Exmoor National Park, straddling the border of Somerset and Devon in southwest England, was one of the first ten national parks designated in Britain, established in 1954 following the same 1949 legislation that created the country’s original national park system. The park is home to the Exmoor pony, one of Britain’s oldest and most genetically distinct native horse breeds, believed to have roamed this landscape largely unmanaged in some form since prehistoric times, their hardiness allowing them to survive the moor’s harsh winters with minimal human intervention.
Exmoor’s high, open moorland, much of it covered in heather that turns a vivid purple each August, sits alongside deep wooded valleys and a dramatic coastline, giving the park a genuinely varied landscape within a relatively compact area.
England’s Only Dark Sky Reserve of Its Kind
Exmoor was designated Europe’s first International Dark Sky Reserve in 2011, a recognition of the exceptionally low light pollution across the park, a rarity in densely populated southern England, that allows for genuinely clear views of the night sky largely unaffected by nearby urban glow. This distinction has made Exmoor a specific destination for stargazing, drawing visitors for astronomical events that would be invisible from most of the rest of the country.
Exmoor’s coastline includes some of the highest sea cliffs in England, and the park’s combination of coast, moor, and woodland has made it a significant filming location over the decades, its rugged, largely unspoiled scenery standing in for wilder, more remote landscapes in numerous productions.
Painting Wild Moorland Beneath Open Sky
Exmoor’s heather-covered moors and free-roaming ponies give a watercolourist rich purple and gold colour against wide open sky to work with. We’ve captured that character in our own Exmoor Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of England for a wall at home.
Home to ponies that have barely needed managing and skies dark enough to earn international recognition, Exmoor remains a park whose wildness has always been genuinely, deliberately protected.