MEM23048 - Horsen Farm, Exmoor (Building)

Farmstead shown on 1st Ed Ordnance Survey Map [1] This was one of several farms built by Frederick Knight and let around 1844 including Warren Farm, Emmet's Grange, Horsen, Wintershead and Crooked Post. [2] Horsen Farm is one of eleven surviving model farms built by the Knight family in the period between 1842 and 1852 and which formed the basis of the family's endeavor to reclaim previously uncultivated land within the former Exmoor Royal Forest. Horsen Farmstead was erected in 1845, the first tenant took up occupation in 1849. The Knight farms demonstrate a number of distinctive characteristics including atypical farmyard arrangement that consists of a near square plan yard enclosed by farm buildings with the farmhouse situated in one corner of the group. The farmstead at Horsen has a typical Knight plan which resemble 'a typical moorland farm' published by Robert Smith in 1856. Frederick Knight endeavoured to ensure that, as far as possible, the farms were built using the existing resources of the estate, evident at Horsen particularly in the thin slately rubble walls. [3, 4] A letter written by Robert Smith in October 1850 notes that materials had been reused "from the old Cow Shed and Piggeries at Horsen". [5] This record was enhanced as part of the National Record of the Historic Environment to Exmoor National Park Historic Environment Record data transfer project. [6]