sheep Dog Trials – please get in touch (info@hoaroakcottage.org) if you’d like scans of the entire programme contents. Thanks to David Little for supporting the Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage and allowing us to make surrogate copies of many of his photos, documents and sheep dog certificates and trial programmes. Dave was a descendant of one of the Scottish shepherds on Exmoor – John Little, and son of William Little who was shepherd at Hoar Oak Cottage in the 1930s.
Posted by Bette Baldwin
Agricultural History Education & Schooling

Exemption from School Attendance …. to help with the harvest

Elsewhere on the website can be found information about what life was like for children growing up at Hoar Oak Cottage including going – or in many cases not going – to school. Read more on this link: It was clear from the teachers’ log books that many local children living on Exmoor farms often missed out on their schooling due to illness, bad weather and being kept at home to help with agricultural chores like planting potatoes, at shearing time and during harvest. Recently, on a visit to the wonderful Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury this ‘Ministry of Education Exemption Certificate’ was noted on display. Intriguing to see that in 1946 children were still ‘permitted’ or perhaps we should say ‘expected’ to be exempt from school attendance to help with agricultural duties. Of course, this certificate is from during the WW2 years so that may have had an influence but it would be intriguing to learn if there are any such Exemption Certificates for any of the Hoar Oak children. In the 1940s, the occupants were the Hobbs and then the Littles. Time for a bit of searching!
Posted by Bette Baldwin
#SheepBite Agricultural History Exmoor Scottish Exmoor Links Sheep Farming Uncategorized

#SheepBite

It is said that Eskimos have a hundred words for snow.  Exmoor shepherds may have had as many for sheep.

Some will have been in common use in Scotland and some on Exmoor, others used elsewhere in the country.  It would be intriguing to know, when the Scottish shepherds brought their #SheepBite words with them, whether any of these new terms became adopted by the Exmoor farmers.

Many #SheepBite words can still be heard on the moor today.  If you farm with sheep we’d love to know which ones you still use and what they mean.

Over the coming months we plan to add more and more – why not tell us which ones are your favourites and why you like them?

With thanks to Norah Solesbury for supplying many of the words used by Scottish shepherds.

 

#Husk or Hooze

A troublesome cough in lambs caused by lungworms most commonly during wet autumn months.  Death is caused by anaemia and exhaustion, sometimes after many weeks of illness.  When coughing, the lamb with expel large numbers of the parasites into their pasture where they can live for many months and infecting others grazing there.  Shepherds used a mix of turpentine and milk with variable results.  Husk in older sheep was caused by a different worm, not apparent before butchering.  Now, regular worming of sheep prevents the disease.

#Braxy

Often just referred to as the Sickness, Braxy was once a common disease amongst hill sheep, usually affecting younger animals. It may have been the cause of many deaths during the winter months brought on by them eating frozen grass or root crops.  With few signs of illness before death, the carcass decays more rapidly than is usual; despite this the meat was often eaten without ill effect to human or dog. Nowadays, sheep are vaccinated against it (see #Drench, below)

#Drench

Nothing to do with the shepherds getting wet!  A drench is a liquid medicine given either as a preventative measure or as a cure.

#Drenching Horn (or, nowadays, Gun)

In the days before drenching (dosing) guns were invented, sheep drenches were given via drenching horns made from a sheep’s horn which had been cut lengthways to form a type of shallow spoon.  The drenching gun resembles a large metal syringe with a tube which is inserted far  into the sheep’s mouth.    By this means a prescribed amount of the drench is released down the sheep’s throat.

#Fluke (Liver Fluke)

A parasitic flatworm that completes its life cycle within sheep causing liver damage and in severe cases, sudden death from haemorrhage.  Most commonly found in wetter areas as the host is a minute mud snail and, as a consequence is normally more problematic in especially wet years  – such as those of 1860-61 and 1879-1880 when over three million sheep died nationally.  However, fluke can be transferred to drier pasture by infected animals.  Now treated by drugs; in the past, herbal remedies may have been used with varying degrees of success.  A cautionary note: watercress should not be gathered from fluke infested streams as they can infect humans  when ingested.

