Exmoor Magazine Winter 2012

EXMOOR THE COUNTRY MAGAZINE

walking

EATING OUT archery

www.exmoormagazine.co.uk

ISSUE No. 61 Winter 2012 £2.95

murmering birds

GARDENS

BOOKS

FESTIVE FARE

Community spirit

Pantomime Season West Somerset Stroke Club Your Village Shop Needs You!

The changing face of cake Christmas party recipes!

PLUS FREE INSIDE: Fold-out Local Events Diary

In conversation with...

Hoar Oak Publishing Ltd

Betty Howett FBHS Sculptor Brian Andrew Cutcombe’s ‘Archie, VBH’

Divining for Water Piloting the Bristol Channel Digging deep into Exmoor’s buried past

Homes from Webbers

Fine & Country Somerset Taunton, Minehead, Dulverton,Wellington & Wiveliscombe Offices

Nr Dulverton, Exmoor National Park

An inspiring place to live

This superb period residence with c. 35 acres of mixed grazing and some woodland occupies a stunning elevated setting with fine valley and moorland views, minutes' drive from the moorland town of Dulverton, The brief was Createbarn a design benefiting fromsimple. a detached tour-de-force. space, use light, conversion andUse additional outbuildings. created elegance with the focus on The principal 6 bedroom farmhouse is quality, not cost. Use state of the art approached across a long private environmental technology but retain driveway with formal gardens practicality.The result was “The predominantly the front, laid to Observatory” atostunning lawn and bordered contemporary home.by mature trees.

The accommodation retains many attractive and includes Located infeatures a prestigious location3and substantial reception rooms, a small positioned to take full advantage of cellar, recently re-fitted kitchen with the coastal views, this stylish modern eco-friendly home was traditionally built in 2007 and has predominantly hardwood timber clad exteriors with extensive and versatile accommodation of over 3350 square feet arranged over three levels.The accommodation includes; a superb top floor living space with bespoke fitted kitchen designed by Discovery Channel presenter Mark Selwood

separate laundry/utility room and a double-glazed conservatory. The bedrooms are serviced by two family bathrooms, a separate shower and an en-suite to the Master.

A detached 3 bedroom barn who was commission by the owner conversion benefits from its own to create a functional kitchen with a separate drive and private enclosed “wow” factor that would benefit the garden, opposite which is a complex property, an impressive atrium of large period barns suitable for a entrance hall, library area, media/TV multitude uses and with good scope room, familyofroom, five bedrooms for conversion (stpp).

The adjoining (two en-suite), bathroom, shower and land sits to person the North, East and South sauna, three lift, surrounding with further divorced acreage to the gardens and terrace, double garage West, the majority enclosed by mature and parking. hedging and post and rail fencing.

Designed to minimise environment impact the property utilizes a range of new technologies to include heat replacement system, rainwater harvesting, underfloor heating, Sarnaveret Green Roof system, integrated vacuum, state of the art insulation. Lexcon and Home Network wiring audio, phone or data.

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Guide Price £1,000,000 • 6 bedroom farmhouse • 3 bedroom barn conversion MINEHEAD £695,000 • c.35 acres Detached home, coastal views, open plan upper • c.1.5 miles to Dulverton floor livingopen space, 5 bedrooms (2 en-suite), • Lovely views 2•reception rooms, and sauna, bathroom, Potential for Barnshower Conversions (STPP) utility, life, double garage and gardens.

Tel01643 01398706917 323271 Noel Sexton Tel: Dulverton noel.sexton@webbers.co.uk kevin.prescott@webbers.co.uk Kevin Prescott, Minehead

Wellington Office 01823 664333 Wiveliscombe Office 01984 624055

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CHANIN & THOMAS Coast & Country Property

IN THE VALE OF PORLOCK - £895,000 Wychanger comprises a delightfully situated Grade II Listed house of character understood to have 16th Century origins, along with two self contained apartments, stabling, formal gardens and paddocks, in all extending to approximately 7.5 acres or thereabouts.The attached property will be found to be in good decorative order throughout and is predominantly of stone construction with rendered elevations under a mainly thatch and part slate roof.

Apply Minehead office

SAMPFORD BRETT - £675,000 Coombe Lodge enjoys an attractive elevated position on the edge of the pretty village of Sampford Brett. Believed to have originally been built as a three bedroom detached house in the late 1940’s, the property was later extended by the current owners in 2008. The property stands in grounds approaching half an acre, and now provides light and well balanced 4/5 bedroom accommodation over two storeys with ample scope to work from home.

Apply Williton office

Minehead Office

Williton Office

London Office

8 The Parade • Minehead Somerset • TA24 5UF T 01643 706666 E post@chaninandthomas.co.uk

9 Fore Street • Williton Somerset • TA4 4PX T 01984 632167 E chanin.williton@btconnect.com

26 Cadogan Square Mayfair London SW1X 0JP

75 Published by: Hoar Oak Publishing Ltd Address: Exmoor The Country Magazine, PO Box 281, Parracombe, Devon EX31 4WW Tel: 0845 224 1203 Email: hoaroak.publishing@googlemail.com Website: www.exmoormagazine.co.uk Facebook: Exmoor Magazine twitter: ExmoorMagazine Editor & Designer: Naomi Cudmore naomi@lighthousecommunications.co.uk/ www.lighthousecommunications.co.uk Editorial Director: Elaine Pearce hoaroak.publishing@googlemail.com Assistant Editor: Katy Charge Associate Editor: John Dunscombe Distribution: Heather Holt theexmoormagazine@gmail.com Website: Mike Bishop & Heather Holt Subscriptions & Office Manager: Sue South: admin@theexmoormagazine.com Colour Management & Associate Designer: Colin Matthews Advertising Sales: Zara Media: Grant Harrison, Susie Walker. Tel: 01392 201227; email: info@zaramedia.co.uk

58

Contents

Winter 2012

6 In the News, including

a tribute to Bob Deville

37

16

Young Farmers

Printing: Warner Midlands PLC, Bourne

Ellen Cowling & Bee Hobbs

39

IMPORTANT NOTICE We do our best to ensure that all advertisements and articles appear correctly. We cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by this publication. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher or editor.

19

Farming Talk: Water divining

23

Profile: Brian Andrew

Copyright © Hoar Oak Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without written permission. We welcome contributions that fit into the magazine’s general ethos but, whilst every care is taken, all such material is sent entirely at the sender’s risk.

Roger White

Eating Out: The Swan, Bampton Adrian Tierney-Jones

41

Tony James

Taste of Exmoor: The changing face of cake Hilary Binding

Sandy Francis

27 Fog on the hill Mist from the sea

Wine: A glass half full

Jane A. Mares

33 Recipes: Christmas

Party Supper Club Lis Kennett & Kalina Newman

44 Fork Handles: It's no laughing matter:

your local shop needs you!

Avril Stone

51

Walking: Exford to Winsford via a double loop along the Exe Valley

Sue Viccars

24 91

Cover photograph: Devon Closewools at Holnicote

by Jane A. Mares.

4 Exmoor Winter 2012

54

19

51

54

Coast: Sea Fever

Tony James heads out into the Bristol Channel

58

The Arts: Oh yes it is: panto season is nigh!

Mel Roach

63 Past Times: Rewriting history Rob Wilson-North

66

Active Exmoor: Archers of Exmoor Malcolm Rigby

80 Books

Hilary Binding

83

Well Being: West Somerset Stroke Club Elaine Pearce

87 Garden Hints: Roses

Andrew Pitman

88 Gardens: Cothay Manor Rosemary Lauder

Trevor Beer

71

Endymion Beer’s Family Page

94 Lawhorse: Ragwort!

Gill Headford

Uncle Willow meets winter visitors on the water

95

Exmoor Diary Extra

73

Property: What's hot and what's not?

96

Final Paws: Archie, VBC

Napoleon Wilcox

33

79 Crossword

Bryan Cath

91 In the Stableyard:

Betty Howett

Cindy Cowling

69 Country Matters: Murmuring birds

27

FREE! Pop it in your pocket: our fold-out guide to local festive events this Christmas!

Mary Bromiley

75 Interiors:

An old-fashioned

love affair

Hilary Binding

WIN!

A handmade mounting block from The Wooden Workshop worth £285! See page 94.

An All Terrain Kart worth £195 (www.allterrainkart.co.uk) and other great prizes when you subscribe online each month: www.exmoormagazine.co.uk 23

Exmoor Winter 2012 5

MAGAZINE NEWS

Christmas card from local illustrator

W

elcome to our winter issue, which this year we have decided to bring forward by one week (phew – that was harder to achieve than we thought!).

One of the reasons for this is so that readers have as long as possible to go through our festive guide and, hopefully, manage to plan for lots of local events and Christmas shopping in their diaries!

As I worked on the features throughout October our area seemed to me to be lit up across the pages with so much to celebrate and get involved in. Always, at the heart of the story, the pulse lies in the people who make things happen, keep everything going and 'galvanise the troops' – whether it be dressing up in silly costumes to put on a pantomime, saving a Post Office from closure, volunteering for charity or just thinking carefully about where to shop. I am a big fan of positive ‘doers’; I think that our active communities are a great asset, which I know helps make visitors and those who move to the area feel welcome.

One such doer was our former writer, the late Bob Deville. I did not know Bob for very long but in that short time he was endlessly supportive of the magazine as it went through a series of changes while we bought it and took it forwards. From writing recipes and managing our photographic foodie requests – even driving magazines around the countryside with his wife Heather on our homespun delivery run – Bob was always kind, always dry-humoured and only when otherwise engaged did his steady flow of gentle wit go quiet – as it had to at Dulverton by Starlight in 2010 when, with Heather, he helped blow up hundreds of helium balloons to rather amusing effect.

"Never again," he squeaked. Thank you Bob for all you did for the magazine and kind wishes to Heather and his family at this time.

Happy reading!

ENPA

Rural housing news The Rural Housing Project for Exmoor, North Devon and West Somerset started life ten years ago, when the first Rural Housing Enabler was appointed. Since then many local people needing housing have been identified and 75 homes have been provided for them inside the National Park, as well as many others outside its boundary.

“Most of the housing provided so far has been through housing associations in the larger settlements such as Lynton, Exford, Wheddon Cross and Dulverton,” said Colin Savage, Rural Housing Enabler for the last six years. “The scheme at Villes Lane, Porlock, is on site now, and should be ready for occupation in March or April next year.”

Anyone interested in the scheme should contact the Project, and ensure that they are registered with Homefinder Somerset, where the two-, three- and four-bedroom rented houses will be advertised early in 2013. Visit www.homefindersomerset.co.uk or phone West Somerset Council on 01643 703704 to register.

Three shared ownership houses for local people are available now through SW Homes on 0300 100 0021 or the Hastoe Housing Association sales team on 0800 783 3097.

Individual households have been able to build their own houses or convert redundant buildings into affordable homes for local people. Four self-builders have built modern, energy-efficient homes in Cutcombe and the planning permission for the Cutcombe Market development included two self-build plots that are being marketed by Exmoor Country Properties. The Rural Housing Project knows of other opportunities.

Parish Councils and organisations like Exmoor Uprising have identified other housing needs to be met. These could include: tenant farmers looking for somewhere to live when they retire; young people living at home with their parents; people in insecure tenancies or tied housing; farmers planning the succession of their farm and older people wanting to downsize.

The Project is running a housing surgery to look at some of these issues, on Wednesday 5 December at the Exmoor Forest Inn, Simonsbath, from 2.30-7pm.

“We want to talk one-to-one with people to find solutions to their housing requirements. We may need to look at different ways of doing things,” said Colin.

Elsewhere the Project is still trying to deliver housing in Simonsbath and Roadwater.

“Small schemes are often harder to deliver than the bigger ones, but are just as valuable in keeping communities together. There are viability issues, additional costs for sewage treatment, difficulties in managing flood risk, but we are getting closer in both these places after years of trying.”

Anyone interested in housing in the Park should contact the Rural Housing Project: Colin Savage, Rural Housing Enabler, cbsavage@exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk or tel.

01398 322249, or Diane Blackman, Rural Housing Project Assistant, email: deblackman@exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk Villes Lane under construction. or tel. 01398 322245.

ENPA

Editor’s letter

We thought we would use an up-and-coming local illustrator, Kathryn Nichols (www.thedrawinghouse.com) to create our Christmas card this season. Thank you so much to Kathryn and, via her lovely artwork, we would like to wish all of our readers a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

News

FLORA & FAUNA

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Somerset wildlife photo competition launched

Wimbleball mobility scooter

Somerset Wildlife Trust is launching its 2012 photo competition with an internationally acclaimed landscape photographer as a special guest judge.

This year the Trust has welcomed Guy Edwardes to the judging panel; a professional landscape, travel and wildlife photographer based in the South West. Along with 19 other top UK nature and landscape photographers Guy is part of the 2020VISION; a national multi-media project to highlight awareness of Britain's threatened ecosystems.

Somerset Wildlife Trust is a project partner and Guy was among the 2020VISION team that visited the Somerset Levels last summer to photograph the wildlife, people and conservation work taking place there.

Guy said: “Somerset offers a wonderful diversity of landscapes and wildlife and I have enjoyed working on Exmoor, the Quantocks and the Levels. Photography is such a powerful way to communicate about nature so I’m delighted to be supporting the Wildlife Trust.”

Somerset Wildlife Trust is inviting photographers across the county to enter up to three digital images of wildlife and landscapes in Somerset. The winning competition entries will be published in the Trust’s membership magazine, with other entries shown on the website. In addition to the judges' award, the top ten entries will be open to the ‘People’s Choice’ award, with voting taking place online. Exmoor The Country Magazine is also teaming up with the Trust to offer two free subscriptions for the best Exmoor images, which will be published in the spring edition of the magazine.

An all-terrain mobility scooter that can go ‘off road’ is opening up Wimbleball Lake Country Park near Dulverton to people who have difficulty walking.

The ‘Tramper’ scooter has been provided by the Devon charity Living Options Devon as part of a scheme to open up nature to people with disabilities.

For Diana Frost from Dawlish in Devon, the Tramper has been an enormous help: "My husband and I visited Wimbleball and used the Tramper because I can’t walk very far. It allowed us to get to places we would never otherwise be able to visit. There is something for everyone to enjoy at Wimbleball and we had a fantastic day."

Somerset Wildlife Trust’s PR and Communications Manager, Beth Jerrett, said: “Last year we received 200 entries and more than 900 people took part in our online vote to choose their favourite photo. We’re delighted to welcome Guy as a judge and look forward to showcasing Somerset’s wildlife and landscapes.”

Always remember when taking photographs of wildlife that the welfare of the subject is more important than the image. Enter online and for full terms of entry visit www.somersetwildlife.org/photocomp The deadline for entries is 1 December 2012.

Diana Frost enjoying a day out on a Tramper at Wimbleball Lake Country Park.

Trampers can go up and down slopes, over bumps and tree roots, through shallow puddles, mud and soft ground.

They are for use by anyone aged 14 or over who has a permanent or temporary condition that affects their ability to walk.

The initiative at Wimbleball has been supported with a grant from Natural England as part of its Access to Nature programme, funded from the Big Lottery’s Changing Spaces programme.

You can find out more online at: www.countrysidemobility.org or by calling 01392 456522.

Image courtesy: www.bensimmondsphotography.co.uk

To book the Tramper at Wimbleball please call 01398 371460.

Exmoor Winter 2012 7

News

Sadly missed

Bob Deville A personal tribute from Elaine Pearce

Valley of Rocks by Bob Deville

I

t greatly saddens me to be writing for the second time about the loss of a much-loved Exmoor character and on behalf of all the Exmoor Magazine team our heartfelt sympathy goes to Bob’s wife, Heather, and his children, Robert, Jeannine and René.

Magazine readers will remember the ‘Ask Bob’ page and his delicious recipes, some unique to him, which had, he once told me, been born from desperation! I know the feeling, as whenever something went wrong with my cooking or suddenly, half way through a recipe, I realised I hadn’t actually got an important ingredient, I would telephone Bob to ask for his help: he always knew the answer!

Bob was born and spent the first 11 years of his life in Derby, before moving to Jersey in about 1948/49, where his mother ran a busy guest house. Being ‘fully booked’ was not a phrase one would hear, as, never being one to turn people away from her door, room was always found – by turning the young Bob out into the bicycle shed that stood at the bottom of the garden! This became such a common occurrence that Bob decided to decorate the interior. In fact he did such a good job that in the end it was turned into a single bedroom: for paying guests, of course.

Bob eventually ended up in the attic!

He will probably be best remembered for his family home, ‘Heddons Gate’, which for 34 years he ran as an extremely successful

8 Exmoor Winter 2012

upmarket country house hotel in the beautiful Heddon Valley here on Exmoor.

Bob was a brilliant raconteur and would stand behind the bar for hours (sometimes to be seen with cigarette smoke billowing from his pocket where it had been hastily ‘hidden’), regaling his guests with stories – usually about Exmoor, of which his knowledge was prodigious.

Bob’s sense of humour was never far from the surface and I’m sure it transferred to his African Grey parrot, George, who was a great practical joker.

Bob once recalled: “One of his all-time favourites was the six o’clock bath time whistling contest. George’s quarters were at the back of the hotel on the ground floor. Just above were the windows, usually open, of several private bathrooms.

The sounds emanating from these were of happy people enjoying their ablutions prior to dinner. Once the bathers were well into their soapy routine, George would give a soft wolf whistle – then a slightly louder one, then another and so on, increasing the volume until he got an answering whistle from above. He would continue until a second bathroom joined in, then another, at which juncture George would give a soft moronic chuckle and become silent in order to listen and secretly enjoy the cacophony above.

All of this was, on the face of it, usually harmless fun. It only went wrong when

I later had some very irate lady ringing the reception bell in order to summon me from the kitchen and accuse me of watching her in the bath and whistling rather coarsely to her. Alas, those that felt a little flattered, perhaps, never rang the bell!”

Bob’s love of the sea and the Exmoor landscape was vividly portrayed in his photography, some of which has been used in our magazine and you can see some examples here.

Many will remember Bob’s wonderful New Year’s Eve parties with rockets being fired from the balcony and reverberating all round the valley. He and his sons were quite fearless when approaching fireworks that didn’t ‘go off ’ and how no trees caught fire, or worse, is still a mystery to me! Then we would all troop into the kitchen for some of Heather’s soup to be suitably revived for a couple of hours of ever more embellished ‘Bob stories’.

An enthusiastic fundraiser for the village, his immense kindness to others will be greatly remembered. Bob has been buried in the old churchyard in Martinhoe, near his ‘partner in crime’, my late husband, Brian Pearce. I am sure they will have a lot to catch up on! At his funeral people were asked to donate to a collection for the village hall rather than give flowers, raising almost £300 for the building, the upkeep of which Bob actively supported.

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Exmoor Winter 2012 9

News

ENVIRONMENT

New Carbon Neutral Fund for local projects

farming

Exmoor Trust is offering up to £26,000 to communities in Exmoor National Park through its newly launched Carbon Neutral Exmoor Denise Sage outside the Porlock Visitor Centre.

Fund. The funding is available to Porlock recently took a big stride into the future with cover the up-front costs of smallthe installation of wood-pellet heating systems and scale renewable energy projects identified as being beneficial to the solar PV systems on the village hall and the Visitor Centre, as reported in our Autumn 2011 issue. local community. Examples might include solar PV or hot water panels and wood-fuelled heating for the village hall, school, church, or even a vital local business such as the pub or shop. It might also cover part of the costs of a small community hydropower scheme.

The up-front costs will be paid in whole or in part by the Carbon Neutral Exmoor Fund in the form of a ‘soft loan’ issued on an interest-free basis, and repayable by re-assigning the Feed-in Tariff or Renewable Heat Incentive to the fund until the loan is repaid or until ten years have elapsed – whichever comes sooner. This means that the fund is continually recycled and available to fund further projects for many years to come. While the loan is being repaid, the community should benefit from lower energy bills.

Raising funds for renewable energy projects is now a big problem for communities as they would not be eligible to claim the Feed-in Tariff or Renewable Heat Incentive if they have received a public sector grant. Formal loans are also often unattractive to communities due to the interest rates charged and liability issues. The Carbon Neutral Exmoor Fund overcomes these issues by supplying interest-free loans with no form of security required.

With only a relatively small amount of funding available, applicants will take part in a competitive process and will need to demonstrate that their project is technically sound, good value for money and has a good level of support from within the community.

They will also need to explain how they will use the project to raise awareness of low carbon technologies in their community.

The fund has been set up with the income from projects funded through the Low Carbon Communities Challenge which was originally secured by Exmoor National Park Authority. The income will continue to roll into the fund until 2020. Exmoor Trust has donated £10k of its funds to this project to increase the size of the pot in the first year and to demonstrate its support. As funds are always invested on a soft loan basis, the fund should actually increase in size as the years go by.

Archie McIntyre, Vice-Chair of the Exmoor Trust said, “We are delighted to be able to offer this fund which should contribute towards sustaining community facilities across Exmoor for years to come. We are grateful to the National Park Authority for its help in making this happen.”

The closing date for applications for this year’s round of funding is 30 November 2012.

Application forms and guidance can be downloaded from the Exmoor Trust’s website www.exmoortrust.org.uk, or by contacting Tim Stokes or Ben Eardley at Exmoor National Park Authority on 01398 323665.

Caroline and Eric Norman outside The Rest and Be Thankful Inn (they have been so pleased with the results of installing the photovoltaic panels that they have since added more).

Hedge laying skills rewarded The essential work of Exmoor’s hedge layers has once again been recognised and rewarded through the 2012 Exmoor Hedge Competition.

High-quality hedge laying is of huge benefit to Exmoor’s farming, wildlife and landscape. This work is very skilled and provides employment for numerous people during the winter months.

In recognition of this vital work, Exmoor National Park Authority launched the Exmoor Hedge Competition in partnership with the Devon and Somerset Hedge Groups, together with the generous support and sponsorship of the Exmoor Trust.

Father-and-son team Martyn and Justin Atkins from Exford laid the winning hedge belonging to Mike and Denise Stanbury of Coombe Farm, Exford. Second prize went to Mr Martyn Sloley of Brompton Ralph who laid the hedges for Mrs Mary Stacey of Higher Foxhanger Farm, Brompton Regis. In third place was a hedge belonging to Mrs Vanessa Mason of Carhampton whose hedge was also laid by Martyn and Justin.

The first-prize winners received the beech trophy, which was kindly donated

by Mrs Stacey. Made by Stephen Simmonds, a local craftsman from Molland, the wood is from a laid Exmoor hedge. Martyn and Justin Atkins have also been invited to join the judges in deciding the winners of next year’s competition.

Heather Harley, Conservation Advisor (Farming & Wildlife) for Exmoor National Park Authority, said: “We will be running the competition again so we do encourage anyone planning their hedge laying this winter to give it a go and enter.”

For information about the competition, grants for hedge management or farming and wildlife advice, you can contact Heather at hjharley@exmoornationalpark.gov.uk or on 01398 322277.

Top: From left: Susan May, Martyn Atkins, Justin Atkins, Nigel Stone and Martyn Sloley.

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Exmoor Winter 2012 11

News

EXMOOR SOCIETY

EVENTS

Watchet Festival Twin brothers from Exmoor win the first Pinnacle nominated for awards Youth Award for young entrepreneurs Twin brothers, Adam and Oliver Hill, who live on Exmoor, have won the first Pinnacle Youth Award given by the Exmoor Society to help them develop their agricultural contracting business.

In the past year, having left school the previous summer, they have established themselves as hardworking businessmen. Setting up a small agricultural contracting service that has been specifically designed to use smaller traditional machinery, they want to target the needs of smaller farms and holdings.

Watchet Festival 2012 has been successfully nominated in this year's UK Festival Awards in the following public-voted categories: Best Small Festival, Best Family Festival and Grass Roots Festival Award.

The event is held every bank holiday in August on Parsonage Farm and is organised by the small number of dedicated volunteers who make up Watchet LIVE Community Interest Company. The ethos of the festival is to showcase performances from new and established artists which engage the whole family and it embraces all with the welcoming charm for which Exmoor’s communities are renowned.

Watchet LIVE organises events in and around Watchet, with the aim of making the town a vibrant, diverse and lively place for both residents and visitors alike.

From left to right: Exmoor Society Chairman Rachel Thomas, twins Adam and Oliver Hill with Sir Antony Acland behind them, Ian Liddell-Grainger MP. The Pinnacle Award, which is worth £3,000, was launched by the Society to encourage young people to set up or develop a rural business based on Exmoor. Trustee Jackie Smith said: “We wanted to grab the attention of 16 to 25 year olds but where to find them, how best to capture their imagination and, more importantly, how to persuade them to make an application to the Society, was a challenge. But we could not have hoped for more worthy winners for our inaugural award.”

Adam and Oliver are young and ambitious but realistic in their aims. Full of energy and drive, they are clear on who they want to offer their services to and what equipment they need to build up their business. Manure spreading and removal, topping of weeds and scrub, grass cutting, turning and baling, livestock fencing and repairs, hedgelaying and the care of small flocks of sheep are all examples of the services they would like to provide. Their skills, particularly in fencing, were learnt from their father, Wilfred Hill, before he died in 2006. With the award money they now have the opportunity to purchase some of the equipment on their shopping list.

Rachel Thomas, Exmoor Society Chairman, said: “We are concerned about local livelihoods, and as a conservation body we wish to show that we fully recognise the need for jobs on Exmoor that are land based. We could not have chosen better ambassadors for us and hope that Adam and Oliver receive some good publicity from winning the Pinnacle Award, and spreading the word to encourage an even bigger entry next year.”

12 Exmoor Winter 2012

Any profit made by Watchet LIVE is used to fund free admission community events, and monies are also donated to local groups or charities within the local area.

In previous years money has been donated to Children's Hospice South West and to 1st Watchet Sea Scouts Group, and donations have paid for Watchet Phoenix home alone Christmas dinners for the elderly of the town, as well as a flag design workshop at the local primary school, led by a visiting artist, to name but a few.

Watchet Festival's ticket prices (for example, a family early bird weekend ticket for two adults and two youths costs £110.00) are fantastic value for money and are now on sale for next year's event, 23-25 August 2013. Find out more at: www.watchetfestival.co.uk

Watchet LIVE has on-site camping, three stages, over 50 live acts, the Open Mic Tent, Something Else Tea Tent, Food Court, Workshops, Festival Market, Real Ale and Cider Bar, free Kids' Corner and more.

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Exmoor Winter 2012 13

EVENTS

Naming of Appledore lifeboat RNLB Glanely, Appledore’s new inshore Atlantic 85, was officially handed over to the Appledore RNLI, named and dedicated in front of hundreds of people on 16 September. She was donated to Appledore by Simon Gibson, brother of Appledore RNLI’s president Bill Gibson, and named by Jill Gibson, wife of Bill.

