Tag: Hoar Oak Valley

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1818  Pasture To Let and Prosecution for Trespass

Were the Vellacotts at Hoar Oak affected? The sale of the Royal Forest of Exmoor in 1818 caused some anxiety to those who had century’s old Commoners Rights to take their cattle and sheep up on to the Exmoor Hills for summer pasturage.    In Roger Burton’s file of research notes* – kindly gifted to the Friends for safe keeping – are two interesting references to newspaper articles at the time.   The first is from the 27th August 1818 and is a notice posted in the Taunton Courier by John Knight – the new owner of Exmoor – offering pasturage for a fee on Exmoor.   The notice reads:  ‘Exmoor Forest  Notice is hereby given, that the Royal Allotment on the above Forest will be CONTINUED as a PUBLIC SHEEP PASTURE.  The Price of the Summer Keep of Sheep and Lambs will soon be inserted in this paper.  JOHN KNIGHT.  Simons Bath. August 6, 1818.’ Clearly the new owner Knight intended to keep earning income from farmers using their old right to use the Forest for public sheep pasture.  However, by October of the same year it looks like relations between Knight and the farmers have soured – or maybe this is just a warning shot from Knight across the locals’ bows.  In the October 29th, 1818 edition of the Taunton Courier the tone has changed slightly.  This notice reads:  ‘Exmoor Forest.  Qualified persons are hereby requested not to destroy the GAME and FISH on the above forest.  Poachers will be punished as the law directs.  Those who cut turf, heath or commit any other trespass will be prosecuted without any further notice.  JOHN KNIGHT.  Simons Bath  Sept 30, 1818.’ Elsewhere on these newspaper pages can be seen several types of warnings to ‘qualified’ people to not do what they weren’t ‘qualified’ to do.  In this case ‘qualified’ would probably be more accurately read as ‘allowed’ to do……in other words those farmers allowed to take their beasts up onto the moor for summer pasture were not allowed to fish, shoot game, cut turf or heath or do anything else Knight deemed as trespass. These two little newspaper clippings cast an interesting insight into the shaky period of changeover from Exmoor Forest being a Royal Forest to becoming a private estate. Images: Thank you to the British Newspaper Archive. All Rights Reserved. * The Exmoor Historian, Roger A Burton published ‘The Heritage of Exmoor’ and ‘Simonsbath The Inside Story of An Exmoor Village’. He will also be remembered for his incredible work on researching the history and archaeology of Exmoor mines and mineral lines. Some years ago Roger gave The Friends his file of researches which touched on Hoar Oak Cottage. It comprises a large folder of hundreds of pages of records from the days when research in a public archive meant hand copying the info you were interested in. Roger’s amazing diligence to transcribe documents is breath taking and we will be featuring some of the interesting snippets it reveals here on our blog and in our social media – Facebook and Insta. We have just begun the work to scan and archive every page in his research folder. The pages are now becoming frail and a little bit faded and need some love and digital preservation. The photos below are from left to right: Friend’s trustees Bette Baldwin and Will Bowden meeting with Roger Burton. Roger A Burton’s folder of archive researches covering Hoar Oak Cottage. Friend’s trustees Nicky Rowberry and Bette Baldwin starting work on the folder and Roger at his home in Barnstaple.
Posted by Bette Baldwin
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1818 Pasturage to Let. Prosecutions for trespass.

