Lost Exmoor: Hidden Histories, Untold Stories - Volume 1 - David Ramsay

As the strap-line in the title suggests, the topics in this book explore lesser known, and often forgotten aspects of an everyday life on a past Exmoor.  Each of these is usually described by those who were actually there and involved, and all are accompanied by photographs, almost all historic, some in colour, and all striking and original. 

This book attempts to gather some of these strands, these untold stories, and ways or reasons for doing things, and offer short explanations of what they were and why. It is an attempt to focus on what was once common on Exmoor, but perhaps hardly known about today.

Many are written in the first person; accounts of how things were done, and each has at least one photograph, usually from the historic archive. Other topics come from beyond the reach of living memory, from the historic record, and all are concerned with the history of the everyday and celebrate Exmoor’s rich heritage.

Some of more than 60 topics in this hardback book include:

The harvesting and uses of bark; laver; sphagnum moss and rushes; arriving by sea on the paddle steamers; hunting conger eels with dogs; breaking in and rounding up Exmoor ponies; ploughing with teams of oxen; drovers and drove roads; training a sheepdog; the seed fiddle; stone crackers; gating the road; weather forecasting; the village coffin maker; rag rugs and quilting; beacon keepers; time being different all over the country…