Appledore RNLI took possession of Glanely, a state-of-the-art Atlantic 85 inshore lifeboat on 7 July 2012. Between its arrival in Appledore and the naming ceremony it had already completed over 15 emergency rescues including two which involved the capsizing of local fishing boats on the notoriously dangerous Bideford Bar, and the subsequent saving of the fishermen’s lives. Taking part in the official handover, naming ceremony and service of dedication were the donor, the donor's family, many local and RNLI VIPs, the crew and their families, ex-crew members, RNLI Guild and fundraisers, and many people from the local Appledore community. It was a hugely successful community event and was followed by a demonstration launch with fly-over

by Chivenor’s rescue helicopter.

The Atlantic 85 has been designed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution to meet the ever-changing requirements of the lifeboat service and to take advantage of the latest advances in maritime technology. It is the product of five years of consultation, design and development and has undergone rigorous evaluation and testing by both RNLI staff and lifeboat crews from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, including our own Appledore RNLI Coxswain Martin Cox. You can follow Appledore Lifeboat Station on facebook and find out more about donating at: www.appledorelifeboat.org.uk

At the Winding House, with Phil Gannon in the red shirt talking to a group.

AWARDS

UK National Parks’ Volunteer Awards The West Somerset Mineral Line Association volunteers have been shortlisted in the UK National Parks’ Volunteer Awards.

West Somerset Mineral Line Association is a small group of volunteers who play an important role in informing visitors and locals about the mining history around the eastern side of Exmoor National Park.

This history stretches back to pre-Roman times, but the main activity was in the second half of the 1800s when iron ore was taken down a gravity-operated 1:4 slope railway of around 1,000m to the harbour where it was taken to South Wales for smelting and processing.

Over the last year five core volunteers, supported by others, have given over 260 hours of work to engage around 700 people at 33 separate events. These have included school groups, long-distance walks, easy access trails, bus trips and talks.

Appledore RNLI crew assemble ready for the dedication and naming ceremony of their new lifeboat Glanely. Copyright Tim Stevens.

ARTS

Owl exhibition opens On Friday 7 December, the same evening as South Molton's Christmas Festival late night shopping and Lantern Parade, local artist Ken Hildrew opens his Owl Exhibition in the Exmoor Gallery, in Photoscene, The Square, South Molton.

14 Exmoor Winter 2012

Ken says: "In this series of paintings, I have used imagination, memory and recent encounters to try and convey the special magic these birds hold for me. They have a particular quality of which I never tire, and I hope that people who come to see this exhibition can begin to share my enthusiasm.”

Tel: Photoscene on 01769 57982 for more information.

Commenting on the award, Patrick Watts-Mabbott from Exmoor National Park Authority, said: “The Mineral Line volunteers have worked very hard bringing the area to life and it’s great that this has been recognised. Some local people are learning more about their area’s history and others come from all over the country to visit us. If anyone would like to get involved with this project, or any other aspect of volunteering on Exmoor, contact me on pwatts-mabbott@exmoor-nationalpark. gov.uk or 07973 727469.”

Photo by Chris Sampson.

News

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Exmoor Winter 2012 15

Moving on! The County Rally in May saw several cars arrive filled to the brim with crafts and cookery ready for a day of competition and fun events. My lasting memory of that was the horse judging which I really enjoyed and our Chairman, Lucy, winning the ladies' trailer-reversing competition! The club also came fourth with the Yeo Valley Rap recreated by Jemma, Lucy and Laura. The girls' tug-of-war team – Jemma, Emma, Kery and Lucy – also qualified for the finals at Hartpury College in June.

Young Farmers' CLUBS COMPILED by Ellen Cowling EDITED by Cindy Cowling PORTRAIT PHOTO by Bee Hobbs CLUB PHOTOS by Lucy Luxton

A

s my summer holidays ended, I looked back on my first fun year as a member of the Kingsbrompton Young Farmers.

I have been taken under the wing of Kingsbrompton YFC Chairman, Lucy Luxton, who has encouraged me to have a go and join in with many of the various events and activities. I have made new friends and caught up with some old ones too. I have enjoyed taking part in club sports, activities and competitions.

Our first event was the Dulverton Carnival. With only one week’s preparation, our float was based on a scene from Glastonbury Festival. We brought the Glastonbury Festival to Exmoor but there was something missing... MUD! So one and a half tonnes of soil was dumped onto the trailer, along with many gallons of water for a really authentic effect! Due to the tractor driver’s (Nigel Julian) many emergency stops, everyone had muddy bums by the end of the evening!

Towards Christmas we put on our best singing voices and visited Brompton Regis, Skilgate and surrounding farms; and thanks to the hosts' generosity we raised £250 for the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.

Having been postponed due to snow and ice, the West Group Pantomime was rescheduled for February at Kingsmead School, Wiveliscombe where Kingsbrompton YFC performed 'Jack and the Ogre'. It was a great team effort and thanks must go to the local supermarket for the loan of one of its shopping trollies!

March saw us meet for the car treasure hunt. There were five teams entered, with two competitors also on bikes – my Dad Russell and his brother Ben. The competitors set off at ten-minute intervals with a list of clues, collecting items and taking photos en route. For an attempt at 'best picture', Ben took a photo of Russell cycling down the middle of the road with both hands in the air ('We are the champions' style), but Dad didn't realise that there was a police car following him! He was pulled over and asked whether he was in control of his bike.

Dad did try to explain, but I’m not quite sure the policeman believed him.

August was busy, with Kingsbrompton challenging Wiveliscombe YFC to a game of rounders, which was great fun. As the other team were 20 rounders ahead, we decided to have a lucky batting hat; a pink knitted one, supplied by the granny of one of our male members! It certainly helped but as our opponents had more and more members turn up to play throughout the evening the lucky hat’s powers began to disappear!

The club attended Dunster Show with decorated pallets, cakes and a huge club exhibit. Unfortunately the weather was so appalling that the marquee had been blown down and damaged, so plan B was put into operation!

A nearly dry weekend saw Junior Camp taking place at an activity centre in the Brecon Beacons. A busload of Junior Young Farmers set off from Westonzoyland and although I didn’t go, my brother Sam and his friend Luke had a great time.

Nearly 30 people attended the new members' afternoon in August. A variety of indoor and outdoor team-building games took place as well as dumpy bag racing, tug-of-war, cake decorating and quizzes. Everyone enjoyed themselves and there were hot dogs and beef burgers to round off the day.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for making my first year in Young Farmers so enjoyable. Thanks also to Hawkins Agri Ltd (Williton and Bridgwater) for sponsoring the YFC column. Hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ellen x

Kingsbrompton girls T-O-W team qualified for the finals at Hartpury College; team sack race at Kingsbrompton New Members' Day.

THIS PAGE WANTS YOU! Please send your YFC diary dates, news, stories, pictures and info to: naomi@lighthousecommunications.co.uk The deadline for spring issue YFC page is 15 Jan 2013.

Hawkins Agri Ltd For all your Agricultural Machinery Requirements Sales, Parts and Service at Bridgwater and Williton

www.hawkins-agri.co.uk 16 Exmoor Winter 2012

STUART LOWEN

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All our meat comes from local farms which have impeccable records for their standards of animal welfare.

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Exmoor Winter 2012 17

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18 Exmoor Winter 2012

Farming Talk

Water divining WORDS by Tony James PHOTOS by Andrew Hobbs

E

ddie Gibbs watched his wife Sally and her friend Sheila Hedges walk across an Exmoor field. Each was holding two pieces of bent copper rod and converging purposefully on a piece of rough grassland.

As the women reached a point near the hedge the rods flicked together with a metallic click. They stopped, and Sally hammered a small white-wood peg into the ground. “There’s water here,” she said, as calmly and confidently as if it was already gushing out of the ground.

“Even now, I find what they do difficult to believe,” Eddie said. “You can’t apply any logic to it. All I know is that it works.”

Not only does it work but Sheila and Sally’s undoubted gifts as water-diviners are now the centre of a thriving Exmoor business.

With unerring, and somewhat disturbing, accuracy, they have located the paths of hundreds of underground watercourses on the moor. Eddie then sinks boreholes and installs pumping and filtering equipment.

Cynics might equate water-divining, or dowsing, with New Age pendulums, crystals, multi-coloured home-knits and tofu, but Eddie, a level-headed agricultural contractor who has spent his life on the moor, isn’t among them.

Indeed, for the past eight years, West Country Bore Holes and Water Services, the business he runs with Sally – with its slogan of “No water no fee” – from the tiny Exmoor village of Withiel Florey, has depended for its survival on the skills of its water-diviners. The good news is that the success rate is constantly between 95 and 98 per cent.

“I honestly can’t remember the last time I bored a hole which turned out to be dry,” Eddie said. “Very occasionally you find that although there’s water it’s not enough for the customer’s requirements. For instance, a hole we recently bored for a dairy farmer yielded only about 1,000 gallons a day and as he had 160 milking cows each using at least 15 gallons a day it was only about half the amount he needed.”

Fortunately that doesn’t happen very often.

Underground watercourses are plentiful on Exmoor, and as water prices soar, the realisation that boreholes are a cheap and reliable source of supply in rural areas is keeping Eddie and Sally busier than ever.

“We do a lot of work in remote areas which haven’t got mains water and have to rely on springs and shared supplies.

Others want to be independent of the mains. There are so many more demands

on Exmoor water nowadays with second homes, holiday lets, caravan sites and barn conversions. The average household uses around 200 gallons a day but farmers are our biggest customers. Soaring water costs are making them turn to us.

“No one scoffs about dowsing on the moor.

It’s been the traditional way of finding water for centuries. You talk to old farmers and they always knew someone who could do it!”

An Exmoor dairy farmer with nearly 900 head of cattle was recently spending £16,000 a year on mains water. Now he has four boreholes, which paid for themselves in less than a year. Moorland boreholes, tapping into at least two underground water sources, can produce anything from 5 to 20 gallons a minute and occasionally up to 25 gallons a minute. It’s a constant supply and is usually unaffected by the weather.

Eddie’s powerful tractor-mounted drilling rig can bore down to 220ft although 150ft is the average depth. The cost of a 6-inchwide hole brought up to ground level, lined and fitted with an electric pump, is around £3,500. The final price depends on what filtration is necessary to produce water up to environmental health standards and how far away the water is needed.

Exmoor Winter 2012 19

Left to right: Sally, Eddie and Sheila.

“Sometimes a borehole can take just a few hours and other times you can be boring for a couple of days if you hit sand or shingle. Getting the drill stuck at 180ft can be very frustrating but every borehole on Exmoor presents a new challenge.”

Sally and Eddie bought the business in 2004 from Sheila and her husband Peter, who had run it from an idyllic Brendon farmhouse since the 1980s after Sheila, with the help of a neighbour who had learned water-divining in Africa, found an excellent water supply near the house and no longer had to wash clothes in a stream. “I just found the stick turning in my hand.” When Peter started a borehole business he persuaded Sheila to become his diviner.

“I didn’t believe in it at first, but dowsing actually worked,” Sheila said. “I was even more surprised when I found I could look at a field and know where the water was.

“Soon we were going all over the place – as far afield as Haywards Heath Golf Club and a country estate in Kent. We were asked to look for water on Lundy Island and met a geologist on the boat who said: “I know the island inside out and there’s no water.”

It took us a day to find it.”

20 Exmoor Winter 2012

Peter and Sheila had hoped for a peaceful retirement after selling the business to Sally and Eddie, but it didn’t work out like that.

“I bought it on condition that Sheila continued to do the dowsing and Peter would help me with technical problems,” Eddie said. “They still do. When Sheila wanted someone to give her a hand, Sally agreed to have a go.”

“When I first saw what Sheila was doing, I just laughed,” Sally remembered. “I just thought it was bizarre. Then with Sheila’s help I found I could actually find water, although I had no idea how or why. There are plenty of theories about water-divining, including somehow tapping into an electro-magnetic effect on the body, but nobody’s ever proved them.”

Indeed, orthodox science pretty well dismissed dowsing as mumbo-jumbo after a series of tests claimed that diviners were no more successful than the law of averages.

On the other hand, the mass of anecdotal evidence supporting dowsing continues to grow. So maybe it was time to take what was hopefully an impartial look – which was how photographer Andrew Hobbs and I came to join the two families in a field on a windy autumn afternoon, in the hunt for water to supply a nearby cottage.

Sally and Sheila stood some distance apart in the middle of the field and simultaneously raised their right arms as though waving to a distant relative. “They’re feeling for the water,” Peter said. “That gives an idea of where it probably is.”

The right-angled copper rods they held loosely in their hands swivelled in unison as they walked. Near a hedge the rods simultaneously crossed, which Sheila said indicated the converging of two watercourses. This point, known as the cross-over and marked by a series of pegs, was where Eddie would drill his borehole.

To assess the depth and volume of water, Sheila and Sally held out wishbone-shaped hazel twigs which dipped dramatically as they approached the borehole site. From the speed of the twigs’ movement they calculated the depth of the two water sources and whether the resulting supply would be adequate for the customer.

It was time for us to have a go. Being fairly cynical chaps, our expectations were not high but Andy said he was surprised by the movement of both rods and twigs as he neared the borehole site. “I knew I wasn’t moving them myself. It was quite weird.

It was as though a magnet was pulling the

Farming Talk rods together. They crossed over, but not completely.”

The rods swivelled sluggishly for me, although there was definite movement and the hazel twig began to dip gently as I approached the estimated water site. But when Sally took one side of the twig, it dipped so fiercely that it was impossible to hold it straight when I was trying to resist the force. There was no logical explanation for this.

An intensive spell of wet weather resulting in a backlog of work meant that Eddie wasn’t able to drill the site before we went to press (you can find the result on the Exmoor Magazine website) but a few days later, when guided by Sally and Sheila’s pegs, Eddie sank a borehole on a poultry farm near Crediton; the location and quantity of water he found were exactly as the diviners had predicted.

“Nine times out of ten, Sheila and I are drawn to the same spot and we both came to the conclusion that the two water sources were 70ft and 90ft deep at the point they crossed over. That’s where Eddie drilled and he found we were right,” Sally said. “There was enough movement on the hazel twigs to show a good supply for the farm and we were right about that too.

“You never know what reaction you’ll get.

One woman sent us away saying she didn’t want witches on her land but when no one else could find water she called us back.

Not only did we find her a really good supply but we persuaded her to have a go and she was thrilled to find that she could do it, too.

“It’s a funny old job but there are lots of water problems on Exmoor and it’s lovely to be able to help people out.”

Web: www.westcountryboreholes.com Tel: 01398 371441 or 07971 103906 Email: waterboreholes@aol.com Tony James tries his hand at divining.

Paintings

12b Swain Street, Watchet, Somerset. TA23 0AB

Prints

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22 Exmoor Winter 2012

Profile

Brian Andrew WORDS by Sandy Francis PHOTOS by Sam McIntyre and Pat Patel

Exmoor Winter 2012 23

W

hile we don’t have to believe there is such a thing as a 'typical' artist, or a typical anything in fact, we are somehow all familiar with the phenomenon of the artistic temperament. It traditionally manifests on a spectrum between dazzlingly charismatic and desperately melancholic, with most somewhere in between; the phrase has become euphemistic for unusual rather than outlandishly controversial or insane.

The question that has always intrigued me though is what comes first, the artist or the temperament? Do unusual people become artists or does making art make people unusual?

Impossible to answer, I had the privilege recently of mulling this over, albeit in a roundabout way, with sculptor Brian Andrew, one of Exmoor’s finest and most enduring artists who pleasingly comes complete with fully seasoned artistic temperament. His Raku sculpture is the result of talent and hard slog; the story of how he arrived where he is today reads, in parts, like some other artiste has made it up.

Firstly Brian has always been an artist, ipso facto, always unusual? His life has creation marbled through it from the beginning. As a young boy growing up in Kent he spent Saturdays browsing the china and glass

showroom of a department store while his parents did their shopping. He developed a fascination for capodimonte figurines; not the most obvious attraction for boys of his age.

I spent a few hours with him recently in his studio in Lynmouth, witness to the passion that prevails: jumbled, cluttered, busy with works in progress, works gone wrong and pieces completed and presented for sale. Figurines are displaced by animals; dozens upon dozens of ceramic dogs, hares and fish; giant cheese dishes with mice snuffling on the edges; deep plates styled like ploughed fields with a chase taking place around the rim and mackerel shoals swimming along the walls above shelves laden with sleeping dormice.

I don’t recall seeing anything that didn’t involve an animal, a native British countryside creature depicted in various states of being; alert, watching, running, hunting, boxing, resting.

Brian explained that his love of wildlife is as great as his love of sculpting and the two passions clearly intertwine perfectly.

A lifelong member of the Lurcher Association, an avid walker, hunter, keeper of dogs, ferrets and observer of everything, Brian takes what he sees on the hills of Exmoor and creates impressions that are bolder, starker and more vivid than life. I found them beautifully surreal. Spring Watch meets Alice in Wonderland.

I wondered if 'strange' was a descriptor that had always fitted Brian’s artistic output and he told me that his first foray happened at the age of 14 when he and his glass-blowing neighbour Jim Ruddle worked together making Gonks; remember them? Rubbery, psychedelic, fur-clad cavemen creatures that became the standard hook of the duck prize at 1970s fairground sideshows before they became ubiquitous, tied onto the school bags of a gazillion 1970s teenagers.

A self-made, self-trained, long-term survivor in the fiercely competitive world of arts and crafts, Brian describes how he spent the next part of his evolution negotiating a path through the tricky commercial landscape wherein money and talent almost always collide. His earlier work included caricatures of the 12 apostles which didn’t go down too well among some of the stauncher believers in his family. But, as Brian explained, he had children to feed. Making a living out of what he loved sometimes meant sending pieces of art wrapped in flayed bits of his integrity to be reproduced on far-eastern shores and returned by the container load to grace the window displays of gift shops throughout the land; not perhaps what he might have chosen but nevertheless a great way to survive while honing expertise. It was a valuable apprenticeship.

The next step in Brian’s creative endeavour happened because he can bang out a tune on the bongos. A festival invite led to a chance meeting with a sculptor using an unusual outside firing technique. Brian being Brian did what he does best and asked questions, got interested, got involved. He ended up helping out all weekend, learning what he soon knew to be the basics

of Raku, the rapid hot-kiln firing process that utterly captured Brian’s imagination.

Fully absorbed in this newfound technique he quickly earned a reputation which reached its zenith when he was asked to demonstrate at the home of the Cardew family, survivors of the renowned slipware potter Michael Cardew. The event was extremely significant for Brian, bringing him the precious but all too often elusive commodity of self belief that transformed his attitude to his own art and career.

grew stronger as he grew stronger and in 2009 he found his bright little studio on the edge of Lynmouth and returned to doing what he loves most.

I watched him working among people coming and going, the door opening and shutting, the bustle of Lynmouth outside, a photographer moving things around and all the while he maintained a focus among the chaos that spoke volumes: “This is who I am. This is what I do.”

From then he went from strength to strength, thinking up ways of working hares and lurchers into his pieces, taking commissions for representations of loved working dogs and family pets, designing practical, useable pots without straying from the wildlife theme that courses through his veins.

And, in some ways that answers my original question. Brian is an artist through and through, with all that it means.

At that point life might have settled into a steady, comfortable routine but Brian was never destined to be just same old 'same old'. At the 1997 CLA game fair his curiosity, his creative pursuit/ artistic temperament, call it what you like, led him into the path of acclaimed wildlife artist Mick Cawston, quietly painting on an easel a few stands away from Brian’s Raku. A bartering of wares, an exchange of banter, a few drinks in the beer tent later and a significant friendship was born.

“Walking with the dogs is my solace,” he said. “You just have to look around at where you are; look at how wonderful things are.”

For several years Mick and Brian worked together, played together, drank quite a lot together and ultimately shared a studio in Lynton dedicated to their worker class view of art and life, Ruffen Common. They were very close friends, colleagues, business partners, part of each other’s lives for eight years. It was a lot for a man to lose, to say the very least, when Mick suddenly, tragically, took his own life. For Brian it was the personal equivalent of an earthquake or tsunami or nuclear bomb going off. To say he was devastated is to seriously understate the effect.

That losing Mick still hurts is evident in Brian, naturally. Grief is something we learn to live with but it changes us all. It changed Brian, sending him for a while to a place where working in the old way was difficult and he found it better to help someone else out rather than go it alone. His work for Dinsdale Petch at Running Dog Art Foundry gave Brian time, distraction and more time to slowly recover.

I asked him for a last word and, like most people who have experienced great highs and the pain and desolation of rock bottom, he is philosophical, grounded by the nature that he loves.

It must be gratifying to walk on Exmoor and know that whatever you see, you can create your own unique impression of it when you get home.

But it is the expressions on the faces of his sculptures that fascinate me. Humorous, mischievous, wounded, fighting, determined, strong; it’s all there, revealing that the artist who made them knows exactly what it’s like to have to run, box, fight on and laugh a path through life’s inevitable mountains of manure.

Find out more: www.brianandrewsculpture.com, or call Brian on: 01598 752711 (evenings).

Brian's work can be seen at Gallery @ 500ft in Lynton (gallery500feet.com), Church Gate Gallery, Porlock (www.churchgategallery.co.uk) and Art Store, Barnstaple (www.artstoregallery.co.uk).

Photos: all Pat Patel apart from top right this page and main image page 23 (Sam McIntyre).

He is almost there. His love for Raku was eventually rekindled in his garden,

Exmoor Winter 2012 25

Fine Bone China with designs inspired by Exmoor & created on Exmoor

Exmoor China

The Stanbury Walker

PY\YV] YRMWI\ WSGOW QEHI JVSQ XLI Ă‚IIGI of our local Exmoor sheep ...spun at our Mill in Devon and knitted in the UK

The Exmoor Stroller ‘Dulverton ceramics artist Jacqueline Leighton Boyce’s elegant designs will add a beautifully crafted, local touch to any stylish tea party, or for a statement piece with a rustic edge’.

Somerset Life Magazine Sept 2012

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Visit: www.exmoormagazine.co.uk or call 0845 224 1203 26 Exmoor Winter 2012

BOOKS

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Fog on the hill Mist from the sea WORDS & PHOTOS by Jane A. Mares

Exmoor Winter 2012 27

D

id the owl see its beginning? There was no sign of it at sunset, a last shower clearing to a still evening, the early stars bright in the sharp December air. But the dark conjured it.

As the meagre warmth of the earth fled into space so, across the moist air of the combe-bottom, in narrow goyal and dank hollow, the mist formed. Only stray wisps at first, frail and elusive, so you needs must stalk it like a ghost-hunter, seeking it at its favourite haunts – a patch of whiteness hovering where the road dipped to the ford; a pallid breath loitering along the river-valley.

But in the small hours a delicate breeze stirred, spreading a chill throughout the lowest air-layer so that at dawn the moor woke to a strangely muffled, insulated world: fog-bound.

There are ten genera, fourteen species and nine varieties of cloud, and below the lowest lies fog, itself labelled and divided into different types. Fog is cloud in exile from the sky. Like a flightless bird, unable to gain elevation, it hugs the ground and rests upon the sea, and only as it dissipates does it win a chance to lift and merge with the humblest of the classified clouds. Fog may end as stratus, and begin as mist. Fine-spun, tenuous, mist veils rather

than conceals. Walking through mist is like seeing by moonlight, dimly but not blindly. Officially, if visibility drops to less than one kilometre then mist is no longer mist, but has thickened into fog.

All three – mist, cloud, fog – are as one in the manner of their birth, which results when moist air cools to the dewpoint.

Dewpoint (a lovely word that bears repeating) is the temperature at which water vapour begins to condense into droplets, the moment when gas changes to liquid and the invisible becomes visible.

Fog may visit the moor at any hour, in any season, but is usually densest towards dawn and most persistent in winter, when it may linger for days with no sign of budging. Inimical to haste, fog belongs to geological time, the era of the making of worlds that has no affinity with the spurious urgency of urban agendas. Even the adaptable pace of the remote, upland farm may be strangely affected by its presence, familiar chores – tending the fires, tending the beasts – performed in an unfamiliar world. Indoors, the regular tick of the long clock. But outside, the sun’s position is hidden, there are no lengthening shadows to distinguish noon

Top left to right: Fence line heading into radiation fog above Bagley Combe; mist thickening into fog at Ruglands Farm; sea mist rising to join cloud off Porlock Bay; land fog looking over Hawkcombe; out over Horner Wood; oak at Holnicote Estate.

Main image: Advection fog swallowing Bossington Hill.

Fog is cloud in exile from the sky.

Like a flightless bird, unable to gain elevation, it hugs the ground and rests upon the sea, and only as it dissipates does it win a chance to lift and merge with the humblest of the classified clouds.

28 Exmoor Winter 2012

from twilight. A few strides beyond the yard gate and there is no farm, no valley, you move through unrelieved, nebulous whiteness, isolated, disorientated. Even sounds seem unreliable – the stream too close; the wing-beats of pigeons passing invisibly overhead, deadened and hollow.

Most often encountered from around the time the cattle are taken off the hill, to when they return, radiation fog is a winter hazard. It can be patchy and localised – one moment a clear road, then the windscreen masked by a fuzz of suspended, microscopic droplets, the creeping headlights probing ineffectually ahead, twin beams of ghostly radiance that, rather than extending visibility, seem to emphasise its limits. Least welcome, perhaps, of any of its manifestations is freezing fog. Yet its presence brings to the moor a rare irrefutable beauty. Rime is created by ‘supercooled’ fog (droplets that remain liquid even when the temperature dips below 0˚C (32˚F), water’s normal freezing point). Such bitter motes freeze spontaneously when they brush against solid objects in their path – furring the sheep-netting, the gatepost, the telephone cables. Drifting through the thorns on

the hillridge they freeze while still in motion, on the windward side of the crabbed boughs building ice-crystal flags – the wild world’s December decorations. Perhaps fairest to see wearing that chill breath are mature, lowland beeches: in veiled light, every twig feathered with silver, they seem to glow, phosphorescent with frost. Rime that thaws at noon and resets into clear, icy casings is called by a special West Country name – ‘ammil’.

Land fog, radiation fog, formed in stillness as the night deepens and the year darkens, has its opposite in advection fog that travels on the wind and rolls in from the sea to dim the bright light of spring and steal the warmth of summer.

From above the Whit Stones on a May morning it is not uncommon to obtain a hawk’s-eye view of a rumpled, snow-white blanket of fog overlying the Severn Sea. Then Wales is no more, Hurlstone Point becomes an island, the hill of Bossington a shadowy, half-submerged whale-back, while the Vale of Porlock drowns under opaque, restless billows that may fade within the hour or linger until a change of tide, obscuring the

Exmoor Winter 2012 29

mouths of the Lyn and Heddon, ballooning up a thousand feet to fray against the formidable coastal cliffs and smoke away inland.