Were the Vellacotts at Hoar Oak affected? The sale of the Royal Forest of Exmoor in 1818 caused some anxiety to those farming families who held century’s old Commoners Rights to take their cattle and sheep up on to the Exmoor Hills for summer pasturage.    In Roger Burton’s file of research notes – kindly gifted to the Friends for safe keeping – are two interesting references to newspaper articles at the time.   The first is from the 27th August 1818 and is a notice posted in the Taunton Courier by John Knight – the new owner of Exmoor – offering pasturage for a fee on Exmoor.   The notice reads:  ‘Exmoor Forest  Notice is hereby given, that the Royal Allotment on the above Forest will be CONTINUED as a PUBLIC SHEEP PASTURE.  The Price of the Summer Keep of Sheep and Lambs will soon be inserted in this paper.  JOHN KNIGHT.  Simons Bath. August 6, 1818.’ Clearly the new owner, John Knight, intended to keep earning income from farmers using their old right to use the Forest as ‘public sheep pasture’.  However, by October of the same year it looks like relations between Knight and the farmers have soured – or maybe this is just a warning shot from Knight across the local farmers’ bows.  In the October 29th, 1818 edition of the Taunton Courier the tone has changed slightly.  See below. This notice reads:  ‘Exmoor Forest.  Qualified persons are hereby requested not to destroy the GAME and FISH on the above forest.  Poachers will be punished as the law directs.  Those who cut turf, heath or commit any other trespass will be prosecuted without any further notice.  JOHN KNIGHT.  Simons Bath  Sept 30, 1818.’ Elsewhere on these newspaper pages can be seen several types of warnings to ‘qualified’ people to not do what they weren’t ‘qualified’ to do.  In this case ‘qualified’ would probably be more accurately read as ‘allowed’ to do……in other words those farmers allowed to take their beasts up onto the moor for summer pasture were not allowed to fish, shoot game, cut turf or heath or do anything else Knight deemed as trespass. These two little newspaper clippings cast an interesting insight into the shaky period of changeover from Exmoor Forest being a Royal Forest to becoming a private estate. During this period the Vellacotts of Furzehill had secured their foothold and rights by converting the shepherd’s hut they had built at Hoar Oak into a permanent cottage for Charles Vellacott and his new wife Elizabeth.  More on this link: https://hoaroakcottage.org/vellacotts-2  Their ‘allotments’ under the sale of the Royal Forest (Nos 279 and 280) meant they were fairly secure in terms of their security on Exmoor and with established rights to take turf and heath and water etc off the moor.   Presumably, however, they were just as susceptible to  prosecution for poaching deer and fish – if they got caught! Thanks to Roger A Burton for his research which led us to these two items.  Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive for use of images BL_0000348_18180827  and of BL_0000348_18181029. All Rights Reserved.  Follow this link to another blog which talks more about the costs for locals to pasture their beasts on Exmoor. Pasturage of livestock on Exmoor – hoaroak
Posted by Bette Baldwin
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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 History Mining Uncategorized Vellacott

Mining in the Hoar Oak Valley

Stories and memories come in many shapes and this one is from a letter sent to the Voices Project by Roger Burton well-known Exmoor heritage author and North Devon mining expert.  Roger gave generously of his time and knowledge to the Hoar Oak Cottage Voices Project and after one meet up Roger got in touch and as he describes in his letter below, “the conversation triggered off something in the back of my mind concerning a mine and mining within the close proximity of Hoar Oak (in the mid-1850’s) which I had written up for the Exmoor Mine Research Group newsletter in July 2004.”

There is a long history of mining on Exmoor – well told elsewhere in books such The Heritage of Exmoor by Roger Burton; The Reclamation of the Exmoor Forest by Orwin and Sellick; The West Somerset Mineral Railway by Sellick to name but three.  However, this story starts with Roger reviewing letters from the Knight family estate which had been deposited in the Somerset Records Office in Taunton.

For the Knights, there was a strong desire to find other sources of income from Exmoor and mining was clearly considered a good option to pursue. This little collection of notes made by Roger Burton from estate managers’ letters from the Knight family collection relate to their attempts to resurrect an old mine at Hoar Oak which had already been used and abandoned by the 1850s.  A letter dated January 9th, 1856 states that:

“The mines at Hoar Oak have difficult ground to encounter but we are in hope of cutting the lode very shortly, the old lode has been cleared and the lode looks remarkably well. Vellacott* has cut through the lode which is showing it at the angle where Comer made his rapid turn to the east and it is 7’ to 8’ thick in clay, but has not seen any small stones of iron.”

Read more about the Vellacott family and their association with Hoar Oak Cottage here.

The next report is dated January 12th, 1856 and mentions that “Captain Morcambe and Trelease (Combe Martin Mine Captains) were at Hoar Oak yesterday. They were pleased with the appearance of the neighbourhood. The first cut old level is an unfortunate affair; it is run in again and some of the timber has given way. I have decided upon adopting the new level so far as it has been driven and then carry on a new level on the lode which is running north of Comers first or old level. The upper level is still going through hard ground; it will take many fathoms to reach the upper clays.”

By January 17th, 1856 it is being recorded that “They can’t take the timbers out of the first level; we are driving on north side without any timber” and on January 23rd that “The new level going well and 6 ft deeper than the old one” and on February 4th that “The Hoar Oak Miners driving new level at the Old Works the first one had nearly run together so no one could reach the end.” On February 12th it is reported that “The men are almost at the end” and by February 23rd that “Hoar Oak has reached old lode and there they well made a cross-cut to old mind workings.”

