The Exmoor Society Archive holds many beautiful paintings by Hope Bourne. This is one of the larger watercolours and shows Prince, a Shire Gelding who she painted in 1946.
We have recently received a unique item for the archive. This hand-drawn, pen-and-ink, "Guide to the location of the ancient monuments found in the Lyn District of Exmoor" includes a helpful glossary of terms as well as a beautiful map showing ancient landscape features including barrows, hut circles, standing stones and beacons.
“Exmoor is unusual in the number of names given to crossroads, some marked on maps but others handed down through generations by word of mouth.” So wrote Hilary Binding in 1999 in a short but detailed study of Exmoor signposts, commissioned by the Exmoor National Park Authority. A copy is held in our Archive.
I first heard of Auberon Herbert when the archive was contacted by the Polish Embassy looking for help finding photographs of Pixton, his family home near Dulverton. We found that he had served in the Polish Army in WW2, having been turned down for service by the British for medical reasons, and was considered a hero in Poland.
Volunteers at The Exmoor Society Archive have been working to digitise our amazing collection of slides taken by Brian Pearce, former editor of the Exmoor Review, from around 1990.
A Dulverton homeowner living in one of the town’s former mills found an old document under his floorboards. It was covered in hardened black tar with no glimpse of what was inside. He wanted our help to open it up without damaging it, to see what treasures were inside. Challenge accepted.
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.