It is worth climbing the promontory at Countisbury to stand within the hillfort on a summer afternoon when an onshore breeze is carrying warm air over the cool waves – a recipe for a light mist to thicken over the water and drift up from the shore.

It can feel strangely warm, almost dry, that initial brush of sea-mist against the skin. Indeed, whereas inland fog generally forms at a relative humidity of 100%, on the coast it can condense on salt particles – spray from rock-fractured waves, iodine released by seaweed – when humidity levels are 30% lower. Sooner or later a flock of gulls will wing overhead, invisible in the thickening gloom. Unsurprising if their disembodied voices sound eerily like the yelps and wails of battle cries – for Wind Hill is the site of Arx Cynuit, where Devon Saxons won a telling victory over Hubba's invading Danes, and fog has a propensity to set time adrift, to confuse the rational mind while conversely stimulating the imagination. Is it a war horn blowing retreat, that faraway, melancholy booming? Or the warning of the foghorn at Nash Point, South Glamorgan, relic of a bygone age, like the post of lighthouse keeper made obsolete by modern navigational equipment...?

To see fog in a lighter mood pass from coastal cliff to lake valley, from warm air over cold ocean to cold air flowing over warm water – from sea fog to steam fog. The process of evaporation, of vapour cooling into droplets, is visible in those delicate wisps and tendrils that dance and weave and lift from the silver surface of the lake at dawn. The same transformation may be seen if you are driving along a rain-wet road in the moment when the heat of the sun sets the tarmac ‘steaming’.

From top: Beech trees ghostly in the mist at Cloutsham Gate; cold air passing over warm water becomes visible as steam fog; oak at Nettlecombe; sheep in the mist; mist eroding as sun rises behind a willow; sun rays break through over Horner.

Capricious is the nature of fog: fluid as water, elusive as air, a pale glimmer in the dark, a grey shadow dimming the daylight, a vacillating curtain that thins as you advance, thickens as you glance behind, playing tricks on the senses so that even natives of the moor, familiar with the landscape for generations, have been found wandering, benighted, only yards from home. ‘Fog-earth’ is an old Somerset term for peat, bogland, the shaky, unstable ground where pride comes before a fall and all haste is of the devil. A night of mist, a day of fog, and the mind’s certainties seem delusive, the extent of human knowledge a pitiable speck set against the cosmic magnitude of all that is hidden, mysterious, still to be understood.

Whether eroded by strong winds or burnt away by powerful solar rays – true to the vagaries of its spirit, fog often appears most beautiful in its moment of dispersion.

Sunrise, marked by a glow in the dense whiteness of the fog that has welled from the cleaves overnight to merge earth and sky. The sun’s orb remains veiled, but as the morning lengthens there is a general brightening of the fog itself, a subtle feeling of buoyancy, a weight lifting, a sense of height confirmed by a brief glimpse of blue sky overhead. Shadows and outlines slowly emerge as long hills and low trees. Colours gain identity, bringing distinction to heather, fern, tussock. As more and more droplets evaporate in the growing warmth, the fog thins to a diaphanous mist through which the blossoming sun splays long, golden rays.

A snatch of song wavers earthward, the sweet, panpipe warbling of golden plover, haunting voices that belong, like the evanescent beauty of the mist-filtered sunlight, to a world beyond the common light of day. As secretly as it came, the last remnants of the fog softly and silently vanish away, sky-borne.

30 Exmoor Winter 2012

Partridge & Pear Tree Beautiful Designer Fabrics at Greatly Reduced Prices

RELOC ATION SALE

Starts 1st November Lots of great bargains!

11,The George Arcade, South Molton Tel: 07723 440590

The Wardrobe Exciting new collections to suit all occasions, from casual wear to weddings, also a wide range of accessories including Vivien Sheriff millinery. If you are looking for something different please call in and feel free to browse.

01398 324288 18 High Street, Dulverton, Somerset TA22 9HB

Exmoor Winter 2012 31

G. J. STRONG LTD CONSTRUCTION THE COMPLETE BUILDING SERVICE (Over 25 years experience)

Unit 1, Fourwinds, Shillingford, Bampton, Devon Telephone: 01398 331104 Fax: 01398 332177 Email: strong4winds@yahoo.co.uk

ALL WORK FULLY GUARANTEED Extensions • Renovations • Barn Conversions Plumbing/Heating and Electrical Installations Oil and Gas Servicing

EXMOOR STOVES LTD Local Supplier and Installer of Multi-Fuel/Wood Burning, Oil & Gas Stoves.

Rayburn, Steel Cuisine Range Cookers & American Style Fridge Freezers

Come & visit our working showroom –

On display we have a range of pine & oak furniture, kitchen wares, gifts of all types & Gardman garden must haves, logs, briquettes, coal, kindling and a range of slate.

Qualified engineers to advise & assist on Purchase & Installation.

Opening times: Mon-Fri 9.00am-5.00pm, Saturday 10.00am-4.00pm, Sunday & Bank Holidays-Closed.

Fourwinds, Shillingford, Nr Bampton, Tiverton, Devon EX16 9AU Tel: 01398 332015 • Fax: 01398 332177 Email: exmoor4stoves@yahoo.co.uk • www.exmoor-stoves.co.uk

_âvç _Éâ:á

1, Brook Street, Bampton, Devon

Country Clothing, Cookware, Gifts & Hardware Telephone: (01398) 332831 Opening Times: Tues - Friday 9.30am - 4.30pm Saturday - 10.00 am - 2.00pm

RECIPES

The Elephant House Christmas Party Supper Club

FOOD by Lis Kennett & Kalina Newman PHOTOGRAPHS by Andrew Hobbs STYLING by Naomi Cudmore & Lis Kennett

T

he Elephant House is the creation of two friends whose vision is inspired and imaginative, grounded in good rustic home cooking and the desire to use the best quality seasonal ingredients and many locally-sourced culinary highlights.

There is usually a suggested donation and The Elephant House is not licensed so has a bring-your-own policy. Menus appear in advance and Lis and Kalina can cater for guests with special dietary requirements.

The evening begins at 7.30pm and carriages are at midnight. So come with a hearty appetite, take your seat at the table, and enjoy something which is hopefully a very different dining experience.

Tempted?

Search 'The Elephant House' on facebook, visit www.attheelephanthouse.com, email attheelephanthouse@gmail.com or call 01984 641333 and speak to Lis.

Exmoor Winter 2012 33

To start Terrine of fresh and smoked salmon with vegetable julienne Served with sauce vierge Serves 8

Ingredients 1-2 2 1-2 400g 6 400ml 400g 1-2 8

red peppers courgettes carrots salmon fillet, skinned and cut into chunks eggs double cream white fish fillet, such as whiting, cod, pollack, skinned and cut into chunks lemon grass stalks, chopped smoked salmon slices salt and pepper

For the sauce 1 lemon 3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced 2 shallots, finely chopped 10 fresh chives, finely chopped 250ml extra virgin olive oil salt and pepper

Rosemary spiced nuts Serves 6-8

Ingredients

Method Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/gas mark 7.

Put the red pepper on a baking sheet and roast, turning occasionally until blackened and charred. When pepper is cool enough to handle, peel off skin, remove seeds and cut flesh into thin strips.

Slice courgettes into thin lengths, blanch in a pan of salted water for 20 seconds and refresh in cold water.

Do the same with the carrots and cut all vegetables into a neat julienne.

Reduce oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4.

Put the salmon, 2 eggs and half the cream into a food processor and whizz until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and season.

Do the same with the white fish, remaining eggs and cream, stirring in the lemongrass and season.

Line a terrine with cling film, allowing some to overhang the sides. Make layers of white fish mixture, vegetables, smoked salmon and the fresh salmon mixture.

Repeat. Wrap the overhang over the top and seal.

Put the terrine into a roasting tin, pour in enough boiling water to come around halfway up the sides and bake for 40 minutes.

Meanwhile make the sauce. Peel the lemon, cut out the segments from between the membrane with a sharp knife and dice finely. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and season.

Turn out your terrine and remove cling film before serving warm or cold with the sauce vierge spooned over the terrine.

34 Exmoor Winter 2012

500g 40g 40g 2 tbsp 2 tbsp ½ tsp pinch pinch sprig

whole cooked chestnuts almonds whole hazelnuts butter honey crushed fennel seeds ground allspice sea salt rosemary, finely chopped

Method Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/ gas mark 4-5.

Place the butter, honey, allspice, rosemary and fennel in a large, oven-proof frying pan.

Melt the butter over a medium heat.

Remove from the heat, add the nuts and toss in the melted butter.

Place in the oven for 20-25mins, stirring occasionally.

Sprinkle with the salt and serve warm.

Recipes

Ingredients 3-4 kohlrabies vegetable oil 3 tsp sea salt 4 tsp ground juniper berries.

1.6 kg venison loin 2 tbsp butter 2 tbsp light/mild olive oil For the beetroot relish 110g 4 tsp 4 4 tbsp 4 tbsp 2-3 small 6 2

caster sugar butter shallots, finely chopped red wine vinegar red wine sprigs of thyme juniper berries cooked beetroot, finely diced

Main course...

JUNIPER DUSTED LOIN OF VENISON WITH A GJETOST SAUCE AND BEETROOT RELISH Serves 8

For the gjetost sauce 500ml good quality veal (or light beef) stock 2 garlic cloves, bruised 2 small sprigs of thyme 120ml pouring cream 120g gjetost, grated (see note)

Gjetost is a sweet, caramel coloured cheese from Norway. It is available at large supermarkets and good delis, including The Cheese and Wine Shop, 11 South St, Wellington (www.thecheeseandwineshop.co.uk).

There is no real substitute as it is quite unique but a good quality smoked cheese may work well.

Method To make the beetroot relish, put the sugar and 2 tbsp of water in pan over high heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and cook, without stirring, for 5-7 mins or until golden. Remove from the heat and carefully add the butter, shallots, vinegar, red wine, thyme and juniper berries. Bring back to the boil, add beetroot and 250 ml water. Reduce the heat and simmer for 25 mins, stirring often, until liquid has almost evaporated. Remove thyme sprig and juniper berries and set aside until needed.

Preheat the oven to 190째C/375째F/gas mark 5. To make the sauce, put the stock, garlic and thyme into a pan and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the garlic and thyme and stir in the cream, cooking over a medium heat until slightly thickened.

Stir in the gjetost cheese until it becomes smooth, season and set aside.

Peel the kohlrabies and cut into thick flat discs. Place on a baking tray. Brush with oil and season. Cook in the oven for 50 minutes until golden and tender.

Mix a tsp of freshly ground pepper with the sea salt and ground juniper. Rub spice mix all over venison loin. Heat the butter and oil and sear the venison on all sides, before removing and placing on a baking tray. Place the venison in the oven for 25 minutes (for rare), adding 5 minutes if you prefer it more well done. Remove from oven, cover with foil and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

To serve, slice venison into thick slices and place on top of the baked kohlrabies. Spoon some beetroot relish on top and drape gjetost sauce around the plate. Serve with some lightly cooked seasonal greens and potato and apple croquettes.

Red Lion Court Wellington Somerset TA21 8RD Exmoor Winter 2012 35

Recipes

Dessert...

To drink Sloe gin Royale

Spiced poached pears Serves 8

Ingredients 750ml 190g several juice 1 several several 8

dessert wine caster sugar pieces of lemon peel of half a lemon cinnamon stick allspice berries star anise firm pears

Method Preheat oven to 180째C, 350째F/gas mark 4 Place the wine, sugar, lemon rind, juice and spices with 200ml water in a saucepan with a lid. Heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Peel the pears leaving on the stalk and cutting a flat bottom so that they can stand up. Rub the pears with a clean tea towel to remove the peeling marks, leaving you with a nice smooth pear.

Place the pears in the pan, making sure they are covered with liquid, add more water if necessary.

Bring to the boil.

Cover and place in the oven for about 20 minutes. The pears are ready when they are just tender, lift out and put to one side.

36 Exmoor Winter 2012

Ingredients 1 bottle champagne or cava 200ml sloe gin

Method Pour 25ml measure of sloe gin into a champagne glass and top up with your choice of fizz! Simple!

Wine reflections: a glass half full The

WORDS by Roger White, Yearlstone Vineyard

Black Venus Inn F Liz, Marc and family welcome you to the Black Venus Inn, situated in the beautiful village of Challacombe, on Exmoor.

Historic 16th century beamed Inn Excellent home made food using local produce Food served seven days a week throughout the year Beer garden and large car park Open all day during school holidays Challacombe, Barnstaple, Devon EX31 4TT

Tel 01598 763251 www.blackvenusinn.co.uk

YEARLSTONE VINTAGE BRUT - the fizz the French are raving about The 4th best sparkling wine in England... - La Revue du Vin “ A beautiful example of English fizz - crisp and lively, floral & honeysuckle aromas... great value for money� available direct from the vineyard..also from Tantivy Dulverton & Winsford Stores.

Yearlstone Vineyard, Bickleigh EX168RL.

www.yearlstone.co.uk

Torre Cider Farm A peaceful place of rural charm hidden in a small valley with gently sloping hills and cider apple orchard

FREE Admission & Cider Tasting

All ciders and apple juice made on our premises are pure natural drinks and are available to sample in our farm shop

Tearoom & Farm Shop - Open Daily from 10am Visitors can feed the animals

Washford, Watchet, TA23 0LA

w w w. t o r r e c i d e r. c o m

01984 640004

Perfect Celebration!

Tel 01643 821 439

www.spearscross.co.uk

rom Burgundy northwards 2012 is already being described as the worst vintage for two decades. According to Champagne growers every possible disaster has hit the vines this cruel year and even as far south as Italy yields will be around half those in 2011.

Nor will the small amount of berries mean concentrated flavours – though the PR machines will tell you differently.

Here in England the rapid progress of the last few years will certainly be set back. There will scarcely be any 2012 Devon wine – and it is certainly the worst vintage in the last 17 for us here at Yearlstone.

Fortunately we have several thousand litres of 2011 still in the tank.

For once we did plan ahead and build a reserve. Our increasing concentration on our Vintage Brut range means we have quite a cellar stock of slowly ageing Champagne-method sparkling wine from both 2009 and 2010. This is a good thing as demand for English sparkling wine is absolutely exploding. We have been selling out as fast as we can disgorge. Being taken on board by the UK’s top independent wine retailer has been a bit of a shock!

Here in Devon the wine trade has been increasingly enthusiastic – about Devon wine as a whole, not just the Champagne-beating fizzes. Just to take one example, the Clovelly Estate has been offering a Devon wine list to customers – and reporting that this summer Devon wines have been accounting for between 40% and 50% of ALL their wine sales. From seafood restaurants in Brixham to gastro pubs on Exmoor, Devon wines have been proving a real hit. The big question is just how much wine prices will have to go up next year after the 2012 washout – a question not only for English producers, but for Champagne houses and most of France too. I suspect the answer will be 'not much'. Things are too tight for price rises – no matter what the reason. While English fizz sales have been rocketing, Champagne sales have been falling, by around 7% in 2012 so far.

But now to some recommendations, focusing on red: Pebblebed 2011 is an amazingly complex and powerful red from the ripest red grapes grown there so far (Pinot Noir and Rondo). With a natural 12.5% alcohol this has the depth and body of reds from much further south.

A consistently good English red wine producer is Kenton Estate near Exeter, and Matthew’s Pinot Noir Precoce 2011 is a fine example.

A bit further afield, if you can get hold of it, is Peter Biddlecombe’s Portesham Red 2010, made by Yearlstone’s winemaker Juliet White.

Another silver medallist at the Wine of the Year, this is a lovely example of English Rondo – again from very ripe red grapes.

Of course, very widely available is Sharpham Estate’s Dornfelder.

For a very English light red, our own Yearlstone Number 4 2011 has proved highly popular. At 12% natural alcohol this is a subtle balance of light English cherries and soft tannins.

Yearlstone Vineyard’s wines are available from YV, Bickleigh EX16 8RL, 01884 855700 or online at www.yearlstone.co.uk. Also from Tantivy, Dulverton, Winsford Stores, West Country Cheese Co, Barnstaple and Johns of Appledore. Sharpham Estate wines can be obtained from Sharpham, Ashprington, Totnes or www.sharpham.com.

Portesham is available direct from the vineyard, and Pebblebed and Kenton wines are available direct or from Darts Farm, Topsham.

Subscriber offer for Christmas!

Subscribers to the magazine at the time of claiming can request a 20% discount on half a case of Yearlstone's Vintage Brut (making it ÂŁ12.50 per bottle). This will apply until the end of January 2013.

To take advantage of this offer please contact Yearlstone direct on 01884 855700.

Festive Event Venues CHRISTMAS AT THE ANCHOR INN

T H E FA R M E R S A R M S

Now taking bookings for your Christmas meal, also open for Christmas day lunch.

See our website for details or call us.

The Anchor Inn, Exebridge, Dulverton, Somerset,TA22 9AZ T: 01398 323 433 E: info@theanchorinnexebridge.co.uk www.theanchorinnexebridge.co.uk

Best Kept Beer Cellar for the third year running in 2012!

Parties welcome for festive dining, please see the website for Christmas menu.

The Farmers Arms, Combe Florey,Taunton,TA4 3HZ T. 01823 432267 E. farmersarms89@yahoo.com www.farmersarmsatcombeflorey.co.uk

T H E M A RT L E T I N N

T H E Q U AY

Christmas fayre menus.

Evening, 3 courses £21.95.

Lunchtime, 2 courses £11.95, 3 courses £13.95.

See website for menus.

Bookings from 1st - 24th December. Book early to avoid disappointment.

Langford Budville, Wellington, Somerset TA21 0QZ T. 01823 400262 E. themartletinn@gmail.com www.themartletinn.webs.com

AT

APPLEDORE FED UP with Christmas turkey? Visit The Quay at Appledore for some of North Devon’s best sea food served all day and every day.

Open 9am to 5pm

9,The Quay, Appledore, Devon EX39 1QS T. 01237 473355 E. appledorequay@yahoo.com www.thequayappledore.co.uk

H O B B Y H O R S E B A L L RO O M Have a great Christmas Party with fantastic free entertainment on Sat 24th Nov, Sat 1st Dec & Fri 7th Dec. Celebrate New Years Eve with luxury buffet, live music & fun casino. Call now to book.

Esplanade, Minehead, Somerset. TA24 5QP Tel: 01643 702274 www.hobbyhorseballroom.com

THE WHITE HORSE INN Join us for Christmas Traditional Village Inn with Log Fire.

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38 Exmoor Winter 2012

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T

here’s an evocative black-and-white photo of Bampton railway station on the wall in the Swan’s bar, a nostalgic record of the time when trains steamed through the village centre. As the Swan sat opposite the station I suspect travellers would stop here for a welcome snifter – and perhaps even stay, for then, as now, the Swan offers rooms. The railway went in 1963 and where the station once stood is now the town’s main car park.

Thankfully the Swan survived.

The photo represents just a small part of Bampton’s heritage and history on display here; you know the sort of thing, the kind of permanent exhibition that country inns have long been expert at. Think about all those pubs with faded photos of long-gone regulars and old cups and trophies still keeping their shine – the country inn or pub as a mini museum.

At the moment the Swan’s display is definitely mini – the railway photo is kept company by a framed document hanging in the alcove at the back of the bar plus several other images (although there are plans for more memories). The document tells a vital story about the Swan: how it is the oldest pub in Bampton, stretching back to the 1450s when it was a temporary home to the stonemasons working on the church (itself a survivor with roots in the twelfth century). Since then the Tudors, the Roundheads and Cavaliers and the railways have come and gone but the Swan glides on.

Several years ago it was closed, but local men Andrew and Simon Dale-Harris bought it, refurbished it sympathetically and then reopened it in 2010. The result?

It is now a great place for both food and beer thanks to licensees Paul and Donna Berry, who also run the Quarryman’s Rest in Bampton.

It’s Saturday lunchtime when we arrive and there’s a wedding due at St Mary’s.

Men in suits and carefully coiffured women enjoy a swift glass (nerves?), while swapping jokes about 'looking forward' to the best man’s speech. It’s a warm and traditional scene that many of us will have experienced prior to a country wedding (often not without some regret about having to leave the bar).

I only visited the Swan once before its reopening. The impression it left was negligible but now it’s hard not to be immediately swayed by its clean and airy

open-plan bar. This is a drinking and eating space where the modern, understated style works well in conjunction with remnants of the past such as the heavy, gnarly ceiling beams and the old bread oven embedded in the wall next to one of the fireplaces. The tranquil ambience of the transformed bar, combined with the plain, square-cut furniture (including a comfy sofa in front of a log burner), makes it the sort of place you’ll want to linger.

Eating Out

The Swan Bampton WORDS by Adrian Tierney Jones

The tranquil ambience of the transformed bar, combined with the plain, square-cut furniture (including a comfy sofa in front of a log burner), makes it the sort of place you’ll want to linger.

I’ve known Paul Berry since writing about the Quarryman’s Rest and he is passionate about the food that he cooks.

When he comes over to say hello his eyes are alight as he mentions plans for smoking locally-grown tomatoes for a pasta sauce. He then gets positively lyrical about fish, which is just as well as I have my eye on the Cornish haddock.

However, before I finally make a decision, there’s time for a scan of the menu, featuring dishes both stylish and robust.

Robust? Think ox cheeks in red wine sauce or potted ham hock with homemade piccalilli. Alternatively, there’s a certain style in the leek, mushroom and Parmesan cheese tart or the tian of Brixham crab and avocado. As I dither, my wife, decisive for once, orders the vegetable medley that includes chickpeas, aubergine, courgette and chilli served with rice. I cast my vote for the haddock.

As I eat I’m so glad I did: the batter that wraps itself around the sweet, yielding flesh of the fish is crisp and pliant, with the right balance of saltiness and sweetness I expect from batter (there is also a nice side dish of minted mushy peas). The vegetable medley is spicy and unctuous with the rice pleasingly served in a poppadom. The puddings are a pull (brownie with butterscotch ice-cream, knickerbocker glory) but we’ve no room for more.

They also do good drink at the Swan.

The wine list is an impeccable crowd-pleaser while West Country breweries provide the ale, including Red Rock near Newton Abbot. Its Devon Storm is usually a permanent resident and this dark, chunky strong bitter is always a favourite with its hints of blackcurrant alongside the firm malt-based sweetness and thirst-quenching bitterness.

Paul Berry worked in hotels until his late 20s, and then decided that pubs were the way forward. "It was like getting a licence to cook more exciting food in the more intimate atmosphere offered by a pub," he says. The hotel trade’s loss is our gain.

The Swan, Station Road, Bampton, Devon EX16 9NG Tel. 01398 332248 www.theswan.co/theswan/HOME

Exmoor Winter 2012 39

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40 Exmoor Winter 2012

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TASTE OF EXMOOR

The changing face of cake!

O

ne of the first history stories told to young children – and one that certainly sticks in their memories – is that of King Alfred burning the cakes. Taking refuge on the Somerset Levels while considering what he might do next to fend off the Vikings, he sought shelter in the home of a poor swineherd and one day was left to tend the cakes baking on the griddle. As he sat, deep in thought, the cakes began to burn and the swineherd’s wife returned to the smell of spoilt food. Alfred was, we are told, thoroughly scolded and maybe learnt his first lesson in cookery.

These cakes were almost certainly small rounds of ‘bread’, for cake, with its expensive ingredients, was for centuries the prerogative of the wealthy; hence the heartlessness some eight centuries later of Queen Marie Antoinette of France’s jibe to the starving poor – ‘Let them eat cake!’

Certainly by the seventeenth century Somerset ‘gentry’ were enjoying cake, the first recorded recipe coming from Mary Clarke’s papers in the Sanford archive for Mrs Bluett’s ‘carryway’ cake which needed 4lb flour, 3lb sugar, 4lb butter and 36 eggs (leaving out 18 whites), not to mention 4ozs ‘carriway’ seeds!

But what of Christmas cake? The practice of baking and eating Christmas cake as we know it dates from the early Victorian period. Like Christmas pudding, it had its origins in plum porridge. During the sixteenth century the oatmeal in the porridge was replaced by butter, flour milled from wheat and eggs, along with dried fruit and spices but it would still have been boiled and it was not until richer families had

All modern cake images: Courtesy Christine Nelder except for the purple spotty cake above and the strawberry cake on the following page, both from Kushti Cakes. Main image: Photographic Advertising/SSPL.

WORDS by Hilary Binding

Exmoor Winter 2012 41

Taste of Exmoor ovens in the home, that the mix was baked. This cake was originally eaten on Twelfth Night but in the 1830s, as Christmas festivities took over, the cake became Christmas cake. Bakers started to decorate the cakes with winter snow scenes and by the 1870s the modern Christmas cake had evolved. It is about this time that we begin to find recipes for Christmas cake in local family recipe books like those of Mary Rawle from Porlock (plum cake) and Mary Alma Clark from East Lynch, Selworthy.

well save seasonally with Guy Fawkes and Halloween decorations for example, although cup cakes on stands for weddings are popular at the moment. These cakes are of American origin – rather like our own butterfly cakes – but none of these imports, French-style multi-coloured macaroons and American whoopie pies for example, attract the tastebuds of the Exmoor consumer for long.

I went to talk about cake to Christine Nelder of the Exclusive Cake Company at Dulverton. For some 15 years now Christine has been baking and icing delicious cakes for consumers across Exmoor to enjoy. Working first from a small kitchen behind her father’s garden machinery business in Northmoor Road, Christine produced cakes for wholesale and to order while also catering for dinner parties and functions. When her father gave up in 2004 Christine took over and converted the buildings for her own use. The business has continued to expand and last year Christine opened a shop in the High Street in Dulverton where a variety of her breads, cakes, savoury dishes and frozen meals are on sale. All the food is still prepared and cooked in the Northmoor Road premises.

And when do we eat cake these days? Half a century ago tea at 5pm was part of a way of life in the country. Every day the table was laden with a selection of scones and cream and jam, bread and butter, jam tarts, homemade shortbread cut into triangles, small cakes and large cakes. While older people continue to enjoy teas in this style many no longer do. One younger farmer’s wife told me that they only have tea like this when they are lambing. And many others no longer bake cakes regularly. Women, and men, are out all day, children no longer learn the basic skills at school and even the baking programmes on television have had little long-term impact. Cake is now the stuff of coffee mornings, teas at village fêtes and, maybe, one slice rather than a biscuit for elevenses or instead of a pudding at suppertime.

Christine and her staff make a wide range of cakes – see her website for a comprehensive list with yummy ‘can I have a slice now’ pictures! These cakes taste homemade, which is really what they are. Although baked in larger quantities they are made by hand from quality ingredients – no pre-mixes, additives or preservatives here. Where possible, ingredients are sourced locally: eggs, wholemeal flour from Dunster Water Mill (and white flour from the Cotswolds), cider, ale and apples.

