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Exmoor
HONEYMEAD FARM AND SIR ROBERT WALEY-COHEN
ORIGINS AND EARLY YEARS
Honeymead farm, south of the main route from Exford to Combe Martin two miles east of
Simonsbath, was one of the first new farms in the former Exmoor forest. Frederic Knight
changed the policy of the estate from demesne farming with labourers to large tenanted farms.
He hoped to attract men with capital and experience committed to modern methods and
improvement. He advertised widely but especially in the East Midlands. In 1842 Honeymead
with 2,100 a. was taken at £740 on a 12-year lease. 180 dairy cows were kept using dairymen
from Somerset and Dorset and Southdown sheep, which were later replaced with Exmoor
horn. Unfortunately the sheep ate the cow pasture because there were no fences between the
improved and unimproved grass. Eventually Honeymead was used as a summer farm because
of the high cost of overwintering livestock and the farm and its cottages were all empty on
Census day 1851. Thereafter, however, it was regularly tenanted, notably by the Rudd family
who had increased the farm to 700 a. by 1881.1
SIR ROBERT WALEY COHEN
In 1927 the industrialist Sir Robert Waley Cohen bought c. 1,745 a. including Honeymead in
Exmoor parish from Lord Fortescue. He settled in Honeymead at Christmas 1928 with his
family, several servants, and a Rolls and thereafter spent most weekends there and served on
the Rural District council. He kept dairy cattle and a prize-winning flock of Exmoor sheep,
made 75 a. of hay, grew potatoes, oats, turnips and rape, and was noted for paying good
wages. The outbreak of war helped to make the estate profitable. The heather moor was
ploughed for corn and potatoes. He built cottages and shippons of concrete blocks and
1
Orwin, & Sellick, Reclamation of Exmoor Forest, 255; TNA, HO 107/936, 965, 1890.
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asbestos slates in 1940—41 to house the Friesian cows he bought at Reading. Honeymead
farm (916 a.) was one of the few in Exmoor to be A rated in 1941 and supported 94 cattle,
1,123 sheep, 37 pigs and 176 poultry. In 1944 he paid £1,400 for a bull to improve the dairy
herd and by 1967 had 319 pedigree Devon cattle including 6 bulls. He introduced machinery,
not always successfully, and employed a farm mechanic. In 1941 he had a tractor and seven
engines in the yard but also used two waterwheels and six working horses. He bought a lorry
and a powered binder for cutting corn. From 1941 to 1965 the waterwheels generated
electricity. During the Second World War he organised dances and converted a hut into a
small cinema. In 1967 Honeymead farm, Exmoor, had a lambing shed, a new covered yard,
two silage barns, tractor house, and new staff bungalow. 2
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2
TNA, MAF 32/133/93; SRO, Exmoor Oral Archive; ibid. A/BAZ 2/9; Henriques, R, Sir Robert WaleyCohen, 1877—1952 (1966), 297—8, 377, 392, 402—5.
Mary Suirat
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Mary Suirat
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