DARTMOOR?S association with farming goes back over 5,000 years, and a new book by Stephen Woods describes how the oldest occupation in human history has been carried out on the moor from the earliest written records to the final disappearance of horse power in the 1940s.

Packed with photographs from the author?s collection and personal albums, the book draws on personal reminiscences and memories from local people, but principally on a fascinating set of diaries kept by the Hannaford family of Southcombe, Widecombe-in-the-Moor in the years from 1896-1968.

Despite harsh weather conditions, poor soils and steep slopes, farmers have continued to maintain the landscape of Dartmoor over the centuries, and although the methods and practices have changed ,the year round tasks of sowing, harvesting and lambing have not.

The book tells of the traditional Dartmoor farmstead with the farmer living in a simple one-roomed building known as a longhouse ? in times gone by the family would occupy one end and the animals the other.

Many of the 14th and 15th Century longhouses, which still stand today, remain the foundation of farms on Dartmoor, built into the slope of the land due to the undulating nature of the moor or protected by higher ground on the weather side.

As well as focusing on the role of the farmer and of course his wife, who the book quotes did ?simply everything plus bearing children and other wifely duties?, Dartmoor Farm also features ancient rights of Common and Forest, stone walls and hedges, the farm labourer, preparing the land, haymaking and cider plus farm inventories.

One section of the book is given over to farm animals from sheep to swine (pigs), rabbits to farmyard birds. Interestingly sheep had a very chequered history in agriculture - in Anglo Saxon times the sheep was a producer of milk for cheese, later its fleece was an important commodity, making sheep too valuable to eat and it was centuries before these animals were kept purely to produce meat.

The book reveals that rabbits were once an important part of Dartmoor farm economy and certainly not regarded as pests as they are nowadays. Rabbit meat and fur were vital commodities and a staple source of food for the farmer and his workforce.

It was a hard life for a Dartmoor farmer and the nature of the land was etched on his face and hands. The book states a farmer was likely never to leave his land and for centuries he and his family were unlikely ever to have any formal education, yet he had the knowledge of good husbandry, which was all he needed.

While Dartmoor presented a hostile farming environment, the moors provided fuel for the hearth by way of turf and coppiced wood provided poles for fencing or roosts for poultry and timber the handles of a spade, prang, twobill and rake.

New crops and methods would be slow in coming, yet the farmer was ready to adopt new ideas once he had seen them proven.

Over the centuries a new breed of cattle, the Ruby Red of Devon and the Whitefaced Dartmoor sheep, were developed to make the most of the high moorland environment.

Born in London in 1929, Stephen Woods? passion for Dartmoor sprang from holidays taken at his grandparents home near Widecombe-in-the-Moor.

He became a Royal Navy photographer and later taught his subject to students, frequently visiting Dartmoor to take photographs of the landscape.

His book Dartmoor Stone first published in 1988 is a recognised regional classic and he is the author of two other publications on Widecombe-in-the-Moor.

Dartmoor Farm published by Halsgrove is priced at £24.95 and available from local book shops.