Lindsay Pearce, born in Dulverton, now lives and runs her business, Kushti (Good) Cakes, in South Molton. She loves making cakes and recalls that as a girl she would help her mother to prepare for the all-important cricket teas for Dulverton Cricket Club. She obtained a GCSE in Cookery, went to the East Devon College to study catering before starting work at The Corn Dolly in South Molton as a Saturday girl and from there worked her way up to become manager – and maker of cakes.

Favourite cakes these days are sponges. Christine makes eight different varieties including coffee and walnut, lemon, and maple and pecan, plus carrot cake and luscious, moist drizzle cakes.

Anything chocolate is popular, while children tend to go for tiffin and gingerbread men! Far fewer fruit cakes are eaten these days and that applies to celebration cakes as well. Most wedding cakes are now sponges with perhaps a token fruit layer, but the decoration, which Christine does herself, is often still traditional.

She retired when her son, Finlay (five), was born and it was her husband who suggested that as she was so good at making cakes she should start her own business. Lindsay bakes cakes for her Saturday stall in the market at South Molton where sponges, slices and tray bakes all sell well. Older people do find a whole cake too much, she told me, but love a couple of slices of, for example, Bakewell tart. Her business has grown via word of mouth to ordered cakes, celebration and seasonal, and she has an amazing knack for realistic decoration. Her Noah’s Ark cake with its modelled animal heads is stunning. Last year she made 60 Christmas cakes to order (penguins with blue icing were surprisingly popular) and is wondering what this year has in store.

During the 15 years that she has been making cakes Christine has seen many changes. Birthday cakes are the most favoured celebration cakes. Those for children are often decorated with characters from children’s books or television – Winnie the Pooh to Dr Who and Shrek – while adult cakes often reflect interests and hobbies. Christine makes fewer Christening cakes these days, for not so many children are being baptised and anniversary cakes are no longer an essential part of the celebrations.

There are also fashions and fads in cakes. I asked about cup cakes, which seem so popular, but was told that they don’t sell

When it comes to Christmas I would always prefer to make my own cake, pudding and mince pies but many don’t. They find it expensive, time-consuming and just don’t want the bother and ordering a cake from a local proven maker is often the answer.

You can order Christmas and other cakes from both Christine and Lindsay and if you are not in their areas try your local farmers' or pannier markets or the WI Country Markets where you can always find quality cakes and often order as well. For example, Shelley Kift of Out Over Catering sells cakes at Minehead Farmers’ Market and will take orders. Don’t leave it too late!

Contact Details

Shelley Kift: 01598 763620; email: shelleykift@btinternet.com Christine Nelder: 01398 324131; email: excatering@aol.com; web: www.exclusivecakecompany.co.uk Lindsay Pearce: 01769 579192; email: lindsayrowe@btopenworld. com; web: www.kushticakes.co.uk

42 Exmoor Winter 2012

Christmas Parties Christmas Day Lunch New Year’s Eve Bookings now being taken

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Dulverton by Starlight Christmas Festival - Sunday 2nd December.

We are open for Lunch from 12noon through to 3pm and for Dinner from 6.30pm, directly after the Firework Grand Finale.

We recommend booking your table in advance, to avoid disappointment.

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The Hood Arms

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Exmoor Winter 2012 43

TASTE OF EXMOOR

Fork Handles: It's no laughing matter; your local shop needs you!

WORDS by Avril Stone

T

he village was once a place where people lived, worked, prayed, played and shopped, only venturing further afield to the nearest town on high days and holidays.

Today the village is more a home for the commuter who makes his purchases where he works, on his journey home or even online through the supermarket. The village store that once stocked everything from salt beef to soap and four candles is struggling to survive.

It is a shocking statistic that this year 400 village shops are due to close. However, in some rural areas local people have taken action and where shops were due to close they have raised funds to take them over. These community shops are run by the community for the benefit of the community. In Devon there are 25 and in Somerset 21 (possibly more by the time of publication!). I set out to visit a variety of both privately-owned and community shops in our area to see how they are faring.

When Berrynarbor’s postmaster announced in 2004 that he intended to retire and shut his shop, the response from the village was amazing. A committee was formed and a notice was

44 Exmoor Winter 2012

sent to every household offering shares in Berrynarbor Co-operative Society. Within ten weeks nearly £10,000 had been raised to buy enough stock to open their business.

The shop owner agreed to rent them his premises for five years. The day after he closed down, the village’s very own co-operative store opened with a paid manager and 40 volunteers.

Next they had to obtain funding to build a new shop. North Devon District Council were supportive both with grants and allowing the new shop to be built in the village car park. With further shares in Berrynarbor Community Enterprise Limited, a £79,000 grant from Devon Renaissance, a £20,000 grant from the charitable Plunkett Foundation and a £20,000 mortgage, the new shop opened in 2008.

Bright and inviting, it has every household essential plus locally-sourced foodstuffs and homemade gifts. There is also a large, free car park.

Alex Parke, who has been involved in the project from the outset, told me that the shop “runs like clockwork” with two part-time employees – Debbie the manageress and Anita the postmistress – and 27 volunteers, some of whom arrive

at the shop at 7.45am to sort out the newspapers.

They compare their prices with supermarket rates every week and present comparable offers. This summer the shop became a National Lottery point.

The shop offers a grocery box delivery service to self-catering holiday homes and a ‘welcome pack’ for new householders, as well as a delivery service for villagers who cannot get out to the shop.

Alex said that the Berrynarbor shop was special because it belonged to the people of the village and they wanted to make it successful. Whenever you come into the shop people are grouped around in conversation and happy. I would add that their community spirit really makes this shop smile!

Right across the moor to the south-east, I spoke to Steve Cotten, a precision engineer by trade, who took over the village store at Bratton Fleming four years ago when the owner decided to sell up.

He laughs that he bought it when he realised he’d have nowhere to buy his cigarettes!

The day I visited, the store was a hive of industry, with Steve’s daughter Vashti and part-time assistant Nicky juggling serving

with trying to restock the shelves. There was a constant stream of customers and Steve welcomes everyone with his friendly banter.

He doesn't have a regular delivery service but will always help people out who cannot get to the shop themselves.

This way, he says, he can also make sure his friends and customers are well.

The shop may be private enterprise, but it very much involves the community.

Steve employs a full-time assistant, several part-timers and a bookkeeper. Barnstaple superstores deliver to the village but Steve says they don’t dent his profits too much – and anyway, people come into his shop for the friendly conversation, which makes them feel valued. "Something you won’t get in supermarkets," he says. He is proud that he stocks locally-produced meat, eggs, vegetables, dairy goods, flowers and even some excellent wines from within a radius of a few miles.

Steve might soon also be claiming a national ‘first’. He has planning permission to build a new village shop – the first privately-owned one, he says, to go up in this country for a very long time. He is grateful to Mary who rents him his present shop and to the Parish and County Councils for their help and advice.

Over on the Quantocks, Crowcombe is a picturesque Somerset village which, like many others, lost its shop and then its Post Office. Also, like others I visited, its villagers sprang into action to revive them.

People loaned money to be repaid in later years – though many did not want their money back – and today you can be a shareholder in Crowcombe shop for £10.

In the beginning there was a committee of six. Today, there is a band of nine who deal with any problems and agree a way forward each month. The main ‘mover and shaker’ of the first committee was the late Ian Billinge who organised his group of six, giving them each a task. Kevin Chittenden was in charge of finding premises. A dilapidated barn beside the main village road belonged to Mrs Trollope-Bellew who agreed to rent it to them.They set about raising money to renovate it and the shop opened for business in 2001.

Its 35 volunteers staff the shop in two-hour shifts. Each member of the committee is responsible for ordering specific goods and supplies. The Post

Office is open 25 hours a week and is paid for by Post Office Counters.

Andy Highton, the treasurer, told me the business has a turnover of £55,000 a year with a net profit of between 8% and 10%. The committee recently built an extension on the shop costing £20,000 and it contributes to local projects like the church bells restoration and the village tennis courts.

Although the shop does not have a delivery service it helps out folk who are unable to do their own shopping and it supplies a ‘welcome basket’ to newcomers to the village.

Berrynarbor Shop & Post Office

Community Shop and Post Office Open: Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri 8.30am to 12.30pm & 1.30pm to 5.30pm. Weds, 8.30am to 12.30pm & Sun 9am to 12.30pm.

Bratton Fleming Village Stores

At Wootton Courtenay, the community shop follows a different model; for whereas it is proudly owned by its villagers it is not run by them.

When in 1990 the shop and Post Office were folding, the villagers stepped in and raised £125,000 to buy it. The company they formed serves as landlord, and the benefits its directors and shareholders receive are a well-stocked shop and Post Office on their doorstep.

Private Enterprise Open: Daily 7am to 7pm.

Sunday & Christmas Day and New Year's Day 7am to 1pm.

Crowcombe Village Shop & Post Office

Enter Paul Sheldon and Trish Wright who, after long careers in the Royal Air Force and then in business, became the village shopkeepers. They say they couldn’t be happier.

Wootton Courtenay is only four miles from Minehead and its supermarkets, but Paul and Trish say that they never feel in competition with them. Indeed many prices are competitive and with a population of just over 200 Paul reckons that 88% of local people are regular customers.

The shop has fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy and other local produce. They bake fresh bread, rolls and pastries every morning. Alongside the Post Office, services they offer include a laundry and dry-cleaning service, tourist information, greetings cards and the National Lottery.

Paul collects prescriptions from the Dunster Surgery and they can then be picked up from the shop.

When asked, ‘What makes this shop special?’ Paul says that the friendly reception and a willingness to listen to people to try and supply what they ask for are key. He also points out that in these small local shops you find things that you can’t buy in the supermarkets.

Community Shop Open: Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm. Weds 9am to 1pm. Sat 9am to 12 noon.

Post Office: Mon and Thurs, as the shop.

Tues, Weds, Fri & Sat closed pm.

Wootton Courtenay Village Stores & Post Office

Community shop/leased to tenants Open: Mon to Sat 8am to 1pm.

Sun 8am to 11am.

Post Office: open during shop hours.

Exmoor Winter 2012 45

Taste of Exmoor

Withypool Village Shop and Post Office

Private Enterprise Open: every day except Christmas Day and New Year's day; Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri 8am to 5pm Weds 8am to 1pm. Sat 8am to 2pm and Sun 9am to 12 noon.

The Post Office is open Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri 8.30am to 1pm.

Customer base: local inhabitants, holidaymakers, hunting and shooting people and day visitors to Exmoor.

Tony Howard has owned the shop and Post Office at Withypool on Exmoor for 15 years. He met his wife Anita, a local girl from Exford, when visiting his father who owned the Royal Oak Hotel at Withypool. When the shop came up for sale Tony decided to exchange his hotel business in London for a whole new way of life on Exmoor. He has never regretted it.

The shop is stocked from floor to ceiling with groceries, fresh meat, bread, dairy products (mostly locally sourced) and household goods. Two more areas are filled with gifts, cards, fishing nets and even dinghies. The shop operates the National Lottery.

Tony and Anita also own the tearooms across the road and a holiday cottage.

When I asked him if his shop was viable, as his catchment area is so small, Tony said his businesses together make a living but he knew he wasn’t going to become rich.

It was all about quality of life for him and his family.

The shop employs one full-time assistant and several part-time assistants and from what I could see they are always busy.

Tony prides himself on his personal service and his customer relations.

In fact, he says, some of the locals call him ‘Arkwright’ as he is open all hours!

46 Exmoor Winter 2012

Challacombe Village Stores and Post Office

Private enterprise Open: Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri and Sat. 8.30am to 6pm. Weds 8.30am to 2pm.

Sun 12 noon to 5pm.

Customer base: local residents and farming community, day visitors to Exmoor, holidaymakers, people staying in self-catering holiday homes and passing motorists.

For Gill and Ian Wright it is a new experience to be the owners of a village stores and Post Office. They came to Challacombe in April. Gill, who is the postmistress, was a town clerk, and Ian had been a head groundsman for Buckinghamshire Town Council.

They specialise in home-cooked foods and have already earned a reputation for their cakes, quiches, pies and pasties and they cook bacon rolls to order. In addition, they serve cream teas in their garden behind the shop.

They sell local produce and Gill says that often people who come into the shop are surprised that their prices compare favourably with those of the supermarkets.

The Post Office has a cashpoint machine which is free of charge (see 'did you know'? box below) and you can also purchase mobile phone top-ups (most useful when you’re in the middle of nowhere on Exmoor!).

Since their arrival Gill and Ian have found local people welcoming and supportive and it is quite evident that they want to keep the facility of their local shop.

Did you know?

At all Post Office counters you can now get cashback free of charge with your normal cash debit card. Almost all banks are signed up to this, with more joining in over the coming months. As your local shop benefits from you using its Post Office counter for any transaction, taking advantage of this free facility is a great way to support them.

Bishops Nympton Community Shop and Post Office

Community shop Open: Mon to Fri 8.30am to 12.30pm and 2.30pm to 5.30pm. Sat 8.30am to 12.30pm and Sun 9am to 11am.

Post Office hours: Mon to Sat mornings as the shop and Mon and Weds 2.30pm to 5.00pm.

In 2008 the last remaining village shop and Post Office in Bishops Nympton was threatened with closure. A vigorous campaign was launched by local people and the Post Office gave them a two-year lease on the original building. The public raised £7,000 which was enough to enable the shop to be stocked. The money was later refunded and people had the chance to buy a £10 share in the shop.

After grants and loans were obtained a new Parish Hall was built and in it was a brand-new community shop, which opened in July 2011.

The business is managed by a small committee and some 30 volunteers who work on average three hours at a time restocking shelves, cleaning, serving, ordering and doing the accounts.

As you can imagine, business was affected by a new supermarket four miles away in South Molton. The village does not try to compete, however, but offers an on-the-doorstep, friendly service for local people. This bright, modern shop stocks general groceries, fruit and vegetables, wines and spirits, non-prescription medicines, newspapers and even has a dry-cleaning service! It also has a large, free car park.

Taste of Exmoor

Rackenford Community Shop and Post Office

Winsford Shop and Post Office

Brompton Ralph Village Shop and Post Office

Community shop Open: Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri 8am to 12 noon and 3pm to 6pm.

Weds 8am to 12noon. Sat 9am to 12 noon and Sun 10am to 1pm.

Post Office Outreach service: Tues and Thurs 9am to 12 noon.

Customer base: villagers and surrounding farming community.

Private enterprise Opening hours : Mon, Weds, Thurs and Fri 8.30am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm. Tues and Sat 8.30am to 1pm. Sunday closed.

Post Office Outreach service: Tues and Fri 10am to 12 noon.

Customer base: local residents, holiday home owners and holidaymakers.

Community shop Opening hours: Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri 9.30am to 1pm and 5pm to 6pm. Weds 9.30am to 1pm, Sat 10am to 12 noon.

Post Office hours: Mon, Weds and Thurs 9.30am to 1pm.

Customer base: local people and passing trade.

Chef and former hotelier Paul Lawson and his wife Jenny have run the village shop and Post Office at Winsford for five years and have loved it. However, due to ill health in the family they have had to put the business on the market.

Brompton Ralph is a very small village on the edge of the Exmoor National Park and, as there is no pub, the village shop can be seen as the hub of community life.

Rackenford lies in the middle of farmland and has no passing trade. So when the last shop closed in 2002 the village formed a company to buy, restore and equip the old church room as a shop and Post Office. The £70,000 project was financed by grants and loans and nearly every household became a member.

At first the business was run as a private enterprise but it struggled and so in October 2007 the decision was made to run the shop staffed by volunteers.

For the past five years it has flourished and treasurer Graham Fennell informs me that they now have a £100,000 a year turnover.

The committee of eight includes four managers who take it in turns to run the business for a fortnight at a time. At each quarterly meeting they plan for the future and they also hold an annual AGM. Some 30 volunteers deal with selling, cleaning, finance and IT. They stock as much local produce as possible. An invaluable service is the twice-weekly delivery of medical prescriptions from Tiverton, which is eight miles away, so quite a distance for some people to travel.

Asked what makes the Rackenford shop special, several people in the shop told me that it was friendly and welcoming and Graham Fennell said he felt there was a great deal of community goodwill which makes the shop work.

The shop sells local products, from free-range poultry and meat, fish from Exebridge, dairy products and ice-cream, to jams, honey and wine from the Exe Valley. I can personally recommend Paul’s home-cooked pies, pasties and sausage rolls!

Paul also cooks and freezes homemade dinners which are especially welcome for visitors arriving in the village after a long journey. He has been known, too, to rustle up a full English breakfast for early-morning hikers! [This is a frustrating sight when one is driving past in the morning feeling hungry!]

Their shop was voted one of the top three village shops in the Countryside Alliance competition. Jenny said it is a happy place and it has been said that when the shop is full of customers they can be heard laughing way down at the bus stop!

In 1998 the owners, Mr and Mrs Beale, decided to retire and 75 villagers (the population was only (180) raised £3,500 to rent and keep the shop and Post Office open.

At first they had a full-time paid manager with a group of volunteers. Today the Beales' daughter Kathy is the manageress, working mostly on a voluntary basis.

Volunteers carry out tasks such as collecting stock, newspapers and bookkeeping.

The shop has groceries, bread, cakes, milk and dairy products and home-grown fruit and vegetables when they are available.

It has an off-licence and dry-cleaning service. Kathy says she keeps a keen eye on supermarket prices and is as competitive as possible – sometimes offering a better price in fact!

Asked if the shop is viable Kathy says that with such a small community the going has been pretty tough, but there is so much support and dedication from the volunteers because they believe their shop is a valuable part of community life.

NOTE: Where the text states Post Office Outreach service, the Post Office hours are limited to those stated at the time of writing.

Exmoor Winter 2012 47

Taste of Exmoor

Left and above: Exford supports both a village shop and a Post Office!

Below: Winsford Shop is a bit like a tardis.

Page 44: Woman buying groceries, 1937. © NMPFT/Daily Herald Archive/Science & Society Picture Library - All rights reserved.

All other photos: by Avril Stone apart from Brompton Ralph and Berrynarbor images.

Whether your shop is privately or community owned, if it has friendly, welcoming staff and shelves stocked with reasonably-priced goods you have a potential recipe for success. The message I took away from this exercise was that village shops do something the supermarkets cannot – they put life into a community. Estate agents estimate that a shop in a village adds 10% to the value of the homes.

Village shops and businesses are not just for the nostalgic but a necessary element in the process of preventing the demise of rural community life. If everyone was determined to buy some of their weekly shopping in the village shop it would enable it to remain viable.

The saying ‘use it or lose it’ applies also to your other local assets, whether that be local pub, church, social events or clubs. If we don’t support our rural way of life our villages will curl up and die.

Thank you to all of the people who helped with this research and proved to me that their shops are helping to keep their villages alive.

This article is far from exhaustive in its scope but whether I have managed to fit in your local shop or not, you know where it is! © Jane Mares

1962

1970

1980

1990

2000

2012

SERVING TEA & COFFEE TO THE WEST COUNTRY SINCE 1962 VALE YARD, HIGH STREET, PORLOCK, SOMERSET, TA24 8PU TELEPHONE: 01643 703993 WEBSITE: WWW.DJMILES.CO.UK

48 Exmoor Winter 2012

The Quarrymans Rest Paul & Donna welcome you to The Quarrymans Rest set in the beautiful historic small town of Bampton situated on the Devon and Somerset border. This is an area well known for its hunting, fishing, shooting and is very popular with ramblers and cyclists. The Exmoor National Park is only 6 miles away and the beautiful beaches of North and South Devon is a 40 minute drive.

With its comfortable sofas and welcoming log fires The Quarrymans Rest is a great place to visit. Serving traditional and innovative pub food, fine wines and real ales all at affordable prices. On Sundays our Carvery is hugely popular using local meats from Hills farm and Westons farm.

With Donna overseeing the front of house, the atmosphere is relaxed and welcoming. Well kept real ale on the hand pumps as well as a weekly guest ale and a keen selection of wines from around

the world to suit all tastes. She will happily open a bottle from the full wine list if you fancy a glass of something a little more special.

Paul has a passion for the use of local food and creates some real pub classics to some more elaborate restaurant dishes all of which can be enjoyed either in the bar or in our comfortable restaurant.

We have 3 great double rooms for bed and breakfast all are en-suite with flat screen televisions, Wi-Fi and tea and coffee facilities.

Briton Street, Bampton, Tiverton, Devon EX16 9LN Tel: 01398 331480 Email: info@thequarrymansrest.co.uk www.thequarrymansrest.co.uk

Without a doubt Kendle Pork, Tastes divine upon your fork, Our lamb has taste and texture too, to fire taste buds the whole year through, Our fav is beef raised on our rolling hills, Succulent and mature with no added frills, From the land of dear Exmoor, Directly to your own front door.

We take pride in our stock that is raised and loved at Kendle Farm.

Please take time to create divine dishes.

Pauline, Rob, Tim & Nicky Kendle Farm, Exmoor National Park

Dulverton, Exmoor National Park

www.kendlefarm.co.uk

www.exmoor-farm-shop.co.uk

01643 851 298

01398 323 878

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOUCAN! 30 years of:

t 01643 706 101 e enquiries@toucanwholefoods.co.uk 3, The Parade, Minehead, TA245NL www.toucanwholefoods.co.uk

Exmoor Winter 2012 49

Over the hills and come to stay!

A N S T E Y M I L L S C O T TA G E S

B&B

Families,Walkers & Pets Let our cottages charm you, the whirlpool or woodburner warm you; find comfort, peace and quiet in this beautiful place.

Unique accommodation set in cottages around the Castle courtyard.

Spectacular views across the Castle gardens.

Comfortable lounge, Sky television and free Wi-Fi.

Friendly, well appointed B&B accommodation in a beautiful, tranquil setting in Brushford near Dulverton and Exmoor.

Two double rooms with stunning rural views.

Tiverton, Devon, EX16 8RP Tel: 01884 855363 Email: info@bickleighcastle.com www.bickleighcastle.com

The Copse, Brushford, Nr Dulverton, Somerset,TA22 9AH T. 01398 323376 E. thecopsebrushford@gmail.com http://thecopsebrushford.co.uk

Anstey Mills Cottages, East Liscombe Farm, Dulverton,TA22 9RZ T: 01398 341329 E: ansteymills@yahoo.com www.ansteymillscottagedevon.co.uk

DUDDINGS COUNTRY COTTAGES Thirteen 4-star holiday cottages sleeping 2-18 set in a stunning location in the Avill Valley.

Indoor pool, tennis court, games room.

H A RT N O L L H OT E L A stunning boutique country hotel set in beautiful landscaped gardens in the glorious countryside of the Exe Valley. 18 comfortable en-suite bedrooms.

T H E F OX

AND

GOOSE INN

Near Barnstaple, Devon EX31 4PE T. 01598 763239 E. info@foxandgooseinnexmoor.co.uk www.foxandgooseinnexmoor.co.uk

H I G H E R B L AC K L A N D S F A R M Self catering cottage ideal for walking, riding, fishing & hunting. Horses and dogs welcome.

2 en suite bedrooms, sleeps 4. Central heating, wood burner, Colour TV.

Hartnoll Hotel, Bolham, Nr Tiverton, EX16 7RA T: 01884 252 777 E. frontdesk@hartnollhotel.co.uk www.hartnollhotel.co.uk

W INTER O FFERS

January 2013 offers Any cottage for 7 nights only £280.

Warm and cosy self-catering cottages – fully central heated.

Wheddon Cross, Somerset T. 01643 841 249 E. littlequarme@btconnect.com www.littlequarme-cottages.co.uk

WESTON HOUSE BED & BREAKFAST AA 4-star. Close to Exmoor. Spacious rooms, free wi-fi, drying facilities, cycle storage.

From £27.50pppn.

Also Art Tuition and Painting Holidays.

6 Luke Street, Bampton, Devon EX16 9NF T: 01398 332094 www.westonhousedevon.co.uk

50 Exmoor Winter 2012

BICKLEIGH CASTLE

A real country escape at Parracombe.

Enjoy good food simply done and relaxed, rural comfort in timeless surroudings.

Richard Tilke, Duddings Country Cottages, Timberscombe, Minehead TA24 7TB T. 01643 841123 E. Richard@duddings.co.uk www.duddings.co.uk

L ITTLE Q UARME

AT

Withypool, Minehead, Somerset TA24 7RZ Tel: 01643 831252 http://higherblacklands.blogspot.com

M A R S TO N L O D G E

C OA S T A N D C O U N T RY H O U S E H OT E L Beautiful, tranquil location with stunning coastal and Exmoor views.

Spacious, en-suite rooms, bar, restaurant (using local produce), cozy lounge, snooker room, free Wi-Fi. St. Michaels Road, Minehead, Somerset,TA24 5JP Tel: (+44) 01643 702 510 www.marstonlodgehotel.co.uk

WINSBERE HOUSE B&B in delightful private house. Country views.

Excellent touring location. Short drive to Tarr Steps. 10 min walk to town centre. Cycle Route 3 on doorstep.

Winsbere House, Dulverton TA22 9HU T. 01398 323278 E. info@winsbere.co.uk www.winsbere.co.uk

T HE C OPSE , B ED & B REAKFAST

G ABLE L ODGE G UEST H OUSE Family run licensed guest house offering comfortable, clean and friendly accommodation.

Double, twin & family en-suite rooms.

Optional evening meals.

35 Lee Road, Lynton, North Devon EX35 6BS T. 01598 752367 E. gablelodge@btconnect.com www.gablelodgelynton.co.uk

GUESTROOMS AT THE HOBBY HORSE 6 individually designed ensuite guestrooms with panoramic coastal views.

King and Super King beds with Egyptian Cotton bedding guarantee luxury and comfort. Extensive menu and licensed bar.

Esplanade, Minehead, Somerset. TA24 5QP Tel: 01643 702274 www.hobbyhorseballroom.com

RO C K VA L E H OT E L Stunning views, comfortable beds and superb food.

All the ingredients for a memorable holiday you will want to repeat.

Rockvale, Hollerday Drive, Lee Road, Lynton EX35 6HQ T. 01598 752279 E. enquiries@rockvalehotel.co.uk www.rockvalehotel.co.uk

W O O L H A N G E R E S TAT E Woolhanger holiday cottages provide luxury accommodation in the peace and tranquillity of the picturesque Exmoor National Park.

Contact: Terri Burrough 01598 763514 Email: holidaycottages@woolhanger.com Website: www.woolhanger.com

WALKING

Exford to Winsford via a double loop along the Exe Valley WORDS by Sue Viccars PHOTOS by Neville Stanikk, Colin Matthews and Sue Viccars

U

nbelievably, I again find myself working out a suitable walk for the winter issue of Exmoor The Country Magazine: time certainly does rush by these days.

