This summer, we were very pleased to receive a collection of the papers of Dr Ernest Mold, a Lynton, Parracombe and Brendon GP, who had a lifelong interest in the history and pre-history of Exmoor.
Ernest was a founding member and Chairman of the Lyn and Exmoor Museum. Well known for his interest in local history and, visiting patients on remote farms, Dr Mold would often return with an old document, a dusty find from a barn, or some tales of life on Exmoor long ago.
Ernest joined The Exmoor Society soon after its formation and regularly wrote articles for the Exmoor Review. Through this, he met Hazel Eardley-Wilmot, Exmoor’s foremost amateur archaeologist, and began a lifelong friendship and collaboration. Hazel dedicated her book Yesterday’s Exmoor to Ernest. Together, they would scour the moors in search of hidden stone monuments.
The Mold Collection contains a large number of lengthy handwritten letters from Hazel to Ernest, sharing notes about her research. We already have copies of over a hundred letters from Ernest to Hazel in her papers held in The Exmoor Society Archive. Now we have what could be a complete set of their correspondence. With these are detailed hand-annotated maps of Exmoor, densely packed with archaeological features, as well as source material collected over decades.
In his later years, Ernest Mold recorded an interview with Birdie Johnson’s Exmoor Oral Archive Project, which is available to listen to online via the link here.
Graeme Horn: Archive Volunteer
