“This night of the full moon was the most beautiful winter night I have ever known. As I came over the brow of the moor and down to Sherdon Water, Ferny Ball and all the hills beyond lay under a mantle of silvery snow beneath a velvet-black sky, and the moon shining amongst wandering clouds played upon it like a gliding arc-light. I crossed the little bridge and came up the lane under trees laden and covered with the snow, and before going in for the night, I stood for a while in the garden marvelling at the scene.”
2025 has been a great year for The Exmoor Society archive, and one of the most important achievements has been the recruitment of a group of new volunteers to help us with the project to transcribe the articles Hope Bourne wrote for the West Somerset Free Press in the 1980s.
They have now created digital typed versions of over half of the 150 articles, making them accessible for future researchers and for the new book being written about Hope, which will be published next year by the Society. We are very grateful for their support, and additional volunteers for this project are always welcome.
Our archive volunteers had an early Christmas outing to see the exhibition of Hope’s work at the Glastonbury Rural Life Museum, and we shared how much we were enjoying reading Hope’s articles.
The extract above, describing a midnight walk in the snow at Christmas, shows the beauty of Hope’s nature writing.
Lisa Eden, Archive Volunteer
