Land Use in Southern Exmoor

LAND USE IN SOUTHERN EXMOOR

Exmoor is considered pastoral country, a mixture of good grass and rough grazing, but a surprising amount of arable farming continued until the 20th century. A number of large barns were built such as West Nethercote, Winsford in the late 18th century, Riphay in Brushford in the early 19th century,and Ashway, Dulverton in the mid 19th century.

In the 1780s Brushford was described as mostly arable worth 20s an acre, with some rough pasture worth only 5s and some good meadow. Black and white lias were burnt for lime to manure the land. Lime was also used at Exford where the grassland was worth up to 40s an acre. Neighbouring Exmoor was mainly sheepwalk and agriculture was imperfect and needed improvements. The large quantity of wool meant that Exford’s poor were employed in combing and spinning wool. Winsford was also largely sheepwalk but there was 100 a. of coppice wood. At Hawkridge the land was said to be mostly waste covered with erica, fern, and wild thyme. At Withypool some hill land was cultivated for wheat, oats, and turnips, there was good pasture worth 30s an acre, and common cut for fuel. Neither lime nor marl was used. The main problem was access; there were no carts or waggons as the roads were barely passable even for horses. Oxen were still used in husbandry.[1]

In 1801 there was still considerable arable production on Exmoor, the acreage cropped that year amounted to about 10% of the land in Dulverton, and Winsford and over 17% of Brushford. Only 6% of Exford was cropped that year.[2] Those figures may not have represented the extent of arable in some parishes. The tithe statistics of c. 1840 show that arable was still very extensive in some parishes and that they also had good grassland although common grazing still predominated in the high moor parishes. At Brushford well over half the parish was arable (1,752 a.) and meadow and pasture covered another 887 a. with only small amounts of common or woodland. Dulverton, had 3,357 a. of arable, 2,378 a. of meadow and pasture, 1,200 a. of common and 1,040 a. of wood. Winsford had almost equal amounts of arable and common (2,557 a. and 2,569 a.) with 2,627 a. of meadow and pasture and 715 a. of wood. At Withypool there is also a surprisingly large acreage of arable (1,297 a.) but only 163 a. of meadow and pasture. Common covered 1,850 a. and woodland 62 a. At neighbouring Hawkridge most of the land was still common (1,120 a.) and there were only 470 a. of arable, 683 a. of meadow and pasture and 195 a. of wood. Exford was also mainly common (3,500 a.) and there was only 566 a. of arable, but meadow and pasture covered 1,970 a. and wood only 36 a.

By 1905 there had been very little loss of arable in Brushford or Winsford

Even more surprising is a doubling of the arable at Exford and a 50% increase at Hawkridge. Only Dulverton and Withypool had seen a considerable reduction in arable. The increase in grassland, especially at Withypool probably represents improvements to the common since 1840.[3]

In 1939 the parishes were still producing arable crops, usually oats and turnips but also barley at Brushford. Withypool said to have four harvests, turf, whortleberries, corn, and hay and the main crop at Winsford was hay. [4]

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Mary SuiratPage 1 Exmoor Reference

[1] SRO, A/AQP 8, 37.

[2] Home Office Acreage Returns (HO 67) II (List and Index Society 190, 1982). There are no surviving returns for Exmoor, Hawkridge or Withypool.

[3] Statistics supplied by the then Bd. of agric., 1905.

[4] Kelly’s Dir. Som. (1939)