Usually the trick with a winter walk is to keep off the higher ground and stick to the more sheltered valleys, but with the bizarre and unseasonal weather experienced in 2012 we may well find that winter will be the calmest time of the year. Who knows? However, one thing for sure on this double-loop walk along the valley of the River Exe is that it will be wet and muddy underfoot, so decent boots are essential, and walking poles are advised to avoid a slip.

The walk starts from historic Exford – just about the geographical heart of Exmoor –

situated at a centuries-old crossing point of the Exe. The first loop takes the walker to Nethercote Bridge; the second climbs over Bye Common before dropping to picturesque Winsford, another of Exmoor’s historic villages, situated at the junction of the Winn Brook and the Exe. Exford Bridge sits on the line of an ancient route that linked Cornwall and the Midlands and was named the ‘Harepath’ (‘army road’) in Saxon times.

It became an important trade route and then drovers’ road in the eighteenth century. Along the route today lie the kennels of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, which is very much on the tourist trail.

Picturesque Winsford is famed for its eight varied bridges and pretty ford on the Winn Brook. It is also the birthplace of

the eminent Labour politician Ernest Bevin in 1881 and home to lovely Winsford Hill to the south of the village, with its Bronze-Age barrows and herd of Exmoor Ponies. If you walk both loops there’s a handy bench for your picnic at the halfway point on smart new paving next to Winsford’s war memorial in the village centre, as reported in the autumn issue of the magazine.

NOTE To walk the route one way only you can catch a No. 398 Beacon Bus in Winsford back to Exford (Tiverton to Minehead service, runing roughly every two hours (www.travelinesw.com, 0871 200 223 3). Another option is to start the walk in Winsford; there is free parking in the village centre opposite Bridge Cottage Tearoom.

Exmoor Winter 2012 51

Walking

Exford

START

P

8

1 7 Court Copse

Lyncombe

2 Room Hill

6 3

Bye Common

4

Ash Lane Winsford Based on Ordnance Survey mapping © Crown copyright: AM055/11

Factfile Map Start Distance

Time Terrain

Dogs

Toilets

Refresh- ments

OS Explorer OL9 Exmoor Exford car park (free) SS 854383 11 miles (19.3km): Exford loop 5½ miles (8.8km), Winsford loop 5½ miles (8.8km) 6 hours, or 3 hours each loop Tracks/field paths, many very muddy after rainfall; last descent to Winsford badly eroded Under control at all times; on lead through fields (livestock) Exford (next to Exford Service Station, Chapel St); Winsford (village centre by Village Hall) The Crown Hotel, Exford (01643) 831554, The White Horse, Exford (01643) 831229, Exford Bridge Tearooms (01643) 831304; Royal Oak, Winsford (01643) 851455 and Bridge Cottage Tearoom and Gardens, Winsford (01643) 851362.

To walk one way: only catch a No. 398 Beacon Bus in Winsford back to Exford (Tiverton-Minehead, roughly every two hours (www.travelinesw.com, 0871 200 2233). Another option is to start the walk in Winsford; there is free parking in the village centre opposite Bridge Cottage Tearoom.

52 Exmoor Winter 2012

The Route

1 From the far end of the car park in Exford pick up the path alongside the river and pass through two kissing gates to reach a path junction by a bridge across the Exe. Turn right towards buildings at North Court. Keep ahead, then turn left onto a public bridleway. Where this bends sharp right, keep ahead through a gate and climb gently along a field edge.

This becomes a fenced path which soon turns sharp left and descends steeply (a permitted footpath runs through the field on the right-hand side).

The track climbs steeply through Court Copse and into open country. Keep ahead, with lovely views left over Exford, half left over the remains of Road Castle Iron-Age hillfort below, and ahead left as far as Dunkery Beacon. Pass through a gate and bear right. The bridleway runs along the top of Road Hill, passing through three gates in the beech-topped hedge banks, with views ahead of the steep-sided valley of the River Exe. At a fork bear left to round the top of a small combe.

5

P

2 At a crossroads of tracks bear left, signed to Winsford. The track becomes less obvious but is still clear, now running southeast across Room Hill before narrowing and descending very steeply down Curr Cleve to reach the River Exe at a large footbridge and path junction.

Turn right through the gate on a permitted path to Nethercote; cross the meadow diagonally, to meet the river again on a bend. Continue through meadows, with the river left, soon passing through a gate. Keep ahead across the next meadow, then an area of bracken to refind the river and follow the narrow path alongside to reach a track at Nethercote Bridge.

3 Turn left to return to Exford (see Point 6). To continue on the next loop to Winsford, turn right along the track. After 75 metres bear right on a bridleway to Bye Common and after about the same distance again pick up a permitted bridleway which parallels the official right of way and climbs steeply up the valley

This image: A frosty morning in Exford by Neville Stanikk.

Page 51: Winsford in the snow by Neville Stanikk, www.nevillestanikkphotography.co.uk Left to right, below: Looking along the valley back to Nethercote Bridge by Sue Viccars;View from Bye common by Colin Matthews; Curr Cleve from Road Hill by Sue Viccars; Bye Hill, Dunkery Beacon in the distance by Colin Matthews.

side. The long climb leads into a field at the top; keep ahead, with hedge bank on the right, to find a gate in the top corner.

Turn left along the bottom of the expansive sweep of Bye Common. Pass through a big five-bar gate and continue.

Where the fence bears left, bear right across the field to find a post near the far hedge; from there bear left downhill on a rough track that leads to the bottom left corner of the field and a path junction.

4 Keep ahead on a public footpath to Winsford. Where the path forks (bridlepath drops left) keep ahead on the footpath, with fence right, soon passing through a gate.

Pass through two small gates – the tower of Winsford’s fifteenth-century church comes into view ahead – and continue along the top edge of a wood, soon turning sharp left steeply downhill. This is a tricky section, very slippery and broken underfoot. Eventually reach a junction at a broad track; keep straight on, climbing to reach a gate onto Ash Lane. Turn left downhill, passing the church and crossing the bridge over the Winn Brook by the

ford to reach the centre of Winsford and the war memorial.

5 To return to Exford retrace your steps to the track junction met in Point 4, and keep ahead. Follow the track downhill, soon crossing a meadow by the river. The path, muddy in places (and overgrown in late summer) follows the river, passing through a meadow and through a gate.

Pass through a kissing gate onto a track.

Turn left onto the bridlepath to Exford, an easy walk along the river all the way to Nethercote Bridge. Pass the bridleway to Bye Common (see Point 3), and keep ahead to cross Nethercote Bridge.

6 Just over the bridge turn left through a gate into fields (permitted path). Cross the field, go through an open gateway and continue, passing beneath West Nethercote. Pass the end of a line of ash and oak, then bear right uphill, aiming for a gate onto a track. Once through, turn left to soon emerge from the trees and walk along the valley side with beautiful views.

At a path junction keep ahead, signed Lyncombe. Eventually pass through a gate, and later another into non-open access

land, then soon another under trees to reach Lyncombe. Pass the house and farm buildings, through a gate and down a track.

7 After a few metres turn left through a gate/stile signed Exford. Follow signs diagonally left to cross a plank bridge and water meadows to regain the river at a ford. Go through a small gate, cross a footbridge then two stiles into water meadows by Beach Pool. Pick your way as best you can down the centre of the meadow, parallel to the river, skirting wet bits and keeping below stands of gorse.

As a wire fence appears ahead, bear right, keeping below the gorse, and through an open gateway. Walk along the top of the next meadow, climbing to a gate to the right of big beech trees. Pass through the gate/stile and cross the field diagonally to the top left corner.

8 Pass through another gate/stile and keep ahead on a track downhill along the right edge of a field. Pass through a kissing gate to reach the path junction met on Point 1, with the river ahead. Turn right to return to Exford.

Exmoor Winter 2012 53

COAST

SEA FEVER ‘The call of the running tide’ Tony James heads out into the Bristol Channel

D

eep valleys thick with ancient oaks cut across the high moorland towards the sea. Hidden bays and vertiginous cliffs – some of the highest in the land – bring delight and surprise. This is Exmoor’s 30 miles of heritage coast, a landscape of breathtaking beauty where woodland and seashore life mingle.

Oh, and then there’s the sea. It’s not a 'proper sea' of course, but a 12-mile-wide, grim-looking estuary, put there to stop Exmoor bumping into Wales. You can paddle in water the colour and consistency of a latte espresso, or have a walk along a muddy beach in your wellies.

Yes, that’s often the common perception of the Bristol Channel, and long may it last if it means that those of us who love it can continue to have it largely to ourselves...

To be honest, when we first sailed in the Channel some 30 years ago it was a bit of a culture shock after years on the

genteel south coast. Unruly waves, massive tides and unpredictable weather changes took some getting used to.

The doggerel “Trevose Head to Hartland Light, a drowning coast by day or night” didn’t exactly help either.

The good news is that time seems to have forgotten the Bristol Channel. While south-coast yachties have become accustomed to sailing in procession on what can resemble a watery M25, we saw less than half a dozen boats all day on a recent passage from Watchet to Ilfracombe.

Where else on a fine summer night can you anchor in a tiny deserted cove and be rocked to sleep under the stars?

We did it in Woody Bay only recently!

Seeing the Exmoor coast from the sea is something you’ll never forget... ghosting past the high Wagnerian cliffs from Porlock to the Foreland Lighthouse... brewing tea as cat’s paws dapple the water and goats look down like sentries from the Quotation from Sea Fever by John Masefield, 1878-1967.

54 Exmoor Winter 2012

Ketches waiting for the tide on Porlock beach, 1900, from the Ben Norman Collection.

Fishing Boat Wreck, Crow Point, Braunton Burrows,

by Mike Bentley (www.mikebentleyphotography.co.uk).

Pilot cutter Spray making for Ilfracombe harbour in a storm, 1912, from the David B. Clement Collection.

crags of the Valley of Rocks... nothing much seems to have changed for centuries in this magical place.

So why exactly has the Bristol Channel got the reputation as a bad place to be in a boat? “I would describe it as ‘challenging’”, says Steve Yeandle, owner/skipper of the Watchet-based 500hp charter fishing boat Scooby Doo Too (scoobydootoo.com), who has spent his working life on the Channel for the past 30 years.

A winter storm at Sandymere, Pebble Ridge,Westward Ho!,

by Mike Bentley (www.mikebentleyphotography.co.uk).

”Since I first went out with my dad in a 14ft boat when I was about ten I’ve learned that so long as you respect this piece of water and everything it throws at you there’s no better place to have a boat.”

The Bristol Channel is unlike any other stretch of UK coastal water, mainly because of where it is. It’s as if someone has cut a huge wedge out of the western side of England without thinking that it would be fully exposed to every gale from west to east, many of them unchecked by land for 3,000 miles.

Exmoor Winter 2012 55

When a gale blows unimpeded on the Exmoor shore, white-capped seas surge ahead of it in relentless succession.

At Hartland, for instance, 80ft waves virtually destroyed a stone-built harbour in one night in 1887.

Watchet lighthouse gets a battering, by Mike Watson, www.mike-watson.co.uk Ketch unloading on the beach at Lynmouth, 1910, from the David B. Clement Collection.

Moonlight Wreck of the Sally, Bideford Bay, by Mike Bentley (www.mikebentleyphotography.co.uk).

Sailing into the Bristol Channel is like entering a rock-bound funnel. Its mouth is 50 miles wide from Hartland Point in the south to St Ann’s Head in the north and the shores of the Channel run eastwards for about 100 miles until they meet the waters of the River Severn, gathered over a length of nearly 200 miles.

Not surprisingly, the convergence of sea and river can kick up vicious waters but it is the tides of up to 48ft – the world’s highest after Canada’s Bay of Fundy – which are the main problem. No boat can sail against tides that can reach six knots, the speed of a trotting horse. Sandbanks constantly shift and there are over-falls and swirling eddies, particularly on the upper reaches.

The vast tidal range means that virtually all harbours on the Somerset and North Devon shore dry out at low water, making it impossible to seek refuge in them for about 8 hours out of 12.

Riding out bad weather at anchor in some relatively sheltered spot can also have its problems. “The massive tidal rise and fall means that while a skipper could have say twelve metres of water under his keel when he anchors at high water, six hours later he could be aground on the same spot,” Steve explains.

“In addition, the Channel is surprisingly shallow – much of it is not more than 20 metres at high tide – which results in short, choppy seas which are very different from the long, rolling swell of the south coast.”

French schooner La Mouette aground off Hurlstone Point, Porlock, in 1913. She was a total loss.

From the Ben Norman Collection.

Despite all these problems, the Bristol Channel was for centuries the trading artery of Exmoor and the West Country and even until the mid-twentieth century small trading ketches and schooners once numbering nearly 500 remained the workhorses of the Channel coasting trade.

Working from small ports and beaches, they carried a wide range of goods for small isolated Exmoor communities, sailing into places on the 'drowning coast' that no sensible sailor would dare to go.

Tony James has sailed the Bristol Channel for 30 years.

A voyage around the South West peninsula in a replica nineteenth-century Bristol Channel fishing boat he built himself is the subject of his book Yankee Jack Sails Again (Seafarer Books £14.95).

Stan Rawle worked the Bristol Channel under sail for seven years and lived to tell the tale. A former Minehead harbourmaster and lifeboat coxswain, Stan left the Navy after the war to sail with his father and uncle on the coasting ketch Emma Louise until she was laid up near Appledore and eventually fell to pieces in the mud.

Shortly before his recent death at nearly 90, Stan remembered the hard life of a sailing merchantman, humping coal, limestone and pit-props around the Bristol Channel for £2 a week.

“My dad would sail in any weather because he couldn’t afford not to. We would go into tiny rocky creeks on Exmoor to discharge limestone for the farmers. Sometimes the tides were going faster than the boat and once when the wind was foul it took us a fortnight to sail 20 miles back to Minehead.”

Shipping lanes which now regulate Bristol Channel traffic were unknown in the days of sail. Coasts were ill-lit and buoys

56 Exmoor Winter 2012

Coast few and far between. How welcome to a ship entering the Channel must have been the sight of a tiny pilot skiff riding the waves like a gull, bringing on board a man whose skill and knowledge would guide it through those unruly waters.

Bristol Channel sailing skiffs were legendary and so were the men who sailed them. It took half a lifetime to qualify as a Channel pilot. A century ago 150 from half a dozen local harbours sailed far from home in search of vessels needing a pilot for Bristol or Welsh ports. It was a way of life which finally ended in 1918. When freelance pilotage was abolished the local authorities with steam pilot cutters took over.

Sailing pilots had unexpected qualities. Pilot John Heath claimed he was psychic and seemed to prove it one wild night in 1908 when, after battling hours of heavy weather, his skiff reached the safety of Barry harbour, only for the crew to be told they were returning immediately to sea.

“Something tells me we are needed,” Heath said, and the skiff sailed blindly back into the darkness of a westerly gale. As dawn broke, a disabled ketch was seen drifting towards rocks off the Exmoor coast near Porlock. “That’s what we’ve come for,” declared John, and they towed the vessel to safety.

You don’t have to be psychic to predict Exmoor coast weather but it probably helps! "We have our own microclimate and things can change very quickly,” Steve Yeandle says. "When you’ve been on the Channel as long as I have, you tend to make your own forecasts based on the feel of the wind and the state of the water.

In fact, if something does go seriously wrong on the drowning coast it’s reassuring to know that help is invariably available at the end of a VHF emergency radio call. The days of coastguards standing on Exmoor cliff-tops with binoculars may have long gone but now a largely unseen network of search and rescue is co-ordinated by radio from the regional coastguard centre in Swansea.

Controllers who can’t even see the sea take over the operation and mobilise coastguards, helicopters and lifeboats, including those from Minehead, Ilfracombe, Appledore and Clovelly.

Although there is no law to enforce it, all Bristol Channel pleasure-sailors are urged to fit a VHF radio tuned to marine channels, particularly 16, the international call-up and distress channel which is monitored constantly by Swansea.

Even so, for years Steve Yeandle has found himself becoming a virtual one-man rescue service, helping countless sailors in trouble (including me!) and towing disabled vessels into port.

“You help when you can,” he says. “You never know when you might be the one gratefully throwing over a tow-rope.

“Of course there are bad times out on the water but plenty of good times too – the glorious sunrises and sunsets, the amazing scenery, the wildlife, birds, porpoises, seals and dolphins. The Channel is a magical place. To me there’s nowhere like it.”

“The variations can be amazing. The other day I was fishing west of Porlock in a Force 2 on a flat sea, while off the Welsh coast ten miles away they had a rough sea and a Force 6.

Off the Exmoor coast with its hills, wind direction is more important than strength. Heading west from Minehead, there’s hardly anywhere to shelter if there’s any north in the wind.

“You make a decision about whether to anchor and sit it out or run across to the Welsh side for shelter, but in a small boat with a storm blowing that’s hardly an option.”

This image: Hartland Lighthouse by Derek Stone (derekstone.co.uk).

Main image page 52: Bay of Lost Souls, Hartland Point, by Adam Burton (www.adamburtonphotography.com).

Exmoor Winter 2012 57

58 Exmoor Winter 2012

The Arts

Oh yes it is: panto season is nigh!

WORDS by Mel Roach PHOTOS by Andrew Hobbs

O

n 2 February 2012 I found myself driving a borrowed 4x4 through the punchiest of blizzards on the B3224 towards Porlock. I was on my way to the matinée performance of the panto society's 'Whittington' on perhaps the most hibernal day of the year. The road behind me was closed off by a policeman and a snowplough as I began the slow wind down Porlock Hill.

Approaching Porlock Village Hall, the only sign of life was a solitary windswept figure gripping at railings, steadying themself against the driving elements. I was slightly doubtful as to whether the performance would even be going ahead, but panto people are a determined bunch and, inside, the warm hall was humming.

Even a small community panto such as Porlock's is a year in the making, all on volunteered time, resources and skills; this bit is the great pay-off.

The threads of theatre woven into the lurid patchwork of panto as we know it are numerous and aged. Its elements and characters have their roots in old English folk or 'mummers' plays and owe as much again to the Italian Commedia dell' Arte and medieval morality plays. Some elements, such as the pantomime horse and the convention of gender role-reversal, are said to date back to our pre-Christian heritage and the old feasts of Twelfth Night and Saturnalia in Europe. After being infused through the British Music Hall in the nineteenth century, the peculiarly English style of pantomime we have today took form.

There is not a larger town or city worthy of the status that does not hold an annual pantomime of the long-running, lavish type with a named 'star' attached to the bill, but the genre is also still thriving in smaller communities as indeed are amateur dramatics in general. Somerset in particular can boast something of an 'am-dram scene'. The Somerset Fellowship of Drama, which exists specifically to promote amateur dramatics in the county, currently has 49 member groups – you will be hard pushed to find another county with more than this! Of these, 25 or so will put on a pantomime each year. Exmoor and the surrounding area is particularly well represented; this winter sees panto productions from Minehead, Roadwater, Dulverton, Porlock, Stogumber, Taunton, Wellington and Bishops Lydeard.

Even a small community panto such as Porlock's is a year in the making, all on volunteered time, resources and skills; this bit is the great pay-off.

The pantomimes range in size and scope from a micro production with a cast of 20-something at Stogumber Village Hall to a show starring around 60 people at the Regal Theatre in Minehead.

Some months after that Arctic day in Porlock, I took the opportunity to speak with some stalwarts of Exmoor panto.

Kris McNeill and her husband Malcolm have been involved with the Minehead Panto People for over 25 years; Malcolm generally plays the pantomime dame and will be doing so again in this season's production of 'Babes in the Wood'. “I can't believe the talent we've got in West Somerset,” enthuses Kris. “Everything has got more professional over the years, people's expectations have got higher.” She gives me a breakdown of Minehead's panto year.

The first process is to choose a script, then there is the essential budgeting, after which

Images in panel far left: Rehearsals in progress at Roadwater Village Hall.

Main image: Dress rehearsal night for Sleeping Beauty at Minehead's Regal Theatre, 2011.

Caroline Kelly as the Fairy Godmother.

Caroline also did the award-winning choreography with Manda Clarke.

Exmoor Winter 2012 59

Richard Derry as Colonel Bogey.

Emily Cross as Sleeping Beauty.

Lis Halliday as Mrs Hawks with Peter Thompson as Dolly Tubbs (far left).

Darren McKenzie as Bertie.

Paul Yates as the Prince. production roles are assigned. Initial meetings take place almost as soon as curtains have gone down on the preceding year's panto. This seems to be the case regardless of the size of the production, as Chris De Vere Hunt of Porlock Pantomime and Drama Society attests: “As soon as one panto is over, the next meetings begin.” For Roadwater Players, Allan Prentice states that the panto alone “takes three months to write and three months of rehearsal.” Rehearsals tend to happen once or twice weekly from autumn onwards. Throughout the remainder of the year sets are built, costumes made and hired, props manufactured and/or found, borrowed and begged, the behindthe-scenes crew are perfecting lighting, sound and musical scores, and someone has to be responsible for tickets, advertising and programmes.

Allan Prentice started helping out with the scenery at the Roadwater Players some 20 or so years ago, which by Roadwater's standards, he tells me, makes him 'relatively new' – the Players have been producing quality dramas and pantomimes since at least 1974. Today Allan is a central figure in the group, having acted, written and directed and, until recently, been chairman. He is writer/director of this year's 'Rumpelstiltskin'.

All the panto and drama societies seem to have committed, long-serving figures at their hearts, which I think must contribute to their vitality, but all the groups I have spoken with advise that newcomers are much encouraged. “We have a hard-core,” says Chris De Vere Hunt, “but new people come in every year and all are welcome; this is a luvvy-free zone!” Having been one of the all-important chorus ladies last winter, Chris writes and directs at Porlock this coming season in 'Treasure Island'.

Everyone I speak with agrees that panto brings diverse people together and nobody can quite imagine community life without it. “It would be dreadful not to have the panto!” exclaims Kris McNeill, who herself has directed five pantos with Minehead Panto People, while Allan Prentice seems to think Roadwater not doing a panto would be like cancelling Christmas. I ask him why

60 Exmoor Winter 2012

he thinks panto still thrives: “Well there is a social side to it of course, but it is also a challenge.” This goes very much to the heart of what makes a community tick, and communities bond particularly at times of both celebration and challenge. In days gone by, when we lived and worked in closer commonality, we shared consistently in our losses and gains. With our vastly altered way of life and priorities today, we can sometimes find it difficult to grasp a sense of community spirit. Pouring energy into the challenge of creating a significant, but simply fun local event is to act in great faith of better possibilities.

“We have a real mixture of people,” says Chris De Vere Hunt.

“Porlock is full of amazing 'of course I can' people.” I am told of local craftspeople supplying props, sewing enthusiasts sitting up till all hours making detailed costumery in some cases, brilliant musicians and all manner of handy people. Kris McNeill tells me that Minehead Panto People includes, among others, a landscape gardener, a Methodist minister, a financial adviser and a hotelier – and both Roadwater and Porlock pantos will be featuring their local rector this winter. Of course, no panto is complete without its 'babes'. Kris thinks perhaps half of this year's cast is made up of little people. “It can be a stepping-stone for the children,” she says. Allan Prentice echoes this, acknowledging that several panto children have progressed to involvement with the performing arts beyond the shire. It certainly seems to put some young people on the path.

Despite challenging times for communities, there doesn't seem to be any drop in momentum in terms of the output of these small societies. The Somerset amateur theatre world is so lively in fact that it warrants three awards ceremonies throughout the year. The Somerset Fellowship of Drama holds the Phoebe Rees awards for full-length drama – this is a serious black-tie, Oscar-style affair – and the David Beach Awards are held for musical theatre. However, the bawdiest event of all in the calendar has to be the panto world's Cinderella Trophy Awards.

Each year, these awards attract around 25 entries from panto

This winter's pantos in date order Roadwater, Village Hall, 'Rumpelstiltskin', 11-15 December.

Barnstaple, Queen's Theatre, 'Robin Hood', 15 December - 5 January.

Minehead, Regal Theatre, 'Babes in the Wood', 29 December - 5 January including New Year's Eve. Cannington, Village Hall, 'Rapunzel', 13-16 January.

Taunton, Brewhouse Theatre, 'Dick Whittington', 13-19 January.

Wellington, Wellesley Theatre, 'Alice in Wonderland', 23-27 January.

Tiverton, New Hall, 'Robinson Crusoe', 23 January - 2 February.

Stogumber, Village Hall, 'We Believe in Fairies', 6-9 February.

Porlock, Village Hall, 'Treasure Island', 7-9 February.

Bishops Lydeard, 'Tom Thumb, 16-18 February.

Richard Seale and Tim Brown on sound.

Louise Doolan as the Wicked Fairy. groups large and small, from Minehead to Frome. Societies and individual performers are nominated for categories such as 'best animal performance', 'good fairy of the year' and 'romantic duet of the year'. The chief award, the Cinderella Trophy, is awarded to the most outstanding overall production and there is also the 'Pint Pot' award for best smaller pantomime. Those in the know have referred to the Pint Pot as the 'Roadwater Award' on account of the number of times it has been won by the Roadwater Players.

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Other Exmoor-area groups staging a panto this year include the multi-award-winning Taunton Wayfarers who will perform 'Dick Whittington', the Wellington Pantomime Group who will present 'Alice in Wonderland', Tiverton Signpost Club with 'Robinson Crusoe' and Stogumber's panto is 'We Believe In Fairies'. On a bigger scale, Barnstaple's panto this year will be 'Robin Hood'; this is the first ever entirely in-house offering from North Devon Theatres. So you can be sure that the local panto folk are putting on a show somewhere near you. The jokes will be purposefully bad, the acting may be a heady mix of genius and simply non-existent, the singing will be both highly accomplished at times, but bewilderingly off-key at others. These are the honest joys to be found in community panto. The time and effort put into the productions is phenomenal and uplifting. Choosing the challenge of creating, as a community, a spectacle in the name of nothing more than good, loud, rowdy fun is in itself priceless. I'll wager you will have a hilarious night out and the children might enjoy it too!

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Above: Porlock panto, courtesy the community panto group.

All other images this page: Minehead panto dress rehearsal,

by Andrew Hobbs.

Exmoor Winter 2012 61

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Past Times

Rewriting history

WORDS by Rob Wilson-North, Conservation Manager, Exmoor National Park Authority (ENPA) PHOTOS courtesy English Heritage & ENPA

E

xmoor is beginning to reveal archaeology that is more surprising than even archaeologists – with their fertile imaginations – could have conceived. When we look at Exmoor’s past, truth is very often stranger than fiction!

