Exmoor

Exmoor is without doubt one of the most diverse and beautiful places to visit in England or Europe, From the heather coated moorland hills where you can hear the call of the Sky Lark, the shrill cry of a Buzzard soaring high on warm thermals and our integral piece of living history, the Exmoor Pony.  From these wide open spaces you can make your way down to the luscious wooded valleys of the rivers Barle and Exe where you can see Dippers, Kingfishers and perhaps our Red Deer. If you're walking quietly there is the chance you could see Badgers, Fox, Herons or even one of a pair of the resident Otters.

The Punchbowl	Bluebell Woods

Come and enjoy our unspoilt peaceful countryside. Walk through the Bluebell Wood at the top of Winsford Hill in Spring and enjoy seeing groups of Exmoor ponies. Enjoy nature at its best.

The Exmoor Pony

The Exmoor Pony is as much a part of Exmoor as the moorland themselves. When watching a herd of Exmoor ponies you are literally watching history in action, the Island of Gotland in the Baltic, southeast of Sweden hosts an ancient race of pony. The Gotland-Russ pony has lived on the island since at least the third millennium BC, usually standing at around twelve hands high and brown in colour.

It is thought that they migrated there in the wake of the retreating glaciers at the end of the last glacial period of the Pleitocene ( current ) Ice Age. But even further back in history, according to recent fossil records is the Exmoor Pony, dark brown in colour and on average maybe a little smaller than the Gotland-Russ. The Exmoor Pony has survived with little or no detectable changes for over one million years! It may be that the Exmoor Pony is a descendant of the Alaska Pony, due to having the same jaw structure.

 

 

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