The archaeology of Exmoor has seen a resurgence in recent years, with new books highlighting the nature and character of the area's heritage. The National Park had been neglected when compared to the other Southwest uplands such as Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor. Michael Atkinson's Exmoor's Industrial Archaeology (Halsgrove 1997) for example provides a history and guide to the surviving remains of post-medieval industries, and the former RCHME's survey of the National Park was published in 2001 by English Heritage as The Field Archaeology of Exmoor. In this book a total of 21 of the 192 pages was dedicated to post-medieval farms, agriculture and estates.
The Archaeology of Hill Farming on Exmoor is a result of the English Heritage National Mapping Programme (NMP) survey of the National Park, and the book focuses on the post-medieval, and in particular, the 19th-century, attempts to reclaim the moorland for profitable agriculture.
The book starts with a brief introduction to the project, aerial photography as an archaeological technique, and the landscape of Exmoor, and early farming in the area. The bulk of the text is divided into three main sections. The Royal Forest provides a history of the central forest area from the medieval period through to its enclosure during the 19th century, where necessary placing the varying attempts at enclosure into a national context. The section includes case studies on peat cutting, sheep stells and steam technology. The Commons discusses the landuse of and the agriculture in the uplands, mainly situated around the Forest and northwest coastal fringe. In addition to livestock management the main themes are peat cutting and 18th- and 19th-century enclosure – an activity illustrated both with aerial photographs and contemporary enclosure maps. Finally, The Farmland describes the remaining, generally lower-level, agricultural land, from the medieval period (including the evidence for deserted farms and relict field systems) onwards. This section also illustrates the evidence for and impact of water management in the form of catch- or water-meadows.
As is now expected of an English Heritage landscape survey publication the book is lavishly illustrated with around 130 aerial photographs (and interpretation drawings), maps and plans, photographs, and reconstruction drawings. With the exception of the (mainly 1940s) aerial photographs, all are reproduced in colour.
The results of the NMP survey are being used by the Exmoor National Park Authority (for example during the Mires Project) to manage the archaeological resource outlined in this book, and this publication brings the results to a wider audience. It is a welcome, readable and affordable contribution to an under-researched area of the National Park. Publication of this survey work will be attractive to local residents, and archaeologists engaged in both the investigation of Exmoor and the wider region's upland landscapes. This reviewer has already used the book to inform the results of field survey and excavation on several sites in Devon.