BU Research Blog

For the past 15 years Dr Sean Beer has been working with a conservation charity called the Exmoor Society. Since the society was founded in the late 1950s there have been 61 editions of the Society’s journal, the Exmoor Review, containing some 2,659 articles. These articles, written by local people, academics, and policy makers,  represent a unique resource examining the social, economic, and environmental history of Exmoor from the geological past, to the present day and into the future.

The review is available online, however, only as unsearchable PDF files. The index will allow those who are interested to search for information which they can then look up in the appropriate edition of the journal. A future project will be to fully digitize the content.

The society was originally formed to protect the uplands of Exmoor from afforestation (the right tree is great in the right place – current policymakers please take note!).  Exmoor, in the south-west of England, was made a National Park in 1954 and is famous not only for its landscape, and the richness of its natural environment and history, but also for its many literary connections as exemplified by the work of RD Blackmore, Henry Williamson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

Sean will be updating the index on a yearly basis and intends to continue his work with the society, particularly with regard to developing research projects relating to the area and its social, economic, and environmental future.