A sketch of the mine workings at Hoar Oak – included in a letter dated February 23rd 1856 – was included by Roger Burton in his notes to the Friends.  Although perhaps not very clear to us, it was no doubt very clear to the Mine Captains of 1856 what was being portrayed.

As mentioned on the sketch, the approximate location of the Hoar Oak Mine is at SS744 431 which puts it on the west side of the Hoar Oak Water and about 500 metres south of Hoar Oak Cottage.  Its intriguing to consider how much noise and disruption this mine would have caused the occupants of Hoar Oak Cottage.  Its not easy to pin down who was likely to be living at the cottage during the years of mining but it spans the 1850s which covers the occupation of the Moule family,  John Vellacott and then Mr Taylor.  It is entirely possible that the cottage – owned at that time by the Vellacotts and used to house their shepherds – may well have lain empty during this flurry of mining work.  It may have even been used to billet the miners in.  But if it was occupied by one of the shepherd families did the miners and other workmen benefit from cups of tea from the shepherd’s wife?  Maybe even a hot meal now and then?  Or were they just a nuisance to the Hoar Oak occupants trying to get on with their lives as sheep farmers and agricultural workers?  The letter from Roger Burton, including his notes taken in the Somerset Records Office, does actually mentions that ‘Vellacott had cut through the lode’ so perhaps one of the Vellacott family were actively trying to encourage this mining enterprise by doing some preliminary work for the Knights to establish the old mine at Hoar Oak could be made viable.   It would have been a much richer source of income than simple sheep farming.  The extract from the old map below – Ordnance Survey Maps – National Library of Scotland (nls.uk) – shows the site of the mining works identified by ‘iron workings’, ‘adits’, ‘spoil heaps’ etc below Gammon’s Corner.

On February 23rd 1856, it is recorded that “Hannay visited Hoar Oak and was pleased with clays and ores in the sample room. Lode of clay and ironstone is 5 ft wide.” Roger Burton tells us that this Hannay is almost certainly from Schneider and Hannay and a quick Google search shows them to be an active mining concern, Schneider, Hannay & Co,  in the mid-1800s.  Burton also notes that the Hoar Oak Mine formed part of the sett* leased to Schneider and Hannay on the April 3rd, 1856 but there is no evidence that that mining company ever actually worked the Hoar Oak mine and that, in fact, all previous work there had been carried out by employees from the Exmoor Estate.  Perhaps that is where the ‘Vellacott’ referred to comes in.

* A ‘mining sett’ is a legal term – traditionally used in Devon and Cornwall – referring to land exploited for mining.

On March 29th, 1856 it is recorded that there were “4 men driving at Hoar Oak Upper level” and on April 14th, 1856 a final note says “Hoar Oak works stopped.”   Roger Burton completes his letter to the Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage by saying: “It is obvious from the reports on the mine at Hoar Oak that mining had been carried out there in earlier times but, of that earlier mining, there is no record.”

The records of the Exmoor Mining Research Group – in which Roger Burton often published his researches – were lodged in the Somerset Records Office in 2014 and the Friends are planning to spend some time looking through them to try and find a few more gems of information to share about mining at Hoar Oak Cottage.  On this link it is possible to find a further bibliography and searchable database of mines on Exmoor. A recent research project, more on this link,  jointly delivered by Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, has investigated, amongst other things, the impact of Knight and his mining exploits on Exmoor and it is hoped this research will be made public soon.

Posted by Bette Baldwin
Exmoor Flora Heritage Nature Uncategorized

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 North Devon Ramblers Uncategorized Walk

Walk to Hoar Oak Cottage, Sunday 6th May 2018

If you have always wanted to visit Hoar Oak Cottage but been wary of going there on your own – or you just fancy some company with like-minded people – North Devon Ramblers are organising a walk on Sunday 6th May.  Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage have been warmly invited to join them.

The eight mile walk will encompass some of Exmoor’s finest moorland scenery leaving Dry Bridge (Brendon Common) at 10.30am (grid reference SS 759 451).  There is plenty of roadside parking.

From Dry Bridge the walk will take you over the moor and include Cheriton Ridge, Hoar Oak Water and Farley Water arriving for a lunch stop (bring your own!) at Hoar Oak Cottage about 12.30.

Bette Baldwin, Will Bowden and John Shortland of Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage are planning to be at the cottage to welcome you and answer any questions you might have about the cottage and the valley’s interesting history.

As with all hill walks it is essential to wear suitable clothing and stout shoes or walking boots.

To find out more about the Hoar Oak Cottage walk, possible car sharing and a contact number for enquiries visit the North Devon Ramblers by clicking on the link here.

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