You might assume that, over the years, Exmoor would be one of those places which had been studied and surveyed to within an inch of its life. To a degree you would be right. Over the last 20 years or so there have been heroic efforts to better understand the landscape of the National Park; the qualities that make the place so special. In 1991 Exmoor National Park Authority employed its first archaeologist and since then the pace of research, combined with efforts to better care for, and explain, evidence of the past, has continued apace. A number of major projects have been completed, often with funding from external sources and through a series of really successful partnerships with local groups and societies, other agencies and universities, many of which have attracted funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund or from English Heritage. These have led to thousands of previously unrecorded sites being discovered – from the air and on the ground – and literally ‘ground-breaking’ excavation projects on some sites. Additionally, there have been sustained programmes of historical research, building, recording and environmental sampling of peat and soil deposits, on the moors and on the beach.

Fieldwork and excavation might be exciting but are of very limited value without clear priorities for research. So, over the last eight years, those engaged in trying to find out what we need to know have come together to set out priorities for research across Exmoor. This has given us a clear sense of perspective about where we are on the journey to understanding the past and the people who shaped Exmoor.

Understanding the past enables us to prioritise what should be cared for or preserved. At a time when resources for this are stretched thinner than ever, this is critical in ensuring that the most important parts of Exmoor’s historic environment are protected for future generations.

The business of looking after Exmoor’s past is primarily the focus of a small historic environment team based at the National Park Offices in Dulverton. Recent staff changes have involved the departure of two staff members, Jessica Turner and Faye Glover, to historic environment roles in other parts of the country.

A new team has taken up the challenge and began work in August 2012. Shirley Blaylock comes to Exmoor, having worked for the National Trust based at Killerton in Devon, while Catherine Dove joins us from Leicestershire. At the same time there is a new Action Plan for the Historic Environment, which will direct progress in research, conservation and interpretation over the next five years.

However, despite all the energy and activity that has gone into researching Exmoor’s past, it continues to exert an enigmatic quality, both maddening and compulsive; the traces of the people who have lived their lives on and around the moor in both the recent and distant past remain elusive, subtle and challenging.

Several current projects, such as the Exmoor Miniliths Project (University of Leicester), the Exmoor Mires Project (funded by South West Water) and the Hawkcombe Head Landscape Project are helping to rewrite our understanding of Exmoor’s prehistoric past. For example, on Lanacombe, Dr Mark Gillings and Dr Jeremy Taylor are revealing the context of Exmoor’s enigmatic stone settings, showing that they are not the isolated monuments we thought, but rather parts of a well-used extensive

Exmoor Winter 2012 63

Past Times contemporary landscape of fields and possibly settlements as well. Fieldwork at Hawkcombe Head has completely redefined our idea of how hunter gatherers used Exmoor and has inspired an effort to find other hunter gatherer sites – so far, at least another five have been located, making Exmoor one of the most important areas in southern England for the study of this period.

A substantial programme of archaeological fieldwork is underway for the Exmoor Mires Project and will continue until 2015.

Through it, for the first time, there is a specific focus on revealing and understanding archaeological sites in and around the peatlands. The work ranges from studies into recent vegetation change, peat cutting and reclamation as well as intensive walkover surveys and extensive areas of geophysical prospecting to identify what lies beneath the peat. Archaeology is changing our ideas about how the moorlands have developed over time.

The Exmoor Moorland Landscape Partnership Scheme, grant aided by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is helping to explain these new ideas and at the same time to reconnect people with their moorland past; it is also playing a key part in the conservation of archaeological sites on the moors.

While co-ordinated, well-funded research projects are hugely important, there has never been a better time for the involvement of local communities, and over the next five years we hope to engage more people in both understanding the past and also working to preserve the evidence for it. But why? Well, for those who put their energy into trying to understand how people have shaped and been shaped by Exmoor, the National Park remains one of the most exciting places to be!

From top: Excavations on Lanacombe are part of a long-term research project by the University of Leicester to investigate Exmoor’s enigmatic standing stones (photo by Dr Mark Gillings).

Porlock Beach, showing the breach in the shingle ridge. This photo was taken in February 2012 to monitor the realignment of the coast which has exposed a series of archaeological sites and objects in the intertidal zone. (©English Heritage, 27411 021) Detailed survey on some sites is helping us to understand their significance and that in turn helps to decide how they should best be protected. Here, the ‘sheepfold’ in Hoar Oak Valley is being surveyed to inform conservation work that is planned for 2013.

Furzebury Brake in snow early 2012. (© English Heritage, 27411 002) Below: Thinking about the past and careful research into it is a fundamental first step on the road to conservation. The purpose of Simonsbath Tower is unknown, but increasingly we believe it to be part of an elaborate gateway into the Knight family’s estate on the former Royal Forest of Exmoor.

64 Exmoor Winter 2012

Past Times Looking west along the top of the Brendon Hills in February 2012 with the West Somerset Mineral Railway snaking off into the distance (Š English Heritage, 27410 019) Page 63: Looking southwards from Dunster over Grabbist Hill (with the recently cleared Hillfort at centre bottom) towards a very snowy Dunkery in February 2012. (Š English Heritage, 27410 051)

Exmoor Winter 2012 65

Active Exmoor

Aiming for gold: archers of Exmoor WORDS by Malcolm Rigby

E

very four years, on the back of the Olympic Games and growing excitement about sport in general – and archery in particular – the West Somerset Company of Archers receives an influx of enquiries about membership and participation. Sadly there were no medals at the London Olympics for Exmoor archers or indeed Great Britain – but there have been in the past. In the 1908 Games R. Brookes King from the West Somerset Archery Society won the silver; he was also national champion nine times. (It should be noted, however, that GB women won the gold and silver in this year’s Paralympics' archery!)

of our members have one; they don’t use it all of the time but they enjoy using it.”

Newcomers to the club are welcome to borrow equipment for the first few months until they know what they need; a new bow can cost as little as £55, with an Olympic instrument costing up to a couple of thousand pounds. Like golf, archery has a handicapping system that enables the newest beginner to take on the most established archers to shoot – indeed, many of the Company’s internal competitions are handicapped and won by relative newbies.

The fortunes of the West Somerset club have waxed and waned over the years but in 1955 it was reinvented as the ‘Company’, and has been based at Minehead and Dunster, and for the last eight years at Wootton Courtenay under the pleasant shadow of Dunkery. Members meet two or three times a week and also at Butlin's during the winter months.

Current Secretary Jim Wiles explained the different forms of the sport to me: “There are three types of archery. Recurve archery relates to the curved shape of the limbs of the bow and is used for the Olympic Games – effectively it is the international archery bow for tournaments. The compound bow is also used.

It has pulley wheels on the end and is the most commonly-used bow in the world due to the North American input because they use that bow for hunting, which is of course illegal in the UK. The compound bow offers mechanical advantages that make it more efficient and powerful and it is used by archers at the Paralympics. Then there is the long bow, which is basically a bent stick which uses wooden arrows and feathers on a traditional basis. It is very popular and the most commonly seen, and many

66 Exmoor Winter 2012

Above: Archery tuition with Bird's Hill Days in tranquil surroundings.

Top: West Somerset Company of Archers at Wootton Courtenay.

Active Exmoor Within their ranks there is one youngster, Jaibez MacRiner, who has been selected for archery's GB academy, which means that he has been singled out as a potential future Olympic star. “The distinguishing characteristic for someone like Jaib is not that they are big and strong but that they are very enthusiastic and have the right mindset to take on board the training, a trait which of course applies to any Olympic athlete. Young Jaib has that focus and that’s what distinguishes him from all the other juniors that I’ve come across.” Perhaps watch out for that name in four years' time!

“To me the attraction of archery,” Jim said, “is that I can come out to this lovely setting at Wootton Courtenay in my shorts and t-shirt and on a nice summer's day I can have some good company and shoot within my own limitations and enjoy myself.

I have encouraged the club to be a friendly and sociable one, and that is almost the most important aspect of it. No matter what their background, everybody is welcome and encouraged to do well – and invariably does do well.

“A good archer is someone who can concentrate and be calm when shooting. Archery in Japan is a Zen sport, it is the control of a very fine art. You don’t have to be very strong, arm muscles aren’t required; look at the little Korean girls in the Olympic Games, it is actually the back muscles that are used to pull a bow.

We’ve had scaffolders come along and get completely worn out on their first evening, because they’re not using those muscles in their day-to-day activity.”

For Bill Peters, of the Bowmen of Danesfield based at Williton, the pleasures of the activity are many and varied: “First of all it is a sport and anything that gets you off the sofa and away from the TV has to be a good thing in my book. It is suitable for all ages (I usually say from 8 to 80 – but that's not a hard-and-fast rule). One doesn't have to be physically strong – although if you continue with the sport your strength in certain areas may well improve. In the summer we shoot outdoors and on a windless evening when the sun is starting to set, it is hard to find a better way to spend a couple of hours than shooting some arrows at a target some 50 yards or so distant with like-minded people.

Crécy) and, of course, Robin Hood. And most people who come along to one of our 'have-a-go' sessions enjoy shooting arrows and hitting the target and want to come back for more.”

The Danesfield group was established in 1999 by Doug Human with the help of some small lottery grants to help junior archers and the support of the local school, but now, with the aid of more coaches, the club has a thriving group of juniors, seniors and disabled archers, some going on to become county champions and others going further to national level. Regular sessions are held for all standards and in bad weather they retire to the school gym.

Birds Hill Days, based just outside Washford, organises country activities such as archery from a beautiful setting. The instructor is Matthew Nimmo: “The sense of achievement is very high and this is usually coupled with great surprise at how quickly your natural hand-eye skills can be brought out. Archery is not in any sense an aggressive shooting activity; rather it develops and brings out positive emotions such as patience, concentration, consistency, focus, relaxation and meditation. Most children and adults taught by Birds Hill Days have never experienced archery.

We strive to give them a sense of achievement early on, with a heavy helping of fun and laughter in a safe environment.”

Exmoor is also host to the Dunster Archery Week, which is spread over eight days and includes ten separate competitions, culminating in a Regional Championship. According to the organiser, Nick Nicholson, who is the President of the Grand Western Archery Society, it is the largest archery competition in the world, with regular visitors coming from Europe and further afield – although he did concede that it was not as significant as the events organised by the national body, Archery GB. Everyone I spoke with seemed to concur that archery has always been a popular sport, albeit not always in the limelight, and that a few minutes of publicity every four years certainly does no harm!

For more information, search: www.westsomersetarchers.org.uk www.bowmenofdanesfield.co.uk www.birdshilldays.com www.gwas.org.uk for Dunster Week

“Many people fancy having a go because of the romantic connotations of archery – think medieval archers (Agincourt/

West Somerset Company of Archers, evening club session.

Archery at Dunster

Exmoor Winter 2012 67

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COUNTRY MATTERS

Murmuring birds

WORDS by Trevor Beer PHOTOS by Christinea Dithmar

M

urmuration. A lovely collective term for a chattering flock of starlings.

It does seem to me that when we come up with collective nouns for birds we usually find pleasant names. For example, a charm of goldfinches, a wisp of snipe, a host of sparrows, a spring of teal. Magic!

A murmuration of starlings, an autumn and winter phenomenon, is quite awesome and very much a part of a starling's life.

The starling, Sturnus vulgaris, is a common resident, abundant winter visitor and passage migrant; it is in the abundant winter visitor category that we find our clue to the murmurations. Believe it or not, the starling wasn't recorded as breeding on Exmoor until 1830, yet nowadays everyone knows the bird as a breeding species or visitor to our garden bird tables, apart from in higher Exmoor villages and farms.

Murmurations are all about roosting and are best observed of an evening before sunset. Numbers in flocks begin to rise in October and this continues until March.

Such roosts may vary from about 100 birds to over one million and one Devon site saw over five million birds in 1996.

On Exmoor the largest roost I have seen was in a marsh and woodland area between Simonsbath and Wheal Eliza,

many thousands of starlings suddenly flying in as we were homeward bound.

These night roosts attract a large number of predators such as sparrowhawks and peregrines, but the advantages must be considerable and obviously outweigh the risks of predation. It is thought that a whirling mass of birds bemuse the raptors and they frequently miss their prey, giving the starlings a chance to settle.

It may also be that roosting provides an opportunity for poorly-fed birds to learn from their better-fed neighbours where to find good food supplies. They also find warmth in such roosts on cold nights.

It is not only raptors that take advantage of murmurations and roosting starlings.

I have witnessed a pair of barn owls taking starlings from a flock coming in to roost, on several evenings in succession.

I also examined a mink lair at a little 'island' way out on a marsh where thousands of birds roosted each night and found over 100 starlings' wings along with those of moorhen, coot and wagtails.

Foxes, too, will exploit a starling roost situation. And not far from County Gate, several of us on a nature walk saw a goshawk taking a starling from the edge of an evening murmuration.

The starling is interesting as a breeding bird. The male constructs the foundation

of the nest in a cavity and this is lined by the female. Holes of all kinds are used, in walls and roofs, including thatch, of both occupied and empty buildings, especially under eaves. I have found them in holes in sea cliffs as well as in former woodpecker nest holes in trees, and in haystacks. They take readily to nest boxes.

There are usually 4-7 eggs, pale-blue or sometimes white, and rather glossy.

Incubation by both adults takes 12-13 days, with fledging, also by both adults, being at 20-22 days. One brood is usual but occasionally two are raised when conditions are favourable early in the season, when a first brood is out and about in April or early May. I have found starlings nesting at ground level and up to 45ft (15m).

Sadly starlings are currently in serious decline, the RSPB stating that 40 million have vanished from the European Union, including the UK, since 1980. The starling was added to the UK ‘red list’ of the Birds of Conservation Concern in 2002.

Trevor Beer will answer your natural history and countryside queries. Just drop him a line at Roselea, 38 Park Avenue, Barnstaple, Devon EX31 2ES.

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Perfect for reading to children...

Endymion Beer’s Family Page Uncle Willow meets winter visitors on the water “Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in Uncle Willow’s hat....”

N

o, I don’t think those are the right words but never mind, I rather like them. I can’t say I fancy eating a goose anyway. They are very interesting birds and will be among the many that come to the British Isles this winter in search of our milder climate. They leave their homelands – places like the Arctic and Russia – when they are too harsh and instead come here to rest, feed and survive. Brrrrr – it’s good to be British, although I must say I prefer the cold to the wet and if they made wellies for dogs I’d be the first to try them out! I never did like having wet feet.

This is a good time to start bird watching if you fancy taking up a new hobby, but remember to keep to the footpaths, for safety, and to bird watch when the tide is out because this is when Canada goose. birds come in to feed and when they are easily observed. So what sort of birds are we likely to see down on the water? Red-breasted merganser, smew, dunlin, sanderling, black-tailed and bar-tailed godwits, pochard, wigeon, tufted duck, golden plover, grey plover, snipe, green sandpiper, barnacle geese and dark-bellied Brent geese are examples of just some of the birds to look out for at this time of year.

Winter visitors generally come in October and leave again in March to breed in their homelands where the climate then becomes milder, and the food easier to find.

So let’s take a look at some of my favourite geese. Dark-bellied Brent geese are much smaller than Canada geese.

They have black faces and necks with a white triangular design on the side of their throats, which from a distance may just look like a white bar running more or less horizontally. They have a fairly dark grey body with white stripes, black upper tail and white rump. It is unusual to see the pale-bellied Brent goose here, because they tend to migrate from Arctic Canada and head for Ireland and Western Scotland, whereas the dark-bellied Brents come in from Russia and generally stay around the east and south coast.

Sometimes we may also be lucky enough to see ‘passage migrant’ species such as ospreys fishing in September/October as they travel back down from Scotland, take a rest and go fishing for a couple of days before resuming their journey south to follow the sun. My owner said “Whoever said winter is boring on the nature front must have said it with their eyes shut.” It’s true, there is always something going on.

Barnacle geese are interesting. They migrate from the Arctic and have white faces. To me, their white faces resemble the shape of a barnacle that you might find on a coastal rock. Have a look and see what you think. So why were they called barnacle geese? In the old days people didn’t understand that some creatures migrate and so they couldn’t explain why they disappeared and reappeared again at certain times of the year. For example, some people thought that swifts and swallows hibernated under mud and reappeared in early spring but of course we now know that they fly in from warmer places. In the same way, early naturalists also tried to work out an explanation for why the barnacle goose

came and went. They thought that barnacle geese hatched out from barnacles, which would explain why they suddenly appeared in winter since they knew the geese were not breeding on our shores. Lovely old stories like this just go to show how much we are learning about nature all of the time.

Canada geese were not originally native to Britain but they have now made a home here. It is lovely to hear them honking as they fly in skeins (the collective name for geese) over my rooftop as they head from their roosting grounds to the river in the morning and then fly back at night.

Canada geese are large birds with a black head and neck with a telltale white blunt-ended triangular patch behind the eye; the smaller, blunt end of the triangular shape points towards the top of the head.

The body is brown/fawn with a pale breast.

This is Uncle Willow signing off!

The traditional British goose, the grey lag.

Just for fun...

Now that you have read about these birds, can you answer these questions.

What is a migrant?

Are we likely to see ospreys here?

What is the collective name for geese?

In the picture below which is the dark-bellied brent goose and which is the barnacle goose?

Exmoor Winter 2012 71

GREAT WESTERN HOMES LAND and RESIDENTIAL LETTINGS Local independent agents throughout West Somerset and North Devon Tel: 0845

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THE POTATO STORE, WITHYCOMBE, MINEHEAD TA24 6QB

72 Exmoor Winter 2012

For all those jobs you don’t have time for, or just can’t do!

Door hanging Window & door repairs Laminate flooring Flat pack assembly Small home repairs and more...

Call Mark on 01823 401353 • 07502 238185 www.cherrywoodcarpentry.co.uk

www.wellingtontile.co.uk Tone Est, Milverton Rd, Wellington, Somerset, TA21 OAN

01823 662722

What's hot and what's not?

T

here has been a definite trend within the property selling season this year across West Somerset and Exmoor. Lowerpriced properties, particularly those under £250k, are in much greater demand and the average asking price has dropped from £285k to about £235k. That’s not to say that property prices have fallen by that much because local prices have dropped by about 1.5% during the year compared with a reduction of 0.3% nationally.

Palazzo prides itself on its excellent reputation for design & personal service T. 01271 373962 E. helen@palazzo26.fsnet.co.uk

www.palazzo-interiors.co.uk curtains upholstery cushions blinds accessories interiors

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Unique & Bespoke kitchens, tables and furniture, traditionally crafted in our South Molton workshop. www.characterfurniture.co.uk

Bubamboo Organic Clothing, Gifts and Essentials for maternity, baby, kids, men, women and the planet!

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Property priced over £400k has seen a big shift. During 2011 there was a pretty stable spread of sales within that sector between the £400-£500k, £500-£600k, £600-£800k and £800-£1m brackets, with almost no real activity over £1m. In 2012 45% of the properties sold were priced at £400-£500k, 18.2% at £500-£600k, 27.2% at £600-£800k and only 9% at £800-£1m. The main interest in this sector comes, unsurprisingly, from out-of-area buyers.

In the upper end of the local market, home owners with properties priced under £500k should be seeing the greatest activity between now and the end of the year, but another area that is seeing a real surge in interest is property with land and further accommodation.

Two recent sales created considerable interest within days of hitting the open market; one period farmhouse with 13 acres and two cottages had two buyers straightaway and another property (under offer at the time of writing), again with land and letting cottages, had seven viewings within the first week.

The most critical thing to consider is 'How much do you really want to sell?' While there are some properties selling very quickly to good, genuine buyers, you still need to remember that there are more properties for sale than there are buyers looking, however unique your property! If your home does not stand out from the crowd within the first four to six weeks of marketing and interest levels are low then you need to ask yourself whether the marketing is right for your home and whether it is priced to sell.

At a recent Property and Investment Seminar I gave a presentation, in much greater detail, on what is happening in the marketplace.

This included tips on what to do to make sure you succeed and how to avoid selling your home for less than it should be worth (i.e. avoiding a scenario whereby you place your home on the market at a high price, then see it become stale in the eyes of viewers, reduce, then reduce again, only to end up, as many do, selling your home for less than you could have done at the outset by pricing effectively and creating lots of interest). A gentleman kindly came up to me during the interval and said “I felt you were talking directly to me, about me! I have done exactly that, and now have offers far below what I could have achieved in the first few weeks.”

The best advice that I can ever offer anyone is: 'Think!' Is the advice that you are being given advice that you want to hear or need to hear? Does it seem logical and backed up by clear evidence? Is it a plan that will help you sell your home and achieve the move that you are looking for or is it advice that will just leave your home for sale for many, many months with no genuine interest?

Figures are taken from Webbers, Webbers Fine & Country, Vizzi Home, Rightmove and the Land Registry as of 7 Sept. 2012.

Local farmhouse with letting cottages – two buyers were found within days of being marketed – now sold.

WORDS by Napoleon Wilcox, Director of Webbers and Webbers Fine & Country (Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, London)

B R O M P TO N R E G I S near Wimbleball Lake

Visit one of the oldest sites on Exmoor, mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086)

Pulhams Mill

enquiries@countryknoleinteriors.co.uk www.countryknoleinteriors.co.uk 01823 352077

Craft Centre (OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK)

Genuine Exmoor Gifts

Furniture by Ian Mawby, China by Pauline Clements, Local and British Arts & Crafts and gifts.

Free Mulled Wine & Mince Pie welcomes you to our annual

CHRISTMAS FAIR

Sat 1st & Sun 2nd December 10am onwards

World of Wood Exhibition GREEN OAK BARN The Woodland Wonderland

RIVERSIDE TEAROOMS Suppliers of Colefax and Fowler | Jane Churchill | Romo Zoffany | Pierre Frey | Osborne and Little | & many more

Now Under New Management

Made to measure handmade curtains | Blinds | Poles Measure & installation service | Re-upholstery service Full interior design service

59 East Reach Taunton TA1 3EZ

Parking available outside from 9.45-4.45pm

Showroom open Tues-Fri 10am-5pm Now open Saturdays 10am-3pm

Pulhams made cakes, puds, lunches weekday Book for Sunday Roast and Christmas Lunches Book for Christmas Day Lunch 25th December

www.pulhamsmill.co.uk on the road from the bridge on Wimbleball Lake towards Brompton Regis village near Dulverton TA22 9NT

Mon-Sat 10-5, Sun 12.30-5

phone for Jan, Feb opening times

Tel: 01398 371366 AUD’S FURNITURE SHED I can offer a unique selection of hand-painted country and farmhouse furniture.

I like to give vintage furniture a new lease of life using traditional paints and waxed to give a Vintage Chic Look!

West Welland, Ash Mill, South Molton

Tel: 01769 550308 Mob: 07967 232338 Email: Audielil@aol.com www.audsfurnitureshed.co.uk

74 Exmoor Winter 2012

INTERIORS

An old-fashioned love affair

WORDS by Hilary Binding CLOTTED CREAM Photography by Andrew Hobbs

P

ainted furniture is, I think, a little like Marmite! People either love it or loathe it! The fashion for recycling and painting furniture began in the 1980s and today it is possible to furnish your home throughout in what is known as shabby chic style. You can buy the whole ‘look’ from many of our well-known stores and designers and very attractive it is too. But you might be looking for something a little different; something unique and you may not realise that there are a number of businesses on Exmoor, run by local people, which can offer you just those qualities.

These are people who care not only about style but about sustainability. They hate to see old furniture cast out in favour of something more up-to-date when, with a little care, it can be restored and refurbished and given a new lease of life and a new home. Not just recycled but 'upcycled' as they say these days!

Clearing up at the end of Dunster Country Fair in July my eye was caught by a nearby stand displaying painted furniture. I introduced myself to the owner, Hilary Weldon, and after we’d rejoiced in finding that we were both named Hilary, I was told with great delight that the stand had won second place for Best Trade Stand in Show (if that’s the right expression). I was not surprised. It was so attractive and eye-catching, and had earlier been packed with items which customers hadn’t realised they wanted until they saw them.

A few days later I called in to see Hilary at Clotted Cream, her shop in Williton, crammed with painted furniture, small antiques, crafts and paintings. Numerous customers came in during the hour I spent with her. One was eager to buy a painted bed which had already been sold. “Don’t worry,” said Hilary. “We’ve another at home which you can have.

Exmoor Winter 2012 75

Aud's Furniture Shed Audrey Cole runs Aud’s Furniture Shed.

For Audrey, what started as a passion for attending auctions and buying and recycling old furniture has now become a thriving business. As she is kept busy taking care of a farm, and her grandchildren, Aud’s Furniture Shed is ideally located at the farm near South Molton. Aud started out four years ago recycling furniture for her and her daughters’ homes, giving them the shabby chic look.

Her natural eye and flair meant that she was quickly persuaded to turn her hobby into a When would you like it delivered?” A young couple, clearly furnishing their first home lifestyle business. on a budget, were delighted with the stylish furniture and reasonable prices.

Aud collects her furniture from local auctions Hilary began her painted furniture business in a small way some ten years ago with and recycling shops and then strips it back a stand at the much-loved Nettlecombe Christmas Fair. She had been collecting and selects vintage colours and stencils inexpensive ‘brown, horrible’ pieces from the tip – now the recycling centre – for a to create a French vintage look. She only few pounds and giving them a new lease of life by stripping them down and painting chooses solid wood pieces which, once given them cream. She sold out on the first night of the Fair and had to rush home for a new lease of life, will go on to give pleasure more! From that small beginning Hilary began to attend antique fairs and shows and in any home. She sources her paints from earlier this year opened her shop in the centre of Williton to serve as a showroom. companies like Farrow & Ball and Laura Ashley, and completes the look by applying a Hilary trained at Plymouth College of Art and Design and became a garden designer wax finish. but had to give this up when sadly she developed retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary degenerative eye condition. She is now registered blind. “I can see a bit out of my You can contact Audrey by phone 01769 right eye,” she told me as I said naïvely: “You would never know.” Her husband, Paul, 550303 (evenings) or 07967 232338 (any now does much of the furniture restoration and checks that her painting is as it time) or by email: Audielil@aol.com. should be. They use either Farrow & Ball or Fired Earth paints, often in cream or She also undertakes commissions. gentle shades of green or blue, and are determined to keep their prices affordable. www.audsfurnitureshed.co.uk Hilary’s whole family is involved in the business. Son, Alastair, 17, is studying farriery at Kingston Maurward and makes wrought-iron pieces for sale, while his younger brother, Cameron, 12, has developed a range of small wooden objects decorated with a ‘spotty and dotty’ design. Hilary’s mother’s exquisite drawings are also on show. Besides the painted furniture there is a range of other items – jewellery, small antique pieces, clothing, houseware and objets d’art. Hilary is keen to promote the work of other talented upcyclers, craftsmen and women and young artists and the shop is a treasure trove of unusual crafts and well worth visiting.

