The vanished village was on the Wiltshire Downs. This flourishing
community is in Exmoor Forest, so called because it was entirely treeless. The " King's allotment " of 10,000 acres was sold in 1819 to Mr. Knight of Worcestershire who bought and enclosed other land till the whole, which he walled round, amounted to 20,000 acres. It was advertised by the Crown as waste land ; and was almost treeless, manless, houseless, roadless. To-day, thanks wholly to the Knight family, it carries a village, fifteen equipped farms, with 200 horses, 1,000 cattle, more than 10,000 sheep. Here " for all time has been created a . . . thriving community, con- tributing in men and material to the welfare of the State." The reclamation, of which the details are now for the first
time collated, and, indeed, discovered, is certainly one of the greatest achievements of its kind that the nineteenth century has to show." More than this : those who wish to do likewise will find here both inspiration and the true technique of
reclamation.
Previous page
