The Reclamation of Exmoor Revisited

In 1818 the Royal Forest of Exmoor was sold by the Crown to the Worcestershire ironfounder John Knight. Through the nineteenth century the Knight family embarked on the largest upland reclamation scheme in southern England, on the biggest remaining area of uninhabited land. Their efforts were enormously costly, and only a partial success. The story of thwarted agricultural ‘improvement’ was told by C. S. Orwin’s ‘The Reclamation of Exmoor’, first published in 1929. With funding from The Leverhulme Trust, Henry French, Ralph Fyfe and Leonard Baker have undertaken a new study of the reclamation of the Royal Forest. Based on their findings, this book rewrites the reclamation of Exmoor in several ways.