Email: hilary@the-clotted-cream-furniture-company.co.uk Website: www.the-clotted-cream-furniture-company.co.uk 4 Robert Street, Williton, TA4 4PG, Tel: 01984 633035 or 0773 3278679

76 Exmoor Winter 2012

Interiors

Country House Vintage

Rowan Tree Studio

If you are a lover of vintage in all its forms then look out for a Country House Vintage Fair! The Country House Vintage ethos is simple; find fabulous venues in which to display high-quality vintage clothes, furniture and collectables, sold by the best dealers in the South West. This seemingly simple statement belies the months of work involved in discovering beautiful stately homes and historic buildings willing to open their doors to the hundreds of people who regularly attend the day-long fairs.

If you would like to try painting furniture and upcycling yourself, why not contact Sarah Harper at Rowan Tree Studio, which offers contemporary and traditional craft workshops, holidays and parties?

Throughout the year there are workshops and one-to-one lessons in a variety of crafts ranging from sewing, quilting and patchwork to furniture-painting and dressmaking – and much more – all held in the purpose-built and well-equipped studio. Courses are practical and fun and offer a lovely day out with homemade lunches and afternoon teas.

Dealers are asked to adhere to a strict timeline, selling items made from the 1920s to the 1970s. “Many of our dealers have creative backgrounds and transform less than perfect pieces of furniture by painting them or covering them with beautiful fabric or wallpaper; damaged vintage books are transformed into gift boxes and hand-embroidered linen into dresses,” said Annaliitta Stretch, one of the three organisers at Country House Vintage.

The last Country House Vintage Fair for 2012 will be a two-day Christmas extravaganza, held at the Assembly Rooms in South Molton on 8 and 9 December.

To contact Country House Vintage, email countryhousevintage@gmail.com or call 07795 664564/01237 451144. www.countryhousevintage.com

Bottom: also from Country House Vintage.

Loved Again Loved-Again at 72 South Street, South Molton, is owned and run by Lynne Seward, assisted by her friend and fellow entrepreneur, Jane Walker of JaLiBo. Loved-Again is aptly named as Lynne refurbishes unloved and old-fashioned brown furniture, painstakingly sanding it back to the wood and lovingly hand painting it in her trademark cream eggshell paint.

The shop is stocked and re-stocked on a regular basis with items such as wardrobes, chests of drawers and pretty dressing tables, complete with re-upholstered dressing table stools.

Unusual items such as rocking chairs, cheval mirrors and bureaus sell alongside the ‘must-have’ dining tables and contemporarily re-upholstered dining chairs... all at competitive prices.

Sarah has a real passion for many of these crafts that not only make great relaxing hobbies but also allow you to save money.

“I place real emphasis on recycling old clothes, furniture and charity shop finds which means that not only can you make items for yourself but they can save you money while contributing to reducing your carbon footprint. Crafting does not need to be expensive!"

Rowan Tree Studio, The Old Granary, Higher Clovelly, Bideford EX39 5RR. Tel. 01237 431942 sarah@rowantreestudio.co.uk www.rowantreestudio.co.uk

Lynne considers herself fortunate in having her artistic friend Jane on the premises, regularly supplying her with prettily handcrafted plaques made from reclaimed wood which adorn the attractive Welsh dressers and complement her furniture and other gift items beautifully.

For further details please see Lynne's website www.loved-again.co.uk or telephone 01769 574556.

Exmoor Winter 2012 77

The Courthouse The Square, WIVELISCOMBE, Somerset TA4 2JT

Persian Carpet Specialist

Coffee Shop

Curtain making service

Fashion and accessories

www.courthouseinteriors.co.uk

Tel. 01984 629010 ❖ Open Mon - Sat 9.30am - 5.00pm

Jayne Pearce

Full Design Service • Project management Comprehensive range of fabrics • Curtain making Upholstery • Lighting • Accessories • Sourcing Bed linen • China

Rupert White Interiors 20 Fore Street, Bampton, Devon EX16 9ND T: 01398 332 444 M: 07789 377 412 E: rupert@rupertwhiteinteriors.co.uk Opening hours –- Tuesday Monday to to Friday Friday10.00am Opening 10.00am to to5.00pm.

5.00pm Saturday10.00am 10.00am to Saturday to1.00pm.

1.00pm

Pauls Carpets & Flooring

Handfinished Soft Furnishings • curtains, pelmets, blinds, loose covers and more • extensive range of fabrics to suit every budget • professional service from initial design to installation Established for 18 years 07837 718745 or Email info@jaynepearce.co.uk Visit www.jaynepearce.co.uk

☎

© Jane Mares

© Andrew Hobbs

© Andrew Hobbs

© Andrew Hobbs

Stable Bungalow, Honeymead, Simonsbath, Minehead, Somerset TA24 7JX

78 Exmoor Winter 2012

CARPETS • VINYL • WOODS Commercial & Domestic FREE ESTIMATES WOOD FLOORING SUPPLIED & FITTED Tel: 01884 257247 • Mob: 07989 303834 Bay H • Link House • Leat Street • Tiverton • Devon EX16 5LG

Choosy about buying local? We hope so!

Curl up with your local, independentLY-OWNED magazine.

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See our stockist list or subscribe from just £16.50 at: www.exmoormagazine.co.uk or call 0845 224 1203.

E XMO O R

Crossword Winter 2012 by Bryan Cath £20 will be paid for the first correct entry out of the hat on 15 January 2013. Send a photocopy if you would prefer not to cut your magazine up. Please post your answer to Crossword Competition, Exmoor The Country Magazine, PO Box 281, Parracombe, Devon EX31 4WW. The solution will be published in the next issue.

Winter 2012 solution from: Name: Address:

Clues across: 5 First-class application made up for those suffering from short breaks in breathing. (6) 7 Go a long way to find your own main road to an enclosure adjacent to an agricultural business. (8) 9 Fry around lined people wanting to help. (8) 10 Measures in a bar that are easy on the eyes. (6) 11 The Exmoor Moorland Landscape Partnership offers grants for this so we can maintain the qualities of the moor. (12) 13 Bother to use dock to remove its sting. (6) 15 A boring person talking about Georgia's hunting kill. (6) 18 Carvers eat it to make beautiful objects with their imaginative skills. (8,4) 21 Hunt around for this polecat. (6) 22 I'll own it around this Somerset town. (8) 23 Leaning towards the plane on the mineral line. (8) 24 The queen and I love anything to do with horses. (6)

17 Put away some interest owed by others. (6) 18 The cleric moved around the ring. (6) 19 A rocky one where Mother Meldrum once lived. (6) 20 A small hamlet on the western edge of Exmoor where maybe the head of a college resides. (4) Congratulations to our Autumn 2012 crossword winner Mrs Pat Leach, 'Greencombe', Wootton Courtenay.

Answers from Autumn 2012 Crossword Across: 7 Camera, 8 Farm shop, 9 Cloister, 10 Oracle, 11 Shirwell, 12 Ice cap, 13 Herring gull, 18 Mosaic, 20 Painting, 22 Digs up, 23 Ice cream, 24 Lifeboat, 25 Acland.

Down: 1 Tally-ho, 2 Pedigree, 3 Cattle, 4 Grooming, 5 Escape, 6 Cool bag, 8 Foreland point, 14 Rock pool, 15 Luttrell, 16 Molinia, 17 Uncanny, 19 Anstey, 21 Ice bag.

SUDOKO: JUST FOR FUN!

Down 1 There are no handsomer settlers than in this county. (8) 2 Simon, the independent travel writer and hitch-hiker who once lived in Dunster. (6) 3 Educating son for a future role in giving horses a smart appearance. (8) 4 We hear they dress wounds in this upper-level twin town. (6) 6 The designated objectives of the National Park to conserve and enhance describes their aims. (8) 7 A fisherman's lure means to a bird's migration route. (6) 8 A haystack causes a spasm in the neck. (4) 12 A common prickly shrub that comes out in May, they say. (8) 14 Those into 24 test their skills with this three-phase sport. (8) 16 A common Exmoor wildflower once considered a cure for skin diseases. (8)

Exmoor Winter 2012 79

Books news & reviews

by Hilary Binding

From Curragh to Ketch: the Story of Minehead’s Quay Town, John Gilman and Sue Lloyd, Genge Press, 2012, pb, 140pp, 32 illustrations mainly b&w, £10. ISBN 978-0-9549043-5-7.

This fascinating, well-produced book is written by knowledgeable enthusiasts about a subject dear to their hearts. It tells the story of the ups and downs of Minehead harbour over the centuries and of the people who dwelt close by in Quay Town, whose lives were moulded by the sea.

John Gilman’s knowledge of the harbours and shipping of the West Somerset coast is second to none, while Sue Lloyd, who lives in Quay Town, has immersed herself in the place and its past. The result is a clear and readable account and I, for the first time, now really understand the nature of the original haven behind the shingle ridge near the foot of the current Blenheim Road. When it became blocked, the harbour was moved to the present site and its history, and that of its shipping and trade, until the early-nineteenth century is traced through the lives of key seamen and merchants such as William Donnell, Nathaniel Bullocke and Richard Richards.

This book does not claim to be a history per se and I felt a little uncomfortable with some of the interpretation of the Celtic period, but when it comes to life in Quay Town during the last 200 years the book is magic! Based not only on documents but on personal recollections from the families of Quay Town residents, past and present, the story of the shift from trade to tourism and its impact on the community is detailed and lively.

In the 1940s Quay Town was like "a miniature village," said John Rawle. All the women were called ‘Auntie’ and any adult would administer a clip on the ear to any youngster getting into mischief. Alongside, the story of the harbour continues: holiday visitors, the pier, the lifeboat, wartime and Minehead’s last sea captain,

80 Exmoor Winter 2012

Captain Rawle, with his ketch, the Emma Louise.

All the illustrations, many published for the first time, deserve careful study and, not least, the cover image and Plate 1 which show a vessel in 1820 unloading its cargo of limestone onto the beach at low tide with horses and carts carrying it away to be burnt in the Exmoor limekilns.

And, thank goodness, there is an index!

Esra Grumpwolf of Haddon, Brian Smeeton, many illustrations, pp, 2012, £6.99.

ISBN 978-09557-1281-4.

I loved this book, the fantasy tale of a near-invisible and very grumpy wolf with glittering yellow eyes and shiny silver ears who is a very brave hunter. The story is set on Exmoor in the Haddeo valley although I don’t think you will find Butterball Lake and Puzzle Wood marked on the OS maps! In the first chapters we are introduced to the key characters: Esra himself; the very young heroine, Harriet Draydon-Knaplock, who is to befriend Esra; Dr James Gordon Backyard who wears glasses he doesn't need and loves Morello cherry jam; kind Winnie Besom and Jack Green who have supernatural powers. There are also the terrifying, one-eyed Mag-birds who are thieves and bagalies, the Haddon pack of wolves and ... the Beast!

Once started, it is hard to put this book down, partly because the story moves at such a pace but also because it makes you laugh so much, though I have an idea that adults will appreciate the humour rather more than the younger readers for whom the book is designed. At the heart of the story is the old, old issue of good overcoming evil and there are some frightening moments before Esra proves his worth. The book is illustrated throughout by Sue Lewis-Jones whose delicate sketches bring both characters and landscape to life.

Esra Grumpwolf of Haddon would be a wonderful book to read aloud to younger children (with all the voices!) or would make a brilliant ‘Exmoor book’ present for ten-year-olds for Christmas.

A Necessary End, Hazel Holt, Allison & Busby, 2012, hb, £19.99. ISBN 978-07490-1101-7.

You wouldn’t naturally associate working in a charity shop with crime but in a certain charity shop in the little seaside town of Taviscombe, a brutal murder takes place. It appears that no one likes control-freak shop manager, Desmond Barlow. But who dislikes him enough to kill him? Desmond is, without exception, rude to all comers and, in particular, treats his wife abominably so the reader is not surprised when he ends up dead in the store room.

Enter Sheila Malory, retired academic and widow, and solver of mysteries. Sheila has been persuaded into helping, just for three days a week, in the charity shop while a friend is away. Sheila quickly gets to know the other volunteers: the bossy and strident Norma Stanley, cheerful Jean and, most importantly, dreadful Desmond and his put-upon wife, Wendy.

‘Sheila’ fans will not be disappointed with Hazel Holt’s latest story of murder in this quiet seaside town within half-an-hour’s drive of Exmoor. Sheila, who doesn’t seem a day older than when we last met her in Any Man’s Death, still lives in her beloved cottage with two of the oldest pets in literature: her little dog, Tris, and her Siamese cat, Foss.

This time she has a tough case to deal with: it appears that everyone has an alibi for the night of the murder, and it is left to Sheila and policeman Bob Morris (whom Sheila remembers as a young boy) to solve the crime.

And do they solve it? Of course they do, but not before an awful lot of tea has been consumed along with many a Victoria sponge, coffee cake and bourbon biscuit. Not for nothing is Hazel Holt known as the Queen of Cosy Crime. This book – the 20th in the series – is just the thing to curl up with on a cold afternoon, with a cup of the very best Earl Grey, of course!

Margaret Powling

A Singular Exmoor Man, Hector Heywood, Bruce Heywood, Ryelands, 2012, hb, 160pp, profusely illustrated in b&w, £19.99. ISBN 978-1-906551-32-2.

This book is not just a biography of Hector Heywood but a wonderful account of the hard and lonely life of Exmoor hill farmers and their wives and families during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Written by his son, Bruce Heywood, local farmer and West Somerset District Councillor, the inspiration for the book came from a wish to pass on the story of his forebears to his own son and grandson.

Hailed as the greatest naturalist of his time on Exmoor, Hector Heywood was "a man of all seasons totally at one with nature, whether it was farming, harbouring the deer or bird nesting.

He was a crack shot, could plough a straight furrow (set up by driving to his handkerchief tied in the hedge), build a wall or lay a hedge with the best of them."

Born in 1905, Hector came from a long line of Exmoor farmers on both sides of his family and was related to more Exmoor folk than seems possible. He was heavily influenced in his formative years by his uncle, Ernest Bawden, the famous huntsman of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. We are told that Hector was a strong man, possessed of an iron will who knew no fear in galloping the moor, going down a cliff face on a rope end or up the most difficult of trees to climb.

Sadly, however, he became troubled from the age of seven when he was involved in his brother’s tragic and accidental death and he became a difficult man to live with both before and after his marriage to his long-suffering wife Joan.

There were few letters or diaries for the author of this perceptive biography to work with and so he relied heavily on the memories of Hector’s sister and brother and the recollections of the many people who remembered him. It is a book full of colourful tales of Hector and his forebears and the many interesting people he met during his life. It is an honest and sympathetic portrait of a man who was, to quote, "an extraordinary countryman, both hugely talented and staggeringly awkward." Anyone with an interest in Exmoor in particular, or English

country life in the twentieth century in general will be fascinated by this book.

With Magic In My Eyes,West Country Literary Landscapes, Anthony Gibson, Fairfield Books, 2011, hb, illus. in colour and b&w, maps, £20, ISBN 978-0-95685110-9.

This is, as Michael Morpurgo says in his Foreword, a wonderful book. I was attracted to it because of the title, a quotation from the third verse of Thomas Hardy’s poem, ‘When I set out for Lyonesse': 'When I came back from Lyonesse with magic in my eyes’. This was written not long after his first visit to Cornwall where he met and fell in love with his first wife, Emma Gifford. I have always loved books – and poems – set in identifiable locations, where the writer has clearly drawn inspiration from the landscape and, as an ardent fan of Hardy, have visited so many parts of Dorset which were the settings for his writings.

And here in the West Country we have so many other classic and familiar examples: Coleridge and Wordsworth living briefly in the Quantocks, visiting Watchet and tramping across Exmoor; Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter set in North Devon; RD Blackmore’s ‘Doone Valley’; Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! and Daphne du Maurier’s Cornwall.

Many readers will best know Anthony Gibson as the man who championed the cause of the West Country’s farming community for many years, leading the region’s NFU at the time of both the BSE and then the foot and mouth crisis. Yet perhaps one wouldn’t know that as he travelled across the countryside over the years he was seeing it through the eyes of the region’s authors, and beginning to explore "the relationships between the authors and the landscapes that inspired them, and [discovering] how each brings depth, perspective and meaning to the other."

With Magic In My Eyes is a literary pilgrimage around the region which includes our most famous author and landscape associations and sheds new light on the lives, works and landscapeinspirations of less obvious poets and novelists, such as Ted Hughes, Virginia

Woolf, DH Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling and Charles Causley. In his Introduction, Anthony Gibson says that his book has no pretensions of being an academic study of the relationship between writers and their landscapes. "It is born," he writes, "not of analysis, but of enthusiasm and of love – for the landscapes which make up our beautiful West Country, for the writers who have been inspired by those landscapes and for the magic which is created when glorious landscapes and wonderful words come together."

This is a book which encourages participation; walks are included to help the reader explore and you can download user-friendly maps and guides from the website www.withmagic.moonfruit.com although I think an OS map would always be useful. The book is well illustrated; there is a bibliography of key works of the authors discussed and a welcome index.

This book has inspired me to look further to both landscapes and authors that I don’t know well and have found that, as Michael Morpurgo says, ‘We don’t just get to know this inspiring landscape anew; we get to feel it as the writers all did.’

Brief notes Somerset Cricket,The Glory Years, 1973-1987, Alain Lockyer, with text by Richard Walsh, 144pp, Halsgrove, 2012, hb, profusely illustrated in b&w, £19.99. ISBN: 978-0-85704-113-5.

No Somerset cricketer will want to be without this remarkable photographic record of what were arguably Somerset’s finest cricketing years.

We shall be featuring more from this book in our Summer 2013 issue.

The Quantocks, Biography of an English Region, Peter Haggett, photographs (colour and b&w) by Jackie Haggett, published by the author at The Point Walter Press, £20.

ISBN: 978-0-9573352-0-2. www.the-quantocks.com Any profits will be donated to The Friends of Quantock.

Look out for this new book on the Quantocks which we hope to review in our Spring issue. Beautifully illustrated, it captures the region’s fascinating past and challenging present in all its richness.

Eastleigh Care Homes ‘everything I would want if it were for me or my family’

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A brand new, state of the art nursing home on Raleigh Mead in South Molton adjacent to South Molton hospital.

We are proud to present our new state of the art home that focuses on supporting residents with general nursing, dementia and specialist clinical / medical requirements.

The home accommodates 60 residents and has provision to care for those that require dementia care in a secure setting, within our specialised and dedicated dementia suite.

Our home will be the first home in the UK to have a new revolutionary lighting system which has been identified, in significant university studies, to support residents with dementia and cognitive impairments to appreciate the natural passing of the day. The studies have identified that this pioneering system notably improved the quality of life, reduced anxiety and subsequent behaviours for the residents where it was used.

Currently links are being established with the additional holistic benefits of this enhanced lighting system in relation to other significant health conditions.

This is a pivotal part of the overall environment however our quest to enhance dementia care is continued throughout the home with exemplary interior design, furniture and care provision. We are confident that we have developed a home that can rival a first class hotels opulence of dĂŠcor whilst incorporating the requirements of a nursing resident in a sympathetic and non-intrusive manner.

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82 Exmoor Winter 2012 Garry

WELL BEING

West Somerset Stroke Club WORDS by Elaine Pearce

T

Frenchay Hospital, called the Volunteer Stroke Scheme. Stroke clubs were just beginning and were paving the way for patients to reintegrate into the community more easily following a stroke.

he story of the West Somerset Stroke Club has a 'meant to be' quality about it. In the early 1970s the women who were to become its two founders were unwittingly forging parallel paths. At this stage, still hundreds of miles apart, Jane Jones and Hilary May were both on a journey which would end at St Michael’s Church, Alcombe.

All this was music to Jane’s ears and she couldn't wait to chat to Hilary about starting a stroke club in Minehead. As Hilary was working only part time and Jane not at all, they thought that they might manage to do something on a voluntary basis. A letter was posted in the West Somerset Free Press inviting interested parties to see a film hired from the Chest, Heart and Stroke Association and to talk about a volunteer stroke scheme. The meeting was well attended, with many GPs present.

They were working with stroke patients at the time – Hilary as an occupational therapist at Williton Hospital and Jane as a speech and language therapist at a hospital in the Midlands.

Hilary’s main concern was for those who had lost the ability to communicate. Speech therapists were rarely seen on the wards at that time and, with no guidance available, she found herself at a bit of a loss as to what she could actually do to help.

Jane was feeling equally disillusioned. In those days, aftercare, following the patients' discharge from hospital, was virtually non-existent and Jane felt that her 30 minutes with each patient (who had sometimes been waiting a couple of hours to see her) was not enough to help them or their family and other carers.

In 1975 Jane moved to Somerset with her two small children and husband Keith, who had secured a job as Head of English at the West Somerset School (now West Somerset Community College). As regular churchgoers they attended St Michael’s – and that is how, through the church grapevine, Hilary found out that Keith’s wife was a speech and language therapist. One day she went and knocked on Jane’s door to see if she might be able to call on her help as and when. Jane readily agreed.

One day, whilst travelling in her car and listening to the radio, Jane heard a consultant talking about the horrifying statistics regarding people who could no longer communicate because of a stroke. This resulted in patients losing their confidence and becoming confined to their homes, sometimes never going out or partaking in everyday pastimes. The consultant then started to talk about a new movement, originating from Bristol's

3

T H E

PA R A D E ,

Jane and Hilary wanted the club to be professionally run; not just a place to come for a tea or coffee, but a venue which could truly live up to the promise: “This is the place where you will learn to go on living and go out into the community.”

Some 20 wonderful volunteers emerged from that initial meeting. Through her work at the hospital Hilary was able to identify eight discharged patients who, within the community, had no ongoing support.

A letter was written to the Health Authority asking for its assistance in the venture, particularly as there was nothing like it in Somerset. The Authority replied, saying that it couldn't help as it didn't know the Club, but the enthusiastic pair were undeterred from their project and they continued to promote their cause. The very first cheque they received was £25 from the Minehead Lady’s Circle, which was used to affiliate themselves to the Chest, Heart and Stroke Association.

A room was booked in the Methodist Church and transport arrangements were made for Hilary’s patients. The volunteers turned up and from that day, 7 October 1977, the Club started to grow, always with a doctor at the helm acting as Chairman.

At this point Jane and Hilary thought the Club probably wouldn’t develop much more and they’d only be doing it for a couple of

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Well being years. They couldn't have been more wrong! Interest quickly snowballed and within a very short time the Club had 20 members and had outgrown its room. A year later found the Club in its present base, St John’s Ambulance Hall, North Road.

Not only was the social side growing, with strong friendships being forged among the members and volunteers, but the activities on offer were gradually increasing, enabling new interests and skills to be developed, which helped build confidence and independence. This proved that the Club was able to provide a service that was not available at that time through the Health Authority. Professionals from all over Somerset visited and other clubs were formed, but theirs remained the only one that had both an occupational therapist and a speech and language therapist in its ranks.

Young, interested people from the West Somerset School visited to see what they were doing. Some were inspired to go on to become speech and language or occupational therapists themselves. The support from the West Somerset community was impressive and after 35 years this still continues, making financial problems a thing of the past. Legacies have enabled the Club to purchase its own minibus, a crucial asset in such a widely spread rural area. With Hilary in her role as Vice-President of St John's, work has jointly and harmoniously improved facilities within the hall so that disabled persons can be fully accommodated.

Members arrive at 10am and are offered coffee and biscuits.

At lunchtime soup and a roll are enjoyed with Betty Kirkham’s famous homemade puddings to follow. Betty is the Club’s longest-serving volunteer and has produced 5,000 puddings –

Knock the spots off the competition!

surely giving Jamie Oliver a run for his money? Everybody supports one another in a spirit of co-operation where all are equal.

At the end of the day, all of the craft tools are put back in a large cupboard, so large in fact that one day Hilary locked herself inside too! Luckily, although it was dark, she managed to find the basketry tools with which she skilfully chiselled the lock to let herself out: it only took her one hour!

Jane’s father, a retired priest, was the first Chaplain to the Club.

Subsequent vicars of St Michael’s took on the role, the current being Father Stephen Stuckes.

Hilary and Jane have made a difference to so many people’s lives, showing them that: “There is life after a stroke.” “This Club belongs to West Somerset and it is the people of West Somerset who have made it what it is,” says Hilary, who was honoured for her community work with an MBE in 2004. This has been a year of gold medals and surely these two remarkable women have displayed the qualities needed to win a gold. But knowing them, I don’t think they require any medals: their rewards clearly come from the joy they bring to others.

For details contact Hilary: 01643 702512. E: hilarymay@talktalk.net Pictured: A presentation to Jane and Hilary by the patchwork group at the Stroke Club. Members are taught by expert seamstress Sally Farmer and volunteers Margaret O'Hara and Anne Thomas.

L-r: Hilary May, Margaret O'Hara, Anne Thomas, Jane Jones, Sally Farmer, and, seated, members Janet Webber and Helen Berry.

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84 Exmoor Winter 2012

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garden notes

Plant in small groups

Roses

Just as when planting perennials, English roses look best in groups of three or more of the same variety. They will then grow together to form one dense shrub, which will provide a more continuous display and make a more definite statement in the border. These can be pruned as one large bush – shorter at the edges and higher in the middle. When planting in groups of three or more, position the plants about 18” (50cm) apart within the group and allow 3ft (1m) between plants of neighbouring varieties.

WORDS by Andrew Pitman, Plant Manager at Monkton Elm Garden Centre PHOTOS David Austin Roses

Enrich the soil

Roses are such wonderfully rewarding plants that even adding a few choice varieties to your border can completely transform its character, creating your very own fragrant garden idyll.

G

ardeners know that November and December are the ideal months for planting roses, as this gives them plenty of time to become established in the garden to guarantee an abundance of bloom the following year.

Roses can live for 20 years or more, so it is well worth investing a little extra effort in good soil preparation to ensure beautiful displays for many years to come.

Here are my top five tips for great roses:

Choose the best varieties Always begin by choosing the healthiest and most disease-resistant varieties: David Austin’s English Roses are some of the best. A wide selection is available locally at Monkton Elm Garden Centre in Taunton. These alluring plants are renowned for their health, vigour and reliability, as well as for their beauty. They combine the glorious flower forms and fragrances of the old roses with the wider colour range and repeat flowering of modern roses. Once planted, they quickly mature into elegant shrubs and climbers,

creating great impact in the garden.

Some recent new varieties to look out for are the rich salmon-pink ‘Boscobel’, the pure-white ‘Tranquillity’ (pictured above) and ‘William and Catherine’, all of which were launched at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Select the right position English roses are unfussy plants, although they deserve a prime place in the garden where their graceful flowers can be enjoyed. Most people assume that roses need full sun, but most English roses also enjoy partial shade. These include ‘Crown Princess Margareta’, which can be grown as a shrub or trained as a climber, and ‘Lady of Shalott’, one of the most reliable and hardy English roses – an excellent choice for inexperienced gardeners.