#Buist (or Keel or Bust)

Pronounced ‘Bist’: to mark a sheep’s fleece with paint.  One of the oldest forms of sheep identification. This would often be with the farmer’s initials and each farm would have its own colour.  After shearing, of course, the sheep would need to be rebuisted.   The image shows Exmoor Horn sheep belonging to the late Dick French of Brendon Barton, one of the closest farms to Hoar Oak Cottage.  The initials A F were his father’s, the + usually denotes a glebe (or tithe) farm

#Buisting Iron

The marking iron used to apply paint to a fleece, sometimes individual letters, sometimes with the ‘complete’ branding mark; attached to a metal shank.  There would often be a smaller iron for lambs.  Occasionally they would be made from wood as shown in the photo below

#Keel Pot

The pot holding the paint (or paint/tar mix) into which the buisting iron would be dipped.  Often sheep were marked with just a daub of paint using a wooden stick (‘keel’ or ‘paddle’)

#Hogg (or Hogget)

From August/September in the year of birth until the next summer when the fleece is sheared (clipped) off, the sheep is a ‘hogg’ (Scotland) or hogget (parts of England/Wales).  Does Exmoor say hogg or hogget?

#Wethers (or Wedder Hoggs)

Tup (male) lambs which have been castrated and are being fattened for the market.  If kept beyond the stage when they are lambs they become known as ‘wedder hoggs’

#Stell

Stells are open, circular pens – usually made from stone that sheep can wander into freely in bad weather.  Still commonly seen in Scotland, Scottish shepherd  Robert Tait Little brought his knowledge of them to Exmoor.  Click here to find out about the one built at Hoar Oak Cottage

#Lamb

When does a lamb stop being a lamb?  Young sheep born in Spring are known as lambs until their first August when they become #hoggs (or #hoggets)

Posted by Bette Baldwin
Agricultural History Education & Schooling Exmoor HistoryThroughStories Uncategorized

The School Teacher Speaks Out

In an earlier post we learnt through a report in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 1876 how the school inspector upset the people of North Devon with his ideas for improvement to local education (click on the link here to read how he sought advice from an Exmoor’s Scottish shepherd’s wife).  It is often the written word that gives voice to the past and the records of the Barbrook Mill School Log* give yet another valuable insight into the education of the children of Exmoor: the voice of the school teacher.

The log shows all too clearly the day to day realities facing families and the school age children living in the Hoar Oak Valley as well as the responsibilities and frustrations felt by their teachers.  The claims on the children for potato planting and harvesting, lambing and shearing are made clear.  The impact of bad weather and ill health also takes its toll on the young ‘scholars’ attendance in class. 

The task facing the teacher is unenviable yet these abstracts (transcribed from a selection of entries in the Barbrook Mill School Log for 1872 up to October 1881) show true determination, dedication and willingness to do the very best for these children, many of whom had long journeys to school and often after being up early to do chores at home.

1872

January 8th to 12th  Opened school on Monday with 19 scholars. 

January 15th to 19th  Kept school only on Monday and Tuesday in consequence of illness.  Received six new scholars.

February 12th to 16th  Find the school to be getting into a better working frame,  things appear to go on smoother than at first, but home lessons not being so well attended to as they should be. Took means to remedy the evil..  Gave notice of my intention to hold a sort of Test examination  monthly, the day being the last Tuesday in the month.

March 11th to 15th  Some of the children are making fair progress in reading but others seem to have [got] into a slovenly habit from which it appears difficult to free them.  Geog and Grammar to Higher Standards. Reading Writing and Arithmetic to all.  Attendance rather thin.

March 18th to 22nd  The attendance this week has not improved.  Some of the children who ought to be most regular in their attendance are kept at home to plant potatoes and other such like things. 

May 13th to 17th  Received two new scholars and several who for some weeks have been absent have found their way back again.  Find it takes a little time for such ones to get into working trim. 

October 21st to November 1st  Highest weekly average yet made.  Several lessons to all.  Marked improvement in arithmetic. Received two new scholars.  Progress fair on the whole but the ill effect of the prolonged absence of many are felt.

November 11th to 15th  Weather very dry. Children consequently kept at home to dig potatoes. Fair progress is being made in the work of the Standards throughout.  Sewing on Thursday afternoon instead of Wednesday.  Taught the children to sing “O come come away” 

December 2nd to 6th  The classes have been chiefly at silent work this week in consequence of the teacher suffering from an attack of the quinsy.

