NEW MASTER FACTSHEET 1-04.Qxd
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Farming on Dartmoor Dartmoor Factsheet Prehistoric times to the present day For over 5,000 years farming has been the Reaves are low, stony, earth covered banks main land use on Dartmoor. Working and which were built around 1200 BC to divide re-working the land, farmers have created all but the highest parts of Dartmoor, and maintained a large part of the Dartmoor first into territories (a little like our present landscape. Today over 90% of the land day parishes), and within those into long, within the National Park boundary is used narrow, parallel fields. Their main function for farming. Much of this area is both open was probably to control the movement of and enclosed moorland where livestock is stock, but there is some evidence that grazed, and the remainder is made up of prehistoric people were also growing fringe enclosed farmland which mainly cereals here. A climatic deterioration and the comprises improved grassland. In addition, spread of peat during the first millennium woods, shelterbelts, wetlands, rough pasture, BC (1000 - 1 BC), both resulting in poorer traditional buildings and archaeological grazing vegetation, contributed to the features all contribute to the character abandonment of the higher part of of the farmed land. Dartmoor during the later prehistoric period. The well-being of the hill farming community The Medieval Period is fundamental to the future of Dartmoor as a National Park in landscape, cultural, ecological Improvement of the climate in medieval times and enjoyment terms and for the viability and allowed the re-occupation of the moorland sustainability of the local rural community. fringes and river valleys. When this process Employment, care for the landscape and the began is unclear, but it is known that by the environment, tourism, family structure and 10th century AD new fields were being created life, tradition, rural services and businesses from the waste in places such as Holne Moor, are all inter-related. All these elements come and new settlements were being established. together to give us the Dartmoor we In many cases large fields nearest the know today. settlement, known as infields, were cultivated collectively by groups of farmers growing mainly oats and rye. The infields were often Farming History divided into narrow strips. On sloping ground these strips would appear as terraces, or strip Prehistory lynchets. Each farmer would work a number More than 8,000 years ago, when most of of dispersed individual strips within the field. Dartmoor was covered with trees, people Beyond the infields lay the outfields, where hunted wild animals. By about 2000 to 1500 the land was usually under pasture but BC most of the tree cover had been cleared cultivated periodically. This system of and Dartmoor had become an important collective farming gradually died out area for the grazing of sheep and cattle. towards the end of the medieval period. People lived either permanently or seasonally Strips, or groups of strips, became enclosed in circular stone huts called round houses. by hedgebanks and were held in single Hut circles, which are the remains of these occupancy. buildings, can be seen on many parts of the moor. Some are arranged in groups, some Most of the central part of the moor was are associated with small, irregular fields, unenclosed grazing land. At its core lay some lie within stone wall enclosures and the Forest of Dartmoor, not actually a forest others are in amongst large areas of but an area reserved first for the Kings of rectangular fields known as reave systems. England, and later for the Duchy of Cornwall, Dartmoor National Park Authority Farming on Dartmoor Factsheet July 2005 Page 1 of 6 for hunting deer and other game. By the Late 18th and 19th century mid-13th century a number of farms, now known as ancient tenements, had been farming established within the Forest. The tenants of these farms had grazing rights over the Forest. During the medieval period, tenants of the Between the Forest and the enclosed lands Duchy of Cornwall (the largest landowner on on the moorland fringes lay the commons. Dartmoor) had been allowed, at the change The commons provided grazing for farms of tenancy, to enclose an area of up to 3.2 within the neighbouring parishes. Areas hectares (8 acres) of the Forest of Dartmoor of common grazing were separated from for private use. These areas were known as enclosed lands by corn ditches comprising newtakes and were often larger than 8 acres a ditch and a vertical stone-faced bank because such enclosing was made exclusive of which discouraged stock from entering bog and rock. In the late 18th century a new fields from the moor. type of newtake emerged. At this time and on into the 19th century there was a strong movement towards