The history of Exmoor is one long story of how people from Mesolithic times to the present day have tried in different ways to live on and around the moor and exploit the area for their own purposes. For example, they hunted and fished, cut down trees, built houses, cleared and cultivated land, grazed animals. They also traded, travelled, worshipped, and buried their dead. In doing these things they left behind traces of their activities such as flint arrowheads and standing stones, deserted mine-shafts and derelict buildings. At the same time their actions helped form the Exmoor landscape as we know it. Trees were gradually cleared from the hills and later vegetation was controlled so that sheep could find the best grazing.
The whole Exmoor landscape is therefore a record of how people lived there in the past. It is a particularly important landscape historically because there are so many undisturbed archaeological sites and monuments and probably more to be discovered. Research will of course contribute greatly to our understanding of the past in Devon and Somerset, and nationally.
Find out more about Listed Buildings
Find out about Archaeology on Exmoor
What is the role of the Park Authority?
Exmoor National Park Authority's responsibility for the conservation of the landscape covers many aspects. It therefore has a concern to protect, enhance and preserve archaeological sites and their settings. An Archaeologist is employed to ensure that this is done and also to carry out research to improve our understanding of Exmoor’s archaeology and to interpret it for the public. In addition it is part of the Archaeologist's job to monitor threats to sites which can come from developments such as new farm buildings, forestry activities, road works and from erosion by cultivation and over-grazing.
Timetable of history
The landscape of Exmoor is the result of human activity exploiting the resources of the environment. After the last ice age woodland gradually developed over the whole area and people living in the stone age made clearings both to take the timber and to create fields for stock and cultivation.
This early woodland clearance started about six thousand years ago, since when we have gone on using and managing the resources that nature provides, often beyond their capacity to regenerate. The moorland of Exmoor developed because prehistoric people over-farmed poor soils in a deterioration climate, after which they did not recover and only supported moorland vegetation.
The prehistoric communities who lived, worked and died on Exmoor were sophisticated people, in tune with the natural world around them and skilled at using its riches. We know, for example, that people of that time managed woodland and selected different species of wood for different purposes according to their particular characteristics in use.
At first people lived a mobile life, hunting and gathering food and adapting naturally occurring raw materials for shelter, clothes, tools and weapons. (Mesolithic period c 8OOOBC - 4OOOBC)
The idea of controlling vital natural resources, by managing animals and growing crops, enabled people to settle in certain places and farm, rather than having to pursue or find all their food supplies. (Neolithic Period c.4OOOBC - 15OOBC)
These groups used wood, stone, bone, animal skins and plant fibres. The later discovery of how to smelt mineral ores into metal enabled the production of new tools, weapons, containers and ornaments in bronze and then iron. People of the Bronze and Iron Ages continued to provide their food supplies by farming, with some hunting and gathering. (Bronze Age c 1500 - 6OOBC)
The presence of Mesolithic and Neolithic groups on Exmoor is shown by scatters of flint tools and toolmaking debris: The bronze age communities built settlements of round houses and fields, these survive as low banks of stone and earth. In the Iron Age many occupation sites were on the tops of hills and ridges, overlooking the landscape.
The Roman Conquest of Britain seems to have had only minor impact on Exmoor, the local way of life did not change much, people farmed and mined and processed iron. Two Roman fortlets on the coast show that the Roman Army exploited the strategic view across to Wales, in order to guard against invasion. (Romano-British Period c.AD43 - 410)
The Middle Ages saw the establishment of the Royal Forest of Exmoor in the centre of the moor and throughout the period sheep farming for the wool trade came to dominate the economy. The wool was spun into thread on isolated farms and collected by merchants to be woven, fulled, dyed and finished in thriving towns like Dunster. (Medieval Period AD410 -1485)
During the earlier medieval period settlements were established in more sheltered places, forming the pattern of farms, hamlets and villages we know today. They managed their woodlands for grazing and timber production and used water to power their mills.
Enclosure of the land began in the medieval period and from the 17C onwards larger estate developed and land was formally enclosed, leading to establishment of areas of large regular shaped fields, so different from the varied pattern of gradual enclosure of earlier times.
In 1818 much of the Royal Forest was sold to John Knight, a wealthy industrialist from the midlands. He and his son attempted to improve the soils of the moor by draining, ploughing and fertilising on a grand scale. They built new farms and brought in new working practices, crops and hardy livestock, but had to modify their plans to suit the climate and topography of Exmoor. In 1897 the estate was bought by Earl Fortescue and continued to be farmed, predominantly by grazing.
During the Second World War the moorland was used for military training, the Knight farms at Tom's Hill and Larkbarrow were used for target practice and many other traces of this period remain in the open moor.
We still have a lot to learn about Exmoor's past and the undisturbed condition of archaeological sites will enable us to find out its secrets, no site should be disturbed or have material removed from it as this destroys vital evidence. Many sites are protected by law (scheduled) against damage or disturbance.
Exmoor's historic landscape incorporates sites and monuments which date from prehistory to the 20th Century. You can see prehistoric burial barrows on many hilltops and ridges, enigmatic stone settings and circles, prehistoric enclosures and forts on hilltops and other vantage points, medieval settlements, both deserted and in the heart of thriving villages, farmsteads hundreds of years old, mining remains from Roman to 20th Century in date and relics of training during the Second World War.
Archaeological sites are not all open to public access. If you wish to visit a site check first and ask permission if it on privately-owned land, National Park Centres will help you. Many sites are protected against damage or disturbance by law and all sites, monuments and artefacts should be left as you find them, so that they can be properly investigated by archaeologists and enjoyed by everyone, now and in the future.