VIRTUAL tours of an ancient shepherd family’s home on Exmoor are being created with the aid of a National Lottery grant.

The Friends of Hoar Oak Cottage has been awarded a grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to use drone photography to make the tours.

Hoar Oak Cottage is a well-loved heritage building located in a very remote and, for many, difficult to access part of Exmoor.

It is a long walk across beautiful but rugged moorland to Hoar Oak Cottage which was once home to generations of shepherds.

The cottage is of interest to local people, descendants of the shepherd families, those with links to sheep farming on Exmoor, and anybody with an interest in the history, heritage, agriculture, landscape, and wildlife, of Exmoor or life from earlier, more ‘natural’ times.

The grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund will enable the friends to work with local photographer Shaun Davey to create four ‘virtual’ walks which will take people on different routes to the cottage as well as a look around inside the cottage and its gardens.

This project will deliver improved inclusion, access, and participation to this remote example of Exmoor heritage sitting in a protected landscape.

The project will enable the friends to deliver one of its sustainability aims by creating a lasting legacy of digital access to the cottage.

The friends are delighted to have received this support from the Heritage Fund.

Thanks to lottery players this piece of Exmoor’s heritage will be accessible to so many more people through drone photography and digital media.

The friends is a not-for-profit charity started by descendants of three of the shepherd families who once lived and worked at this remote cottage.

The aim of the friends is to find, research, save and share the history of the cottage and stories of the families who once lived there.