enclosing very large areas of central Dartmoor in order to ‘improve’ rough moorland to rich pasture. Between 1820 and 1898 it was estimated that more than 6,070 hectares (15,000 acres) on Dartmoor had become newtakes. The experiment was, on the whole, a failure. Many of these large Open moor Corn ditch Field newtakes, bounded by distinctive granite dry stone walls, are today indistinguishable by their vegetation from the open moor. Sheep were probably the most numerous Farming today domestic animals in medieval times. The wool industry of Devon was a source of great Agriculture is just as important today in wealth in the county. Dartmoor, particularly shaping the Dartmoor landscape as it has those areas owned by the great monasteries been in the past. Dartmoor is a marginal of Buckfast, Buckland and Tavistock, was an upland farming area. This means that important provider of the raw material. In profits are low and, sometimes, non-existent. 1789 it was recorded that Dartmoor yielded The physical characteristics of this area - heavy pasture every summer to about 100,000 sheep. rain, low temperature, exposure to winds, Cattle were also kept by medieval farmers. and poor soil - mean that production of From the 12th to the 18th century the typical animals per hectare is low. Some activities, Dartmoor farmhouse was the longhouse, such as horticulture, arable farming and dairy where people and animals lived under a farming, are impossible or very restricted on common roof. much of Dartmoor. A large number of medieval farms on the The growing season for grass is shorter on higher slopes of the moor were abandoned Dartmoor than in the rest of lowland Devon. in the middle of the 14th century. This was This means that there is less grass, silage and due to a number of factors: first, a worsening hay produced for stock to eat. Farmers often in the weather around this time made farming have to buy additional forage from farms off on the higher land a hard business; second, the moor, and some farmers move some of the ravages of the Black Death in 1347-8, their livestock to lower land. which reduced the population of Devon by as much as two-thirds, provided a chance Types of farming on Dartmoor for farmers to move away from the harsher climate of the moor to farm more favourable land lower down. Farming on Dartmoor is almost exclusively livestock breeding based on grass production. Some cattle and sheep are sold to go to milder areas for fattening. On the fertile fringes of the National Park there is some dairy and arable farming. Dartmoor National Park Authority Farming on Dartmoor Factsheet July 2005 Page 2 of 6 There are three main types of farmland The hedgerows, small woods and rough valley on Dartmoor: bottoms form wildlife corridors connecting biodiversity ‘hotspots’. Amongst these are Moorland areas of the National Park comprise Dartmoor’s 1,100 hectares of Rhôs pasture - heather and rough grassland. Moorland species rich, wet, often heathy, grazing forms the heart of the National Park covering pasture (representing 20% of the English 50% of the total area (approximately 46,000 resource of this fast declining habitat) - and hectares). These areas are very exposed and around 20 hectares of nationally important cold in winter and have for centuries been upland hay meadows. However, it is the used as an extensive grazing ground for farm intimate mix of habitats that makes this stock - cattle, sheep and ponies. Only sheep landscape so rich for wildlife. and tough Dartmoor ponies can survive there without additional winter feeding. The open There are also three types of farm: moors are divided into separate areas called commons where certain local farmers, as High moorland farms (mostly owned by commoners, have rights to graze their the Duchy of Cornwall). These farms have animals. The rights are tied to the newtakes and relatively poor inbye fields, surrounding farmland. and there are common rights attached to each farm. The land usually has thinner, The Dartmoor Commoners’ Council, which poorer soils and colder weather than at was established in 1985 under the Dartmoor lower altitude. These farms are divided Commons Act, governs the exercise of by stone walls. rights, animal husbandry and vegetation management on the commons. Moorland Mid moor farms have common rights but no grazing rights are an essential part of many newtakes. Their inbye land is more productive. hill farm enterprises. All farming is strongly influenced by the regime of grants and Farms on the fringes of the National Park subsidies set within the European Common usually do not have common rights and they Agricultural Policy (CAP). have no newtakes. Their inbye land is even more productive, being at lower altitude and Newtakes are enclosed areas of moorland on having better soils. These farms are divided the edge of common land.