The Unforgotten books explored Exmoor’s remembered past.  In this book we take the story further back, beyond the reach of living memory and into Exmoor’s recorded past.

Using the written word from a wide range of both published and unpublished material, events that affected everyday life on Exmoor are presented here as a series of snapshots, moments in time, offered in historical sequence.

Running throughout the book and parallel to this timeline is the story of a single dwelling and its known occupants.  Hopefully the focus on this one place and its people, set alongside the many changes that affected each over time, can act as a prism, a structure, giving insight into what life was like through the ages on an earlier Exmoor.

The name of this dwelling, this focal point, is Cranscombe.  Situated on the thousand foot contour on Exmoor’s northern coastal fringe, it lies mid-way between Porlock and Lynmouth.  

As we track our way through time we see that Cranscombe housed over the centuries many generations of people from all walks of life.

Yeomen are mentioned, various Husbandmen, a Knight of the Realm, a Sheriff, and a Parson were all living at Cranscombe at different times.  Also recorded are a Bailiff, a Constable, a Waywarden, a Lengthman, an Overseer of the Poor, an Inspector of Taxes, and inevitably many farmers, all of whom made the place their home.

This book charts the history of this remote region along with the fortunes of these people as each generation adapted to the waves of change that were constantly blowing over Exmoor.

Selected contents

• The importance of rushes
• Wade, Brendon and the Monmouth rebellion, 1685
• Thatch widely used on Exmoor
• Land sledges, or truckamucks
• Pack horses
• Failure of the herring shoals, 1750s
• First tourists arrive, 1790s
• Paddle steamers
• Ketches
• The Romantics arrive
• Wildlife in the Brendon area, 1803
• Road ploughs
• The first ordinance map, 
• The official Hunt
• Farmers who poached
• Local roads
• First wheels on Exmoor, 1830s
• Attempted murder of Knight’s Bailiff
• Brendon Poor House
• Ploughing with teams of oxen
• Methodism at Brendon Barton, 1838
• Turnpike road opens
• Systematic rustling of sheep
• Poaching
• Exmoor speech
• 113 trout in a day
• Tithe map is drawn, 1841
• Arson at Brendon Barton, 1844
• Best Meet on Exmoor
• Sheep stolen from Cranscombe, 1850
• The legal process
• Deer damage
• Collecting for the Crimean and Boer wars
• Bristol channel, busiest in the country
• Field gutter experiments, 1850s
• Time is 20 minutes behind that of London
• An incognito royal visit, 1856
• Enclosure of the commons
• Medical practices, 1850s
• Burgess murder hunt 
• Macabre events at The Gallon
• Coldest day on English records, 1861
• Turf (peat) cutting
• Lorna Doone is published, 1869
• Piped water arrives in Lynton, 1869
• The Scottish shepherds
• Gaol for stealing a dead rabbit, 1871
• Arithmetic topics studied at school, 1874
• Sheep shearing ‘parties’
• ‘Soft breathing’ of rolled fleeces
• Ospreys on Exmoor
• Work starts on the cliff railway, 1887
• Orchards on Exmoor
• Stagecoach travel
• Cliff railway opens, 1890
• Electricity arrives at Lynton, 1890
• Changing occupations
• The Cranscombe song book
• Foreland Point lighthouse, 1899
• ‘Death Rate’ lowest in the country
• Motor vehicles arrive in Lynton
• Mixed bathing finally allowed in Lynmouth, 1907
• J M Barrie stays in the Lyn valley
• First fatal car crash, 1912
• War almost triples the price of ponies
• Pit ponies ‘given away’
• Rags to Exmoor riches
• Brendon Two Gates road improvements, 
• Conscientious Objectors
• Snowed in for three months

High Exmoor:
ISBN Number 978-1-7397944-2-2