December 9th to 13th   Very cold and wet week in consequence of which several of the children have come late in the mornings.  The usual lessons have been given throughout the school.  Made enquiries for C. Ralph and find that he had gone back to Lynton National School in order to be a participator in the Xmas treat there given.

Christmas hols and breaks

1874

February 3rd to 7th Low attendance this week in consequence of the snow storm of Sunday. 

February 17th to 21st  Attendance not so good as last week. Find on enquiry that several of the children are ill.

February 24th to 28th  Very low attendance this week in consequence of the snow storm of Monday.

March 9th to 13th  Small attendance this week because of the severity of the weather and the lambing season.

March 23rd to 27th  Attendance rather thin chiefly in consequence of the children being kept at home to assist in planting potatoes.  The general work of the school continues to make fair progress when the children attend regularly. 

March 31st to April 4th  The work of the school progress favourably.  Arithmetic of Standard II has considerably improved.  Called on the parents of some few of the elder boys who have not made quite the requisite number of attendances to qualify them for examination to ask that they might make the attendances necessary and was promised that they should be sent.

April 7th to 11th  Attendance very thin this week a few of the scholars being sick and others at home planting potatoes and doing other farm work. 

May 2nd to 6th  Fair progress throughout.  Usual school routine.

May 8th to 12th Attendance rather thin.  Several of the children at home weeding corn etc., usual lessons to those present.

June 9th to 13th  Find it requires pretty much tact and energy to get some of the children into working trim and to [get] them well at it.

June 15th to 19th  Attendance still thin.  Sheep shearing being the chief cause of absence.

June 16th to 20th  Very small attendance this week in consequence of sheep shearing etc.  Those present seem to do very fairly on the whole. Dictation seems to be satisfactorily done throughout the school. 

June 26th  Dismissed for summer holidays.

Summary of Inspectors Report 1874

This school has passed a successful examination.  The Arithmetic of the first class is very creditable.  The first standard work is not so good as that of the other.  Singing is very fair. 

July 13th Reopened school after holidays.

August 24th to 28th  Attendance still low in consequence of harvest operations.  Closed school evening in consequence of wife’s fathers illness.  (Master Mr. Veale)

Change of handwriting from this point onwards

September 7th to 11th   Took charge of the school in consequence of former master (who had left on account of his wife’s father’s illness) being unable to return.  Found the school in good working order but arithmetic of first and second standards requiring attention (J.W. Neill)

November 2nd to 6th  Attendance better this week. The bigger boys having returned from potato digging. 

November 30th to December 4th Usual course of lessons. Find it a hard matter to get the children to give the attention they ought to writing. 

1875

February 22nd to 26th  Very thin school owing to snow storms and the severe weather.

March 1st to 5th School is still rather thin owing to severe cold.  The “home lessons” are done very well on the whole.

March 22nd to 26th A rather thin attendance this week in consequence of the children being kept at home to assist in planting potatoes.  Usual work throughout the school.

March 29th to April 2nd  A small 1st class this week, most of the boys are at home planting potatoes etc.  Several have left to go to work for food.

April 19th to 23rd Usual course of lessons, throughout the school. Some  of the scholars read with great[er] ease and fluency than they did a short time back.  The arithmetic and writing on the average are carefully done.

April 26th to 30th Better attendance this week, admitted 3 new scholars.  Notice of the date fixed for Inspection was received on Tuesday.  The children throughout the school seem to make fair progress.  Holiday on Friday afternoon in order that the school might be cleaned.

June 7th to 11th  Small attendance this week owing to the wet weather and sickness, several children being absent with the whooping cough.  Received Inspectors report.

June 14th to 18th  The attendance is still small, sheep shearing has commenced which keeps many from attending.  Sickness also is keeping several at home.

June 21st to 25th  A very thin school. Sheep shearing has been going on all week. 

June  28th to July 1st  Better attendance this week. Sickness still keeps some away. Dismissed for summer holidays. 

Note: transcribing 1876 to 1880 still to be completed

1881

January 24th to 28th 1881  Owing to the consequence of the snow and rough weather school has been extremely thin this week.

February 7th to 11th In consequence of the heavy rain and wind on Monday only 24 children reached school (Average is 40)

March 14th to 18th  The attendance this week has been rather small many are at home on account of it being the lambing season.

