This film has taken me down memory lane.My family and I spent many happy holidays around Exmoor.It has been lovely to see all the places that we visited the most favourite being Tarr Steps.Thankyou for a lovely film.
My family lived in Badgeworthy cottage before it was destroyed during the War. Badgeworthy was a British/Saxon homestead and a hamlet until after Norman times. The 'church' took over the hamlet and a hermitage of monks lived there for centuries. After the Reformation , the monks were dispersed and became vagrants, some living nomadic lives until their deaths, in the valley. After this Cant and other criminal types hid in Badgeworthy. Later, Scottish bandits lived there. Origin of the Doone tale. When Knight civilised the area, stones from the hermitage were used to build the shepherds cottage. Very few locals would remain there, stories of haunting by monks began and demonic voices. Later, in Fred Knight's time Scottish shepherds from Dumfries came to live there.. devout Bible Christian folk who were not worried about talk of ghosts. Badgeworthy was a very tough life for these families, work was a means of survival in this wildest part of Exmoor. My grandmother would carry a copper boiler to the river to boil the clothes clean. Water was collected from the river. Children made baskets and roamed the moor collecting berries and mushrooms and herbs. The gardens and animal huts brought daily foods. Grew very resilient and resourceful men who filled the ranks of the Somerset Light Infantry in two World Wars.
