Qualla: Exmoor National Park

Exmoor National Park: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Arpingstone at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Something large and dark has been moving through the bracken on Exmoor since the 1960s. Farmers blame it for dead sheep. Hikers catch glimpses -- a shadow too big for a fox, too fluid for a dog, vanishing into the heather before anyone can be certain of what they saw. The Beast of Exmoor, as the press named it, is probably a cougar or black leopard released after a 1976 law made it illegal to keep such animals in private captivity. Probably. The moor has always had a talent for keeping its secrets, and this latest mystery is just one thread in a landscape woven from 3,000 years of human habitation and considerably longer geological time.

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Image: Arpingstone at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Exmoor National Park: The Shape of the Moor

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit EdSomerset at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Exmoor earned National Park status in 1954 and takes its name from the River Exe, whose source rises near the village of Simonsbath in Somerset. The park covers 267 square miles of open heath and moorland, stretching across the north coast of Devon and into west Somerset. Most vi...

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Image: EdSomerset at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Exmoor National Park: The Oldest Grazers

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jamsta at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sheep have worked these moors for more than 3,000 years. Traditional breeds including Exmoor Horn, Cheviot, and Whiteface Dartmoor still graze the open land, alongside Devon Red cattle. But the moor's most distinctive inhabitants are the Exmoor ponies -- not a breed in the conven...

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Image: Jamsta at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Exmoor National Park: Lorna Doone Country

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manfred Heyde, CC BY-SA 3.0. R. D. Blackmore's 1869 novel Lorna Doone gave Exmoor its most famous story -- a tale of outlaws, romance, and revenge set around the villages of Brendon in Devon and Oare in Somerset. The Doone Valley remains a draw for visitors who want to walk the landscape Blackmore described,...

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Image: Manfred Heyde | CC BY-SA 3.0

Exmoor National Park: Fudge, Clotted Cream, and the Long Walk

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan Kühn, CC BY-SA 3.0. Exmoor is not a wilderness in the conventional sense. It is a working landscape, shaped by farming, managed for grazing, and threaded with villages that have supplied provisions to travellers for centuries. The Brendon Hills to the south are cultivated; the Somerset towns of Dulv...

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Image: Stefan Kühn | CC BY-SA 3.0