April 4th to 8th  Visited on Monday morning by the school attendance officer.  Attendance this week small – average 38.6

August 8th to 12th On Friday the attendance was very small owing to the heavy and incessant rain.  Only 23 children present in the morning and 24 in the afternoon.

August 15th to 19th  Held test examination on Friday morning.

August 29th to September 2nd  Several children absent this week owing to harvest operations having commenced.  Many who have nearly – but not quite – completed their attendances for examination are still away while others who have completed their attendances come very irregularly. 

October 10th to 14th  Barbrook School was inspected on Tuesday October 11th by H.F. Codd Esq.  Three songs were sung by the children viz:  1 The graves of a household  2. Rejoice Rejoice and 3 Dear mother said a little fish.

The titles of these songs are intriguing.  The first sounds terribly sad, the second rather like a hymn and the third appears to be ungrammatical.  All will be revealed in the next blog!

 

*held in the North Devon Records office in Barnstaple  

Posted by Bette Baldwin
Agricultural History Exmoor Heritage History Scottish Exmoor Links sheep Sheep Farming

Exmoor – Land of Goshen?

Exmoor may seem like a forbidding, remote or even extreme environment to our modern minds.  To the Scottish shepherds who travelled south to Exmoor in the 19th century to work for Frederic Winn Knight it would have felt very much like home from home.  Most of them came from similar, or even more, remote rural areas in the Scottish Borders and they were used to wild weather and wild countryside.

But could it be that coming south might seem like coming to the Land of Goshen for these shepherd families?  Frederic Knight seemed to think so. On the 6th of November 1883 he had an article published in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette about Exmoor sheep farming.

He says in the article that although the climate of Exmoor may seem severe to a native of the Devonshire sea-coast the “shepherds from the Scotch borders have frequently remarked, on receiving accounts of snowstorms in their native hills, that on coming to Exmoor they had come into the land of Goshen.”  

He explains how his sheep flocks need no additional feed during the winter months and that “only twice in the last twenty years have I lost sheep in snowstorms and the loss compared with the number of sheep wintered has been infinitesimal, as it was accidental.  No sheep with liver-rot or fluke has ever been known on Exmoor.” 

Although Mr Knight doesn’t make clear precisely what he means by Land of Goshen – nor what the accident was that caused the loss of sheep during winter – it can probably be assumed he was referring to the balmy climate and agricultural benefits of farming in Southern England.  The newspaper article gives a very positive view of sheep farming on Exmoor at the end of the 1800s and should probably be seen as a bit of free media for Mr Knight wishing to put a very positive spin on his agricultural activities on Exmoor.

The Friends researches into the Scottish shepherds at Hoar Oak Cottage and elsewhere on Exmoor don’t necessarily paint a similar picture.  Their lives, for the most part, included highs and lows, good times and bad times.  Some stayed on Exmoor.  Most went back to their homes and families in Scotland.  So was Exmoor their Land of Goshen?  Maybe it was a bit warmer then the Scottish Borders.  Maybe the chance of a job with a cottage was attractive.  Maybe sheep farming in the south was easier than in the north.

We’ll never know.  We can only be sure that Frederic Knight certainly thought it was.  At least according to what he wrote in this newspaper article published over 130 years ago.

 

 

Posted by Bette Baldwin
Agricultural History Exmoor Heritage History Uncategorized

John Shortland, Chair of the Friends, Discovers Hoar Oak

Forty-nine years ago, as a teenager fresh from school, I stumbled across an Exmoor farm and asked if I could camp for a couple of days.  As the days turned into weeks and then months, I moved into the farmhouse earning my keep labouring.  I thought I had found Paradise and would never leave.  The sudden appearance of my father – “time to get a proper job” –  changed that and, despite my protests, a career in the world of fashion was forged.  However, like so many of us that have been caught in its magic web, Exmoor never released me fully.  At every opportunity, I would rush back to the farm to gradually learn a way of life totally foreign to my Home Counties upbringing.  Many of the tasks I was carrying out had remained virtually unchanged for decades, quite probably centuries.  Over the years that followed I was privileged not just to be welcomed into the farming calendar but also into the social one, sharing times of joy and sometimes sorrow.

