The Exmoor Society Quiz No 5 – The Answers 1. Grabbist Hill, Dunster. Grabbist Hill overlooks the village of Dunster, and is at the head of a ridge that runs west towards Wootton Courtenay and Dunkery. From this ridge, there are wonderful far-reaching views over the Bristol Channel to the north, and the Avill Valley to the south, with extensive footpaths and bridleways along the hill and into the combes. Grabbist is now well populated by trees, so there is little evidence of the "purple-headed mountain", unless this refers to Dunkery Beacon, on whose slopes the River Avill rises. Little remains of the site of the Iron Age hillfort, although the adjacent Giant’s Chair is still visible where our old friend, the Giant of Grabbist, likes to doze in the sun while he enjoying the view of Gallox Hill opposite. The area offers an important range of wildlife habitats, including that of the endangered heath fritillary butterfly. Grabbist is owned by the National Trust.
2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge – the Coleridge Way. Created in April 2005, the Coleridge Way originally ended at Porlock but in May 2014 a 15-mile extension to Lynmouth was launched. The Coleridge Way is now a 51mile/80km footpath in Somerset and Devon; the route links several sites associated with the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge starting from the National Trust’s Coleridge Cottage at Nether Stowey and finishing in Lynmouth. 34 miles of this, from Nether Stowey to Exford, is bridleway but walkers can continue on from Lynmouth along the South West Coast Path to Lynton, Poets Corner in the Valley of Rocks and beyond.
3. Hope Bourne. Hope was born in Hartland, Devon in 1920 and died in Withypool on 22 August 2010. She was a painter and writer who lived a solitary self-sufficient life in primitive cottages and, from 1970, in a tiny caravan on a remote Exmoor hill farm. Hope survived by growing her own vegetables, fishing, and hunting for rabbits, and admitted she sometimes took ‘those rabbits with antlers’!
Known as the Lady of Exmoor, Hope taught herself to draw and paint and captured the very essence of her beloved Exmoor in both her art and writings. She kept a diary which provided the source for articles, including a column in the local weekly newspaper, the West Somerset Free Press, and the four books and one novel she had published during her lifetime. She was a familiar and iconic figure on Exmoor and was the subject of no less than three TV documentaries. An early member and supporter of The Exmoor Society, she left her estate to the Society and among her papers was discovered the manuscript of a fifth book that was subsequently published, as was a book celebrating her art. All Hope’s books are available from The Exmoor Society and thousands of her sketches and paintings are held in its archives.
4. Badgworthy Cotts, Doone Valley - R. D. Blackmore’s Lorna Doone. This seems to be a local name for what was a medieval village, now just grass-covered ruins. The Historic Environment Record for Exmoor National Park records on its website an adjacent ruin as Badgworthy Cottage, built by Frederic Knight, and it may be this or the village ruins that are sometimes referred to as Lorna’s Cott (https://www.exmoorher.co.uk/Monument/MDE20870).
Richard Doddridge Blackmore was schooled at Hugh Squier's School in South Molton, Kings School, Bruton and Blundell's School in Tiverton, where he was head boy. Coming from a Devonshire family of rectors with the Charles’ living, which included Oare Church, he was not born in Devon but spent many school holidays with his uncle, one of said rectors. Blackmore claimed: "In everything, except the accident of my birth I am a Devonian; my ancestors were all Devonians".
He first tried his hand at writing fiction in the mid-1840s but, after leaving Oxford, Blackmore embarked on a career in law. He married in 1853 and established a home at Teddington, near London, where he created an 11-acre market garden and supplemented the income from this through his writing. Of his fifteen novels much the best known, though not the author's favourite, is Lorna Doone (1869).
The initial response to Lorna Doone was not encouraging: of the first 500 copies, in three- volume form, only 300 were sold. It was then published as a single volume and the fame of Lorna Doone snowballed, with many different editions produced, including a Dulverton one! Many stories of the Doones predated Blackmore’s novel but he always refused to discuss the locations in the story and, after the book became famous, he grew impatient with people who tried to pin him down and unravel fact from fiction. Since its first publication, Lorna Doone has never been out of print, although Blackmore always insisted that he made very little money from it.
As a result, the Badgworthy area of Exmoor, through which runs Badgworthy Water, is now often referred to as Doone Valley and considered by some as a magical, mystical place. It remains a relatively wild and remote area despite being firmly on the tourist map.
Blackmore died at Teddington in 1900 and four years later a memorial to him was erected in Exeter Cathedral. There is another on Exmoor, commemorating the centenary of Lorna Doone, and the novel’s 150th anniversary was celebrated in 2019.
5. Worthy Toll Gatehouse, Ashley Combe House and Ada Lovelace (1815-1852). Ashley Combe House, set in woods above Porlock Weir, was built in 1799 and improved in 1835 when its owner, Lord William King (later created the First Earl of Lovelace), married Ada Byron, daughter of Lord Byron, the poet. Ada brought a considerable fortune with her, enabling her husband to set about improving this romantic country home to please his young wife. Exotic Italianate terraced gardens were created with a woodland walk and steps which led down to the beach. Here a bath-house was built into the cliff to enable Ada to bathe in privacy, as it was impossible to feed sufficient water for regular bathing to the house. Tunnels led tradesmen up from the road to the trade entrance so that those within would not have to see their carts and the spectacular views from the house towards Hurlstone Point were not marred. The Lovelaces were renowned for their house parties, which attracted many famous writers and artists of the day. Ada, a clever mathematician, was long associated with computer pioneer Charles Babbage and devised some of the first programs for his Analytical Machine. The language program for all Instructions sent to Military Authorities in the US was fittingly given the code name, ADA. She died at the early age of 37 years.
Ashley Combe House was in turn loved and abandoned over the years, eventually passing to the Lytton branch of the family which still owns the site today. In 1939, it was taken over by Dr Barnardo’s for the duration of the war and narrowly escaped destruction when a Halifax bomber crashed into trees above the house. In 1950, it became a country club in which guests were required to service their own rooms, whereupon it developed a rather questionable reputation and became very run-down. Deemed beyond repair, its demolition was ordered by the 4th Earl of Lytton and its romantic history came to a sad end. The area, including the Italianate gardens, now lies hidden beneath the undergrowth and is inaccessible to the public, although Exmoor National Park Authority is currently undertaking work to restore the picturesque woodland landscape, through which the South West Coast Path runs.
(Further reading: The House at Ashley Combe by Barbara Milne – available to purchase from Porlock Visitor Centre)