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Tales from the Archive: Prince, The Jumping Carthorse

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.

The back of the frame includes a description written by Hope for ‘Milton and Shipton during the War’. The painting was donated to the Exmoor Society by Hermon and Pam Puddle of Milton under Wychwood in Oxfordshire, where Hope and her mother lived before her she moved to Exmoor .

“Perhaps the highlight of the show [the first Wychwood Horse Show, Oxfordshire in 1944, in aid of War Charities] was Prince, the jumping carthorse. Prince is a real feathered carthorse and a worker. But he happens to be a wonderful jumper and usually carries off the prizes in the open jumping at all the local shows, to the delight of the spectators with whom he is a great favourite.”

Also in the news
We are delighted to announce that Jennifer Langdon and William Land have been named joint winners of the Pinnacle Award this year.
With judging underway for the Society's Alfred Vowles Photography Competition, it is a good time to report on our work in the archive over the last year to explore the life and works of this important early twentieth century photographer of Exmoor.
Now that our 2026 walks programme has come to a close, we wanted to say a huge thank you to all of our volunteer walk leaders who ran an event with us this year.