Exmoor, with its National Park status, gives the appearance of a place unchanged but this is not a strictly accurate picture.  The landscape is protected but much of the social structure has inevitably altered as the older generations pass away.  As a result, the Exmoor dialect is much less frequently heard and many of the local traditions and tales are in danger of being lost.  It is here where individuals and organisations like the Friends do such valuable work through research and by recording the memories of those that remain.  For example, it is thanks to the Friends that I now know that when, forty plus years ago I walked back to Brendon Barton from the Rockford Inn, and singing lustily (but not tunefully) the Exmoor Hunting Song, that I was following in the footsteps of Abe and Gert Antell, the last of the Hoar Oak residents, as they also sang their way home from the pub.  Writing of those times in a blog led to a request from the Friends for me to read my account of that first visit to Exmoor – captured in a video clip below.  Now I have the great honour of becoming Chair of the Friends. 

Discovering Exmoor literally changed my life: I finally got to follow my dream of working on the land – albeit in horticulture  and in the Cotswolds, another area of outstanding beauty.  Now, as Chair of the Friends, my hope is that in some small way I can give something back to Exmoor and, especially, to the people that love it.  It is those people, whether they live and work on the moor, are visitors, or only know it through the internet, that keep the landscape alive.  And it is through their eyes that the hardy shepherd families of Hoar Oak Cottage, who for generations toiled so hard in their splendid isolation, will live on.

 The tale of John’s discovery of Hoar Oak Cottage in 1968 and of his love of Exmoor can be heard here:

Posted by Bette Baldwin
Agricultural History Heritage History Sheep Farming Stells

Protecting sheep in winter

When the early shepherds travelled to Exmoor from Scotland with their sheep it was not surprising that they continued to use the traditional Scottish ways of caring for their flocks.

During the winter months’ a careful watch on the weather was essential for a sudden snowstorm could result in the loss of large numbers of sheep. If the snow came late in the season, the losses could be even greater for the ewes would be heavily pregnant. Even if they survived, the stresses the weather caused through cold, exhaustion and hunger would often result in the death of unborn lambs. One way to protect the sheep was to build stells – stone enclosures that the sheep could enter whenever bad weather was imminent.

Perhaps what is more surprising is that, although the shepherds are long gone, it is still possible to find traces of their methods both on the ground and through the notes they kept – for example in Head Shepherd Robert Tait Little’s diaries.

In his diary for 1879, he enters details of two visits to Scotland, travelling by railway to Dumfries from South Molton.

Alongside, he also makes detailed notes for the design of circular stells, quoting directly from the writings of Captain William Napier (published 1822) who farmed at Etterick:

“…a circular stell of dry stone dike, ten yards in diameter, with a three feet open door, and six feet high, including cope, as [sic] the least expensive, and the most sure and efficient improvement that can possibly be adopted…” 

Just yards from Hoar Oak Cottage the remains of a such a stell is marked by low earthen banks. Bracken grows in the disturbed soil of the stell floor to form a perfect circle, making its position and size clearly visible.

Why circular? Although stells can be oval or even rectangular (as at Buscombe Beeches to the southeast of Hoar Oak), Captain Napier considers circular to be far superior: “…the action of the blast [wind] upon the circular surface of the wall, causes a rotatory motion in the air, to such a considerable height, that when the diameter of the circle is kept within proper bounds, the snow is thrown off at a tangent in every direction, and the included space left thus uncovered within…” He also states that it is not just he that is of this opinion but also of some others including, rather tantalizingly, a “Mr Little.” There is no way of knowing if he is referring to one of Robert Tait Little’s shepherding ancestors.

It is well established that sheep flocks that live and roam on unfenced mountain and moorland, learn through the generations to remain within a limited, albeit large, area of many hundreds of acres. They know where to forage and also where and when to take shelter. The shepherd, by building stells, takes advantage of this instinct for the sheep naturally enter and remain within the enclosure whenever bad weather is due. There is no need for a gate to retain them. Here, they are safe and can be kept well fed. Perhaps an even greater advantage of stells is that the shepherd is also safe for there is no need to be out on the moor searching for lost or buried sheep in drifting snow.

The photo below is an abstract from the landscape photo used by The Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage to show the cottage in its Exmoor setting.  The Hoar Oak stell can be seen in the left foreground.  The structure was probably built under Head Shepherd Little’s instructions when Shepherd Renwick o(1879 to 1886) or Shepherd Johnstone (1886 to 1904) were the shepherds in charge of the Hoar Oak herding.

 

Posted by Bette Baldwin