A Late Afternoon Visitor

It was late in the afternoon one Wednesday in November. We were clearing away our papers after a day working in the Exmoor Society Archive when the shop bell rang. A visitor from the Exmoor National Park Authority stepped in. “Would you like these for your Archive”. She was clutching three thick ring binder reports.

Now, we are the proud owners of this fascinating set of reports of the first substantial Historic Landscape Survey of the 500-acre parkland surrounding Dunster Castle. A Grade II* landscape on the English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, the Castle grounds are the most significant registered landscape within the National Park.

The authors, Kate Felus and John Phibbs of the Debois Landscape Survey Group note that the Castle parkland is an “almost totally un-researched designed landscape”. Their meticulous compendium of original articles, book references, maps, plans and many written sources is reproduced in full in the two books of Volume 2 Historic Sources & Fieldwork & Other Background Material. Not just a bibliography but copies of the documents themselves are presented.

To anyone interested in local history, this is a treasure trove.