Site Event/Activity record EEM14147 - 2013: GPS - Hoaroak Valley landscape study

Hoaroak Cottage, an abandoned 19th Century farmstead, has been the focus of informed conservation work by the Exmoor National Park Authority in 2010-13. It lies at the heart of the Hoaroak Valley, which contains a wealth of historic landscape features reflecting the importance of this part of Exmoor from the Neolithic period onwards. Numerous standing stones and stone settings were placed around the valley around 6000 years ago, and several large burial cairns were used by medieval farmers to mark out the boundaries of their fields. Four Bronze Age round houses, an enclosure and several fields, lie at the heart of a newly discovered settlement complex on the west facing slopes of Cheriton Ridge, opposite Hoaroak Cottage. Routes across Exmoor Forest towards Brendon and the coast used the valley and the higher ground on Exe Plain, and by c. AD 1200 a hamlet of two farms was established close to the prehistoric settlements on Cheriton Ridge. These farms worked two large blocks of fields, growing arable crops and keeping livestock, until c. AD 1400. Periodic cultivation of these fields continued in the post-medieval period.