Do make sure that the roses are planted where they are not overhung by a canopy of trees and where the roots of the rose will not be forced into too much competition with those of other plants, especially hedges.

When planting the roses, dig a good-sized hole to a depth of at least 18” (50cm), enrich the soil by mixing in plenty of organic matter and apply a generous layer of mulch. Michael Marriott, David Austin Roses’ technical manager, says these simple guidelines will ensure strong growth: “Roses love lots of organic matter mixed into the soil, so it’s well worth picking up a few sacks of soil improver from the garden centre. Of course, you can use garden compost, manure or green waste, but do make sure it is really well rotted otherwise it can contain weed seeds and may even take nitrogen out of the ground, which can do more harm than good.”

Be creative with roses As well as being the perfect choice for creating a pure rose border, English roses, with their graceful, bushy growth and pure, glowing colours are also a welcome addition to a mixed border. One of my favourite English roses for mingling with other plants is the deep-crimson, ‘Munstead Wood’, which is prized for its fragrance – old rose mixed with delicious hints of blackberry, blueberry and damson.

‘Charlotte’, an exquisite yellow rose with bushy, yet compact growth, is wonderful in a terracotta container – position beside a doorway for a warm welcome. Many varieties of English roses, such as ‘Harlow Carr’, can be grown as floriferous hedges or used to brighten up a post-and-rail fence.

Always remember to experiment and have fun with your garden. Winter is a great time to take a fresh look: visit your garden centre for more advice and inspiration. www.monktonelmgardencentre.co.uk Tel: 01823 412381

Exmoor Winter 2012 87

Gardens

Cothay Manor WORDS & GARDEN PHOTOS

by Rosemary Lauder

T

he gardens of Cothay Manor are among the best 20 in Britain, according to the Daily Telegraph, which published its list in June 2012. They have been called the 'Sissinghurst of the West' and a 'star attraction' and been featured in several gardening magazines; all of which appears to have left their creator completely untouched.

Mary-Anne Robb has been gardening for the greater part of her adult life. At her previous home, Chisenbury Priory, on the edge of Salisbury Plain, the garden was regularly open to the public.

She told me, however, that when they had to move and were looking at Cothay, she had no thoughts then of creating anything special, and was not influenced by what she saw. For what existed at Cothay Manor when the Robbs moved there in 1993 was the mature framework of a well-thought-out garden. Laid out in the 1920s, the backbone was a 200-yard yew walk, with small enclosures opening off it, and a broad terrace in front of the fifteenth-century manor, falling away towards the river.

It came as no surprise to learn that the owner, Col Reginald Cooper, who planned all this, was a close friend of Lawrence Johnson of Hidcote, and of Harold Nicholson of Sissinghurst.

Did Col Cooper ask his friends’ advice? Were they instrumental in laying out the straight lines of sapling yews?

What is certain is that the Robbs were presented with a neglected garden possessed of an imaginative framework and some fine, mature trees. What gardener wouldn’t be excited at such a prospect?

The first job that Mary-Anne and her husband Alastair tackled was to clear away everything except the framework of yew –

88 Exmoor Winter 2012

which, mercifully, had been kept under control. Once this had been done the fun could start. One of the first areas to be laid out was the terrace in front of the house, one of Mary-Anne’s favourites. Weathered paving from other areas around the property was collected together and gaps were left for planting.

When the paving ran out, a small parterre was planted. This part of the garden is at its best in late spring and early summer, with roses, foxgloves and dieramas all seeding with gay abandon. One of her philosophies is that if the basic structure is sound, and formal, then the planting can be informal and allowed free rein.

The garden should look good even if nothing is in flower.

Mary-Anne has achieved this, apparently without any undue effort – apart, of course, from sheer hard work. No, she told me, there was no master plan. She didn’t draw up planting schemes for the borders; they always change when you actually get down to work, she said.

Each garden has its own theme, but all obviously belong to Cothay Manor and have been devised by the same creative mind. The same plants crop up, and there is the same freedom of planting that gives such a relaxed air. Trees are important, because Mary-Anne loves the interplay of light and shade. She also thinks that strident colours do not go well with the pale English skies, and favours more pastel shades.

There are two trademarks that crop up throughout, and which define Cothay’s charm. Mary-Anne is partial to standard trees – lollipops – which she admits are hugely expensive as most of them are grafted. Most of us associate lollipops with bay, but as Cothay is in a frost pocket that was not an option. Instead she has used Elaeagnus ebbingei and the false acacia Robinia

Gardens

Above: Mary-Anne has names for all the garden compartments, and this was originally known as 44 Acacia Avenue until, in an inspired moment when showing a party of Americans around, she renamed it as ‘this was where the ladies of the manor would exercise their unicorns’. It was then necessary to track down a unicorn; local sculptor Chris Webb provided the centrepiece in 2003.

Far right: The yew walk has been left deliberately unplanted.

Undisciplined gardeners would have been tempted to introduce urns or statuary, or to thread climbers through the dark-green walls.

Not so Mary-Anne. The function of the walk is to lead the visitor on; to go through an opening into a contrasting world of informality. pseudoacacia. The latter is planted as an avenue in the Walk of the Unicorn garden, renowned for its lavish display of white tulips in the spring, their dying foliage hidden by Nepeta.

The second trademark is Mary-Anne’s overflowing pots. They are everywhere, and most of them are very large. Around 20-25 plants go into each, and only when no more will fit in are they complete. She experiments with all sorts of plants, many of them not usually associated with tubs, but one of her mainstays is the grey-leaved Helichrysum. Dead-heading and a weekly foliar feed maintain them in pristine condition.

Behind the front-of-house display a great deal of skilled work is carried out. Cuttings are taken in late summer and started off in a propagation unit – which by the autumn is full with thousands of healthy-looking sprouting plantlets. These are potted on and over-wintered under glass so that, come the first hint of decent weather, the process of planting up the pots can begin.

Although Mary-Anne does have help, usually students, hers is the controlling hand. Her horticultural knowledge has been in demand at places such as Cannington College and she delights in helping students learn the basics. There is also a chance for us to learn her secrets, as Mary-Anne runs day courses on both propagating and planting pots. A glance at the Cothay Manor website gives details of these and other events staged there, as well as some information about the family’s creative ancestry, which includes Matthew Boulton and Sir Charles Barry. Three generations have run the family business of tile-making, whose customers included Queen Mary and Fortnum & Mason, and which now specialises in hand-painted tiles. There is usually a streak of artistry in the best gardens.

The next generation is now involved at Cothay, with the Robbs' daughter Charlie, her husband and their children now living there and helping out. But there is no question of Mary-Anne moving out, or taking a back seat. The garden she has created is where she wants to be, surrounded by her beloved Pekinese dogs, and her family, sallying forth each morning armed with her trowel, dressed in dungarees complete with the rope of pearls without which she never leaves the house. This most magical of gardens deserves to be better known, and although Mary-Anne Robb is far too modest to consider herself in the same bracket as our famous gardeners, that is where she belongs.

Cothay Manor, Greenham, is a few miles off the A38, near Wellington. It opens regularly from the first week in April; from 7-9 December it will host the sixth Fine Art, Decorative and Antiques Fair. 01823 672283 www.cothaymanor.co.uk

Exmoor Winter 2012 89

(Taunton and Wiveliscombe)

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Keep Exmoor Special

WHEDDON CROSS, MINEHEAD, SOMERSET, TA24 7BG

Telephone: 01643 841122 Prop: Miss K. (Sue) Brown Join us and help conserve Exmoor now and for future generations.

Private Fenced Estate Woodland walks (no roadwork) Heated Kennels Relaxed, friendly atmosphere Long or short stays Special Diets catered for Collection/delivery Service Vaccinated Dogs only

HOME OF THE HARTCLEEVE WEIMARANERS

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BROFORD FARM STUD Our horses are bred for endurance riding, racing or enjoyable hacking.

Come and visit with no obligation to buy.

Tel: 01398 (Dulverton) 323569

A voluntary organisation founded in 1958. We support the purpose of the national park status and are constantly on guard to protect Exmoor's special qualities.

We want family farms to survive and the villages to be places where the Exmoor people can earn a living and afford to live. We encourage people to enjoy outdoor activity and experience wild open country, tranquillity and well-being.

For further details of our aims and benefits to members apply to Exmoor Society, Parish Rooms, Dulverton, Somerset TA22 9DP tel 01398 323335

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Western Counties Equine Hospital Equine Veterinary Surgeons

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Burrowhayes Farm Riding Stables Tel: 01643 862463

Escorted rides on Dunkery, Ley Hill & Selworthy Children's ponies for parents to walk & lead Licensed by W.S.D.C • Open from Easter to end of October Also popular family camping site • Just 1 mile east of Porlock off A39 West Luccombe, Porlock, Somerset TA24 8HT • www.burrowhayes.co.uk

90 Exmoor Winter 2012

Culmstock, Cullompton, Devon. EX15 3LA www.westerncountiesequinehospital.co.uk

In the Stableyard

Betty Howett WORDS by Cindy Cowling PHOTOS by Andrew Hobbs

I

can safely say that for the first time ever I am looking forward to winter, as the weather may actually improve! It has been an incredibly difficult year for making hay, silage or straw to bed stock on when they come in around November time.

That said, we have still managed to have some fun with the horses. Ellen’s little rescue mare Polly has blossomed beyond all recognition and has rewarded her hard work and patience by becoming a fun, all-round pony and Quest, my homebred threeyear-old, who currently stands at 16.3hh, went to Vicky Stevens in Brompton Ralph to be long-reined and ‘ridden to the village and back'. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and came home very grown-up! I enjoyed that special moment of riding a horse I’d bred, having waited years to see if I’d got it right. I was delighted and if he is anything like his mother he will be very exciting.

I was also incredibly fortunate to spend time with a very special lady. Betty Howett is one of just a handful of people who hold the ‘Fellow of the British Horse Society’ title, the highest BHS qualification possible, as well as being an FEI judge and a national

and international trainer. Belying her 85 years, Betty is still riding and teaching. I met her at her beautiful home in Porlock, where she told me about her life.

"It was during the war, when I was a child, that I bought my first pony from a local farmer at Bampton Fair. I hid the pony in the garden shed so that my father wouldn’t find out. The pony had a fuzzy tail (obviously a weanling) but I didn’t know that then, or that ponies need ‘breaking in'. As there was no petrol, my father bought a pony and trap which meant that we then had two ponies. I had a bicycle and so gave rides around Uphill for pocket money." Betty’s pony rides developed; with three horses and two ponies she gave beach rides to the ‘Yanks’ at Uphill, near Weston-super-Mare. Betty’s brother-in-law was a Cavalry officer at the time and she would cycle every day from Weston to Burnham-on-Sea for a lesson!

"I got engaged, but never married and went instead to Sir Edward Berhen’s competition centre in Surrey. It was the first time I had been away from Somerset and although I loved my

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The old disused stable/log shed at Betty's.

92 Exmoor Winter 2012

In The Stableyard course we had 40 students, half of whom have gone on to run their own establishments or gone even further."

job I missed home terribly." However, Betty’s passion and love of horses had taken seed and, unbeknownst to her at the time, she was about to embark on an exciting life-long career that would take her around the world and home again.

Betty and her family had visited Porlock on many occasions for day outings and discovered Porlock Vale Riding School which was at that time owned by Tony Collins (who was killed tragically in an air crash) and she fell in love with it. While still working for Sir Edward she spotted an advert for a stable manager at the Silver Hound Riding Club in Surrey, but they wanted a man.

Undeterred, Betty applied for the position, telling the owner Arthur Owen that she was far better than any man! She was given the job and worked with Brian Young for four years. By a stroke of luck, Arthur Owen also owned Porlock Vale Riding School and he went on to offer Betty a job running the Horsemasters courses there. She said it was like a dream come true, going back to beloved Porlock with horses.

However, after two years she had to return to Surrey as the school was sold to Colonel Crawford.

Back in Surrey, Betty became good friends with an American family who asked her to fly with their horses back to the USA where they were kept at livery at the Potomac Horse Centre, just outside Washington DC. The owner of the centre also wrote to Betty to see if she would be their stable manager/ instructor. Betty agreed to go for six months – and stayed for twenty years!

"When I arrived in March ’63 it was hot and humid. Potomac was owned by ‘Stretch’ Harting (who stood 6’8” tall)! Stretch had two or three farms spread over 5,000 acres. There was no examination system in America at that time, so I asked if I could manage the school and set up a training system using Pony Club ‘A’ test examiners from England. Originally there were 19 stables and one large indoor school." Betty ran 12-week intensive courses using 11 instructors, mostly from the UK, who between them taught hundreds of lessons a week! "If the students were very good, we offered them three months' further training free of charge. The best of those we then kept as employees at the centre." Many of Betty’s protégés went on to top equestrian jobs, including Rick Newton. The son of a Dulverton carpenter, Rick was taught how to build cross country jumps and went on to build the cross country course for the World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky. Three of Betty’s former students are now international dressage judges, including Brian Ross, who judged at the Sydney Olympics and also Badminton. "On each

I asked Betty where her inspiration came from. She replied without hesitation. "Nuno Oliveira was my total inspiration. He was the last of the great Portuguese masters. I really started to learn by simply watching him. It was a love affair between horse and rider, the riding aids were almost irrelevant, it was more an ‘arrangement’ between horse and rider. Watching Nuno and his horse would bring tears to my eyes." Betty recalled a time when Allegro, a Portuguese stallion, saw Nuno. "The stallion was loose in the school and tore towards him then gently put his head in his lap." Nuno Oliveira visited Potomac four times a year and Betty also trained with him at his home in Portugal. "Everything I know, I owe to him," is Betty's simple summary of this extraordinary man's influence.

In its heyday, Potomac was host to the Olympic Show Jumping Team during its training, as well as Colonel Podhajsky of the Spanish Riding School, which, having never travelled out of Vienna before, made its debut appearance there. Nearly 400 people clamoured with excitement to see the performance.

Betty recalled that "the gallery in the indoor school nearly fell down! I witnessed first-hand the horses' turnout being inspected with a white-gloved hand and water being thrown over the saddles to provide grip when the ‘vault’ was performed!"

Betty recounted many a story from her time in America. Some episodes were not without an element of danger and a night watchman had to be employed at the centre for security. "After my mother passed away, with my sister living in Dulverton, I decided it was time to come home and so I made the trip back, together with my horse Buzzer who was the love of my life.

He was mine from the moment I looked at him – it was as if we already knew each other." When Betty returned to the USA for the American Finals, disaster struck. "Buzzer was taken ill in his field in Porlock. The vets couldn’t understand what was wrong with him. They tried everything to save him. On my return, I stayed with him in his field for three weeks. When he died, I felt like I died with him." It was subsequently discovered that Buzzer had been bitten by an adder.

Betty told me many wonderful stories about her horses. Sadly there is not room to recount them all here. However, I learned a huge amount about this wonderful woman, who was without doubt way ahead of her time in terms of horse psychology, which is only now being explored more widely. Betty paid tribute to the Americans for their inspiration: "America’s open-mindedness allowed me to experiment and learn, against a military backdrop in England, which at the time was far more regimented."

Betty describes her understanding of the horse’s mind in terms of feeling almost ‘half horse’. "A horse will reflect back your intelligence. There is so much to learn and to teach people to learn about how a horse feels (mentally as well as physically)."

Surprisingly – or maybe not so – Betty has never enjoyed competing. "Of course I did compete and I was successful, but my real pleasure comes from just me and my horse riding together, with nobody watching."

I would like to thank Betty for what was for me a hugely inspirational, invaluable and insightful interview. Thank you Betty.

Exmoor Winter 2012 93

Exmoor Pony Festival

LAWHORSE

Urgh: Ragwort!

In the fourth of our Lawhorse columns, Jill Headford, Equine Law Partner with West Country law firm Tozers, gives advice about this pernicious weed.

C Photo by Lindy Mitchell.

T

he first ever Exmoor Pony Festival came to a close on Sunday 2 September with an Exmoor Pony Society Pleasure Ride which started out from Webber's Post. Spectators were treated to the rare sight of 11 Exmoor Ponies and their riders assembling with the spectacular scenery of Horner Woods and Dunkery Beacon as their backdrop; three additional participants’ horses were granted 'honorary Exmoor Pony' status for the event. The riders ranged from teenagers through to those past retirement age, all with a common passion for Exmoor’s native breed and walkers and photographers enjoyed the unique sight of this Festival Trek on the highest point of the Exmoor landscape with a free-living group of ponies not far away.

nt

or

WIN!

£285! th

Win this mounting block!

Win a mou

Other Exmoor Pony Festival events included an Open Day at Victoria and Chris Eveleigh’s farm (author and illustrator of the Katy Trilogy), Exmoor Pony Photographic Safaris with Experience Exmoor, and a demo of horse agility at Holtball with world champions Dawn Westcott and Hawkwell Versuvius. For more information on the block w Festival visit exmoorponyfestival.wordpress.com ing

This winter readers are in with the chance of winning this lovely mounting block from The Wooden Workshop in Bampton. Dean and Laura Lander started the business in Febuary 2012. They make a range of products from garden furniture, stables and field shelters to log stores, decking and dog kennels, as well as bespoke products. To enter simply email your name and address to info@wooden-workshop.co.uk by 15 December with 'mounting block competition' in the subject line.

The prize winner will have their mounting block delivered free within 15 miles of Bampton or will need to arrrange collection.

The handmade mounting block, worth £285.00, is heavily constructed and built to last, with 20mm synthetic hessian anti-rot rope handles and rope entry surrounds. All timber has been treated to protect from the elements. It measures 172cm x 77cm x 72cm.

Find out more about the company at: www.wooden-workshop.co.uk or call 01398 33 22 66. You can also follow them on facebook (search 'The Wooden Workshop') and twitter: @bamptonworkshop.

ommon ragwort (all too common in some areas) is, as all responsible horse-owners know, highly poisonous.

You will have removed it from land on which your horse grazes and may be monitoring neighbouring land for any signs of invasion. What you may not know is that owners and occupiers of land near where your horse grazes or where feed (including hay) is produced are legally responsible for controlling and preventing the spread of ragwort from their land onto yours.

Ragwort is so dangerous that there is legislation to control its spread – the Weeds Act 1959 and the Control of Ragwort Act 2003. Under these laws, DEFRA can serve notice on landowners who are not dealing with their ragwort problem, requiring them to take action to prevent its spread. If they fail to comply they will be committing an offence.

If you think that your horse wouldn't eat anything as toxic as ragwort, think again. Evidence suggests that in its dried form, in hay, for example, or even just wilted, it loses its bitter taste and so your horse may not notice.

So, what should you do if you find ragwort growing on your own or neighbouring land?

If the weed is on your property then you should remove it immediately and dispose of it safely. DEFRA guidance can be found here: www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb11050ragwort-dispose-110315.pdf If you find ragwort on someone else’s land then you should know the risk categories and what action the landowner is obliged to take. Here are some pointers: Flowering plants (of any number) within 50m of grazing land are high risk; landowners must take immediate action.

Plants within 50-100m of grazing are medium risk; the landowner should be monitoring the plants and controlling any spread.

Ragwort over 100m from grazing land is low risk and as such doesn’t require immediate action although responsible landowners should still be aware of its presence to ensure it doesn’t spread.

Remember that responsibility for controlling this weed rests with the occupier of the land as well as the owner so don’t be put off if the person using it tells you it’s not their problem because they don’t own the land. It is!

Natural England can investigate complaints where there is a risk of ragwort spreading to grazing land and take enforcement action. However, please be aware that they will expect you to have contacted the owner/occupier of the land first and to have tried to resolve the matter informally between yourselves.

For advice contact Jill at j.headford@tozers.co.uk or call 01392 207020 .

94 Exmoor Winter 2012

Saturday 5 January WASSAIL DAY, PORLOCK Meet at Dovery Manor Museum and parade through the village, wassailing at the orchards and ending at the Community Orchard, followed by folk singing and Mummers Play. Take saucepan lids, drums, and anything else that makes a noise! Assemble from 6pm.

Contact: Porlock Visitor Centre 01643 863150.

Where to find out more...

ACTIVE EXMOOR

VILLAGE LIFE

www.activeexmoor.com Twitter: @ActiveExmoor fb: Active Exmoor

ENPA

www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk (a very useful diary for events across the area) Tel. 01398 323665 Twitter: @ExmoorNP fb: Exmoor National Park

EXMOOR SOCIETY www.exmoorsociety.com Tel. 01398 323335 E. info@exmoorsociety.com

EQUINE

www.horseeventsuk.com

FOOD & DRINK

February

A list of regular farmers' markets is available on the Visit Exmoor site: www.visit-exmoor.co.uk/food-and-drink

2nd to 24th February 2013 Snowdrop Valley - Wheddon Cross.

Don't miss out on seeing the beautiful wild snowdrops blanketing this hidden valley on Exmoor. Take the bus or walk down from Wheddon Cross, enjoy the relaxing walk through the valley itself, and then time for lunch or afternoon tea on arriving back in the village. www.wheddoncross.org.uk/ snowdropvalley.htm

GENERAL WEBSITES

Image courtesy Jane Mares.

2nd (Open Night - collection) & 4th (Concert - no more than £7) Saturdays of the Month Shammick Acoustic Pack o’ Cards, High Street, Combe Martin. Tel: 01271 882366. www.shammickacoustic.org.uk

www.visit-exmoor.co.uk www.everythingexmoor.org.uk www.quantockhills.com

NATIONAL TRUST

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/southwest Twitter: @NTSouthWest fb: National Trust South West

STAGE & SCREEN

barnstaple.scottcinemas.co.uk www.bidefordfilmsociety.org.uk www.lyntoncinema.co.uk www.merlincinemas.co.uk www.northdevontheatres.org.uk www.theploughartscentre.org.uk regaltheatre.co.uk wellington.reelcinemas.co.uk

The following websites include events listings. If you have a community website which is up to date and includes events listings but which is not listed here please get in touch. We would like to include a current site for every area. www.appledore.org www.bampton.org.uk www.barnstaplepeople.co.uk www.bidefordpeople.co.uk www.bishopslydeard.org.uk www.brushfordparish.com www.bromptonregis.com www.visitcombemartin.com www.kingsnympton.org.uk www.luxborough.org.uk www.lyntonandlynmouthscene.co.uk www.northmoltonvillage.co.uk www.visitlynton.co.uk www.minehead.co.uk www.porlock.co.uk www.quantockonline.co.uk www.timberscombe.org www.tivertonpeople.co.uk www.visitsouthmolton.co.uk www.watchetonline.co.uk www.wheddoncross.org.uk www.wiveliscombe.com

Image courtesy Jane Mares, see p. 29.

Winter diary dates outside festive calendar (see insert) January

VISUAL ARTS www.devonartistnetwork.co.uk www.crafts.org.uk www.creativesomerset.com www.somersetartworks.org.uk www.somersetguild.co.uk If you know of a regularly updated, accurate site which you would like to suggest we include please email the editor (see page 4 for details).

Priority will be given to non-commercial sites.

To advertise call 01392 201227.

A diary note

Almost all dates in this issue are included in our Festive Events Guide, which we hope you enjoy.

We include diary dates that are submitted to us and as far as we are aware the information is correct at the time of going to press. Contact details are included so that you can check events nearer the time.

Please send your dates for Spring 2013 Diary (on sale mid February), by email: naomi@lighthousecommunications.co.uk by 2 January.

Local Art, Crafts & Food

Exmoor Winter 2012 95

Final Paws

Archie, VBH WORDS & PHOTO

by Mary Bromiley

I

t is unusual for a dog to add a suffix to their name but Archie has achieved this and accepts VBH, denoting Village Bassett Hound, as both acceptable and appropriate.

Archie moved to the hamlet of Cutcombe several years ago, although at first visits were confined to weekends. When moving to a new area it can be difficult to meet people and make new friends, but luckily for his owners their acceptance was immediate – all thanks to Archie.

It is impossible to imagine his feelings when he arrived at the cottage following the long trip down the A303 from London, during which the back of the car had been suitably arranged and cushioned for his comfort. Alighting, he realised there were real smells wafting from the fields where the 'keep off the grass' signs, so common within the confines of Ravenscourt Park, were conspicuous only by their absence.

A country routine was quickly established – beginning each morning with a half-mile amble to the Wheddon Cross shop to collect the newspaper. Tied outside Archie sat patiently; noticed by everyone, he accepted praise with nonchalant courtesy. After several visits he found a bowl of fresh water placed by the dog-tying ring; while investigating he heard a voice explaining ‘in case Archie feels thirsty’.

At the village fête's dog show, after becoming the Reserve Champion, he marched proudly from the ring, rosette

96 Exmoor Winter 2012

dangling, to tumultuous applause. Nothing like this happened in London! Admittedly some London dog owners, his included, might meet on a Friday evening for drinks in the park, but dogs definitely came second to the wine.

Once settled in the country, Archie soon adopted a deliberate attitude, refusing to be hurried on walks, investigating every smell and acknowledging everyone he met. His owners couldn't help but accept that he was a ‘much noticed, popular person’.

They did, however, decide that his showing career should end, after his second appearance in the dog show saw him emerging as Champion; after all, other dogs must be given a chance!

As time in the country drifted by, so the involvement of Archie's owners in village affairs increased. Overhearing discussions about the forthcoming fête Archie discovered that he was scheduled to be 'an attraction'. It transpired that, for a modest sum, people would be invited to guess his length from nose to tail tip.

He would be required to stand four-square with tail erect and be measured before the competition. 'Might this be embarrassing?' he wondered; like human waist sizes surely one’s length was personal? His owners either could not or chose not to understand the indignity of being measured by a stranger, so Archie submitted, albeit with rather poor grace.

The day of the fête was hot and Archie was glad when the competition was over.

The amount of money he had raised for community charities was considerable and after a drink in the shade he strolled around, visibly accepting the fact that he had become an eminent village member.

Before the jubilee, when celebratory events were discussed, the committee was unanimous in its decision that Archie must feature. A play was written especially and the principal character was, naturally, the Queen. She was kidnapped – or rather, as did Alice in Through the Looking Glass, disappeared inconveniently. In order for the village to be able to celebrate the jubilee she must be found!

Disguised as a royal corgi, Archie assumed the role of a canine Hercule Poirot. Following two rehearsals, when loosed on the big night he sniffed slowly around the stage as those in the audience held their breath; he suddenly shot under a curtain where he revealed the lost Queen. Later in the performance he returned, accompanying a small child, to lie, unprompted, at her feet gazing upwards as she sang 'You ‘ve Got a Friend in Me'. They received a standing ovation.

As Archie relaxed full length on a sofa to be interviewed, he was no doubt wondering what might come next!

Maybe he was thinking about what a well-deserving dog such as himself might expect to find in his Christmas stocking this year!