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[corkcitylibraries]

Lorna Doone and Exmoor

by Ann Riordan

Statue of Lorna Doone at Dulverton - the Gateway to Exmoor. Image © Ann Riordan

“I never saw any one like you before. My name is John Ridd. What is your name?” “Lorna Doone,” she answered, in a low voice, as if afraid of it, and hanging her head so that I could see only her forehead and eyelashes; “if you please, my name is Lorna Doone; and I thought you must have known it.”

As I planned our holiday to Exmoor this year, I was aware that it was the setting for Richard Doddridge Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone. The full title of the novel is Lorna Doone: a Romance of Exmoor, so you could say the clue is in the name. When we arrived for our holiday, it was immediately apparent that there was something special going on. 2019 marks 150 years since the publication of Lorna Doone, with events happening all over Exmoor, from talks and exhibitions, to book club events, even a jeep safari to places mentioned in the novel!

The events in Lorna Doone take place 150 years prior to the writing of the novel, and R.D. Blackmore himself was quick to shun the idea that it was a historical novel. He was very influenced by Walter Scott, but felt he could not live up to the historical novel standard, preferring to call it a romance instead. He says in the preface:

 "This work is called a “romance,” because the incidents, characters, time, and scenery, are alike romantic. And in shaping this old tale, the Writer neither dares, nor desires, to claim for it the dignity or cumber it with the difficulty of an historic novel.”

 Image source: Project Gutenberg

A quick summary: The novel is narrated by John Ridd, known in the local dialect as Jan. He falls in love with Lorna, who is part of the notorious Doone family "those bloody Doones of Bagworthy, the awe of all Devon and Somerset, outlaws, traitors, murderers". However Lorna is promised to evil Carver Doone. When Lorna is revealed to be the kidnapped long-lost daughter of a wealthy family, she is taken to London. Civil war intervenes, Jan Ridd distinguishes himself and is rewarded with a title. He and Lorna return to Oare to be married, but Carver enters the church with a gun....

I remember reading Lorna Doone when I was younger, but being in the area, surrounded by moors, stone bridges and bubbling streams, I felt compelled to read it again. Exmoor is beautiful, there is no doubt. It is several landscapes, not just one, from coastal cliffs, to high moors, to damp valleys. The moors are filled with colour - yellow, purple, brown, green - bracken, grass, heather and twisted trees. We saw the wild Exmoor ponies most days. 

Exmoor ponies near Dunkerry Beacon. Image © Ann Riordan

The valleys, where Lorna Doone is set are leafy. Beech and holly trees predominate, in many cases meeting overhead turning the winding roads into tunnels of green. Moss covered stone walls and hedgerows line the roads. There are so many streams and fords - chattering and babbling, going wherever the roads go.

We visited many places from the novel - Malmstead, Oare, Dulverton. It was easy to picture Lorna and Jan meeting and falling in love by a stream. It was easy to imagine the Doones going about their outlaw business and taking full advantage of the muddy wild landscape to make their escapes.

Badgworthy Water at Malmstead. Image © Ann Riordan

Lorna Doone Inn at Malmstead. Image © Ann Riordan.

Church at Oare, where Lorna and Jan Ridd get married. Image © Ann Riordan.

The places are still very much like they are described in the novel - a credit to the conservation efforts of the Exmoor National Park, and their predecessors, the Knight family who purchased the Exmoor Royal Forest in 1818 and set about creating a working, thriving, rural commmunity.

The bridge at Withypool. Image © Ann Riordan

Lanacre Bridge. Image © Ann Riordan

“...above Tarr-steps, a wonderful crossing of Barle river, made (as everybody knows) by Satan, for a wager.”

  Tarr Steps. Image © Ann Riordan.

As much as the landscape enhanced my reading, it took me a while to hear the dialect in my mind's ear. Has anyone got a 1700s Somerset-English dictionary please?

“Bad job for he as her had not got thiccy the naight as her coom acrass them Doones. Rackon Varmer Jan 'ood a-zhown them the wai to kingdom come, 'stead of gooin' herzel zo aisy.”

But once my ear grew accustomed, and I set my modern #metoo cynicism aside, I found the story exciting, full of villainy and redemption, twists and chases. It is still certainly worth a read today.

Incidentally, Lorna Doone isn’t the only literary work associated with this area - Tarka The Otter by Henry Williamson is set in North Devon; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a regular visitor to the Quantock Hills. Both have hiking trails named for them. I will just have to go back!

Check our library catalogue at www.corkcitylibraries.ie to reserve your copy of Lorna Doone, or if you can't wait, visit Project Gutenberg at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17460 and download an ebook copy.

Reference:

1.  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17460/17460-h/images/map-th.jpg

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