Exmoor is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England. It is named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, two miles north-west of Simonsbath. Exmoor is more precisely defined as the area of the former ancient royal hunting forest, also called Exmoor, which was officially surveyed 1815–1818 as 18,810 acres (7,610 ha) in extent. The moor has given its name to a National Park, which includes the Brendon Hills, the East Lyn Valley, the Vale of Porlock and 55 km (34 mi) of the Bristol Channel coast. The total area of the Exmoor National Park is 692.8 km2 (267.5 sq mi), of which 71% is in Somerset and 29% in Devon.
Mid Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council is based in Tiverton.
Tiverton is a town and civil parish in the county of Devon in England and is the main commercial and administrative centre of the Mid Devon district. The estimated population of the town in 2019 was 20,587. The total area of the two County Council Divisions had a population of 38,191 in 2019.
John Heathcoat was an English inventor from Duffield, Derbyshire. During his apprenticeship he made an improvement to the warp-loom, so as to produce mitts of a lace-like appearance. He set up his own business in Nottingham but was forced to move away to Hathern in Leicestershire, and after this new factory was attacked by former Luddites in 1816 he moved the business to Tiverton in Devon where it became most successful and established the Tiverton lace-making industry.
Bampton is a small town and parish in northeast Devon, England, on the River Batherm, a tributary of the River Exe. It is about 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Tiverton, 19 miles (31 km) north of Exeter and the parish borders Somerset on its north-east and north-west sides. Bampton is a major part of the electoral ward of Clare and Shuttern. The ward population at the 2011 Census was 3,412.
Hugh Fortescue, 4th Earl Fortescue, styled Viscount Ebrington from 1861 to 1905, was an English Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1881 until 1892 and later in the House of Lords having inherited his father's peerages. He was a famous sportsman in the hunting-field.
Holnicote in the parish of Selworthy, West Somerset, England, is a historic estate consisting of 12,420 acres of land, much situated within the Exmoor National Park.
Tiverton High School is a state secondary school located in Tiverton, Devon, England. It is located on the outskirts of the town, and has a close working relationship with the co-sited Petroc.
The Exe Valley Railway was a branch line built by the Great Western Railway (GWR) in Devon, England, to link its Bristol to Exeter line with its Devon and Somerset Railway (D&SR), thereby connecting Exeter with Dulverton. The line was in use from 1884 until 1964.
Simonsbath is a small village high on Exmoor in the English county of Somerset. It is the principal settlement in the Exmoor civil parish, which is the largest and most sparsely populated civil parish on Exmoor, covering nearly 32 square miles (83 km2) but with a population, at the time of the 2001 census, of 203 in 78 households, reducing to 156 at the 2011 Census. The River Exe rises from a valley to the north, and the River Barle runs through the village and is crossed by a triple-arched medieval bridge that was extensively repaired after floods in 1952.
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 7th Baronet of Killerton in Devon and Petherton Park in Somerset, was Member of Parliament for Devon, 1746–1747, for Somerset, 1767–1768, and was High Sheriff of Somerset in 1751. He was a prominent member of the West Country gentry, and a famous staghunter who used as his hunting seats his wife's Exmoor estates of Pixton and Holnicote.
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 9th Baronet of Killerton in Devon and Holnicote in Somerset, was a prominent landowner and member of the West Country gentry. He was especially noted for his passion for staghunting, in which respect he took after his father. Like his father he was known locally in Devon and Somerset as "Sir Thomas his Honour".
Mordaunt Fenwick Bisset of Bagborough in Somerset, 22nd Scottish feudal baron of Lessendrum in Aberdeen, Scotland, was a British Conservative Party Member of Parliament and a famous west-country Master of Staghounds.
The Emperor of Exmoor, a red stag, was reportedly killed in October 2010. Its weight has been estimated as over 300 pounds (136 kg) and its height at 9 feet (2.7 m). Red deer on Exmoor National Park are larger than red deer in Scotland owing to their diet.
The red deer of Exmoor have been hunted since Norman times, when Exmoor was declared a Royal Forest. Collyns stated the earliest record of a pack of Staghounds on Exmoor was 1598. In 1803, the "North Devon Staghounds" became a subscription pack. In 1824/5 30 couples of hounds, the last of the true staghounds, were sold to a baron in Germany. Today, the Devon and Somerset is one of three staghounds packs in the UK, the others being the Quantock Staghounds and the Tiverton Staghounds. All packs hunt within Devon and Somerset. The Chairman as of 2016 is Tom Yandle, who was previously High Sheriff of Somerset in 1999.
Duvale is a historic estate in the parish of Bampton, Devon. It is situated on a narrow flat plain in the steep-sided valley of the River Exe, 1 1/2 miles south west of the town of Bampton and 5 miles north of Tiverton, also on the River Exe further downstream. The name, given by Pole (d.1635) as Deu Vale, is said by him to signify "a valley of water". It was until the nearby construction of the present busy A396 road a place of exceptional seclusion and tranquility.
Tom Yandle of Riphay, Brushford, near Dulverton in Somerset, England, is a farmer and chairman of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds and was High Sheriff of Somerset in 1999 and a committee member of both the National Trust and Exmoor National Park. He played a leading role in challenging both the National Trust's decision to ban stag hunting on the Holnicote Estate and the Labour government's ultimately successful proposal to ban hunting with hounds. The Yandle family was previously resident at nearby Duvale an historic estate in the parish of Bampton, Devon. In 1994 he purchased Northmoor House near Dulverton, and 100 acres of surrounding land, which he later sold.
The descent of the Holnicote estate in Somerset, England, is as follows:
Samuel Holroyd "Tim" Burton was a British school teacher, college lecturer and prolific author of English language textbooks and books about the west of England. He also produced fiction, assembled anthologies and wrote a biography of William Shakespeare.
The Exmoor Body mystery concerns the remains of an unidentified murder victim found on Windsford Hill, near Winsford, Somerset on 13 March 2002.
