The Royal Forest of Exmoor

What is the Royal Forest of Exmoor?

Our focus is the landscape of the old Royal Forest of Exmoor. A landscape of remote moorland and deep combes at the headwaters of the rivers Exe and Barle, straddling the boundary between Somerset and Devon, high on Exmoor. Fringed around with moorlands and ancient commons, at its heart is the tiny village of Simonsbath whose history and heritage are closely bound with the surrounding landscape, itself home to a scattering of hill farms.

The heritage of this landscape is remarkable. Traces of prehistoric communities as old as the Mesolithic period are found. By the Bronze Age, the landscape was busy with farming, with mining as well as with burial monuments and unique configurations of standing stones. In the Medieval period the area became a Royal Forest (owned by the Crown), uninhabited for over 1,000 years. This ensures the incredible survival of the prehistoric landscape and also set this part of Exmoor apart from the rest of the region – it was a wild, uninhabited, lonely, undeveloped place, frequented by smugglers and beyond the law. Almost exactly 200 years ago it was set on a very different path when it fell into private hands of the Knight family. Labourers came from Ireland and the British Isles to begin reclaiming this wild land. This frontier community created its own remarkable heritage as it shaped the place anew. As the decades went on, the interaction of people from diverse places with the former Royal Forest made an extraordinary social history which is entwined with the physical traces in the landscape: canals, ruined farmhouses, crofts, sheepfolds. This is and has always been a contested landscape – a place to reflect on the past and to imagine the future.

Our hubs

Many of our activities and events will be delivered at our “hubs” across the Royal Forest.

Driver: an upland farm, high on the south facing slopes of ‘The Chains’, between Simonsbath and Challacombe.

Pinkery Centre for Outdoor Learning: our off-grid Centre for Outdoor Learning, set in its own wild moorland valley over 400 metres above sea level valley in the heart of Exmoor's Dark Skies Reserve.

White Rock Cottage and Ashcombe gardens: Laid out by the Knight family in the 1820s, the gardens were part of a Picturesque designed landscape, that includes White Rock Cottage, the old Schoolhouse and Gardener's store. Sadly, never fully realised the gardens were gradually lost. Work is ongoing to investigate and sympathetically renovate the gardens and landscape, working with the local community and volunteers to bring this important part of Exmoor's heritage back to life.

Exford tree nursery: we will be developing our tree and plant nursery at Exford to both produce high quality trees and plants for our nature recovery projects and to provide a community hub for events and activities.