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ROUGH FELL
This breed is found almost exclusively on the fells of Cumbria and the Northern Penines [spelling in image?]. It is a large hill sheep, with strong curly horns in both the male and female. The Rough Fell produces a fleece of long, coarse wool which is used in carpet manufacturing where its characteristics of bulk, resilience and warmth are prized for hard-wearing carpet which will maintain its appearance.
[image of large sheep with horns on a hill]
SHEEP TODAY
2001 has not been a good year for the British sheep. Flocks across the nation have been eliminated en masse to halt the spread of foot and mouth disease. Once a symbol of purity and innocence, the sheep has now come to signify the horrors of pestilence and the amorality of intensive modern farming. However, the sight of carcasses piling up in fields awaiting incineration and burial is only the latest ignominy to hit the beleaguered British bleater. For in recent times the sheep has never been seen as a noble, let alone beautiful, beast. Text Stephen Escritt
It speaks volumes that prior to foot and mouth the two words most likely to prefix 'the' and 'sheep' were Dolly and Shaun. The former a prophetic glimpse of the Huxleyesque genetic manipulation of a nightmare future world, the latter a hapless yet cute victim saved from his own stupidity by Wallace and Gromit in order to be granted most favoured rucksack status by the Bridget Jones generation. Surely there is more to sheep than this? We city dwellers must overcome our ignorance, confront our 21st Century ruralist prejudices and rescue the sheep from these desperate doldrums. We would do well to begin remembering that the sheep has not always been [text continues in next image]
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WELSH MOUNTAIN
Welsh mountain sheep are extrememely[spelling in image?] hardy and active. They thrive in areas of heavy rainfall and at levels where the grazing is sparse and their wool is softer than that produced by other mountain breeds. At one time it would supply much of the Welsh woolen industry making rough flannels and tweeds, giving an individual appearance through its tendency to coloured grey, red or black fibres. Today it is used world wide, mostly for carpets.
[image of enormously pompom-like sheep]
[text continued from previous image]regarded as a stupid beast, synonymous with the herd instinct -- lambs were not always to the slaughter. The lamb is the symbol of Christian piety -- of Christ in his sacrificial role -- while the image of the noble horned ram had pride of place at the heart of elegant neoclassical architecture and design. By the 19th Century, the hardy ewe on the windswept hillside was synonymous with the romantic idyll of the English countryside, while its fleece, paradoxically, provided the impetus for the inexorable rise of the great industrial towns of northern England.
Central to modern urban ignorance is the myth of the homogeneous sheep. the fluffy cotton wool ball with black stick legs of the junior school classroom wall masks the incredible diversity of breeds. of the 200 or so breeds throughout the world, The National Sheep Association lists 77 pure breeds in Britain today, and a further nine recognised half-breeds. Flicking through the pages of the ninth edition of the NSA's British Sheep reveals the wealth of variety to be found. From the wild-eyed Hebridean with its black fleece and menacing horns, native to the Western Isles and thought to be descended from Viking animals, to the tightly fleeced Beltex, a Belgian breed first imported into Britain as recently as 1989, the procession of breeds display complex differences in character, fleece and also use.[text continues in next image]
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CLUN FOREST
Originally Clun Forest sheep grazed on the border hills of Shropshire, Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire, and took their name from the market town of Clun. Today they are found in many lowland areas of the UK and further afield. The Clun Ewe is also crossed with a border Leicester ram to produce and English halfbreed. Their wool is dense, fine and of uniform quality throughout. It is a short, downland wool and general y[spelling in image?] used in knitting yarns, woolen cloth and felt.
[image of prim rectangular sheep]
[text continued from previous image] Even more surprising than the variety of sheep in Britain today is the rarity of some of these breeds. Although the December 2000 census of British farm animals (but how did they hold the pens?) revealed there to be 21,406,000 breeding sheep in Britain, there are a number of breeds which are considered endangered by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. The Leicester Longwool, with it[spelling in image?] distinctive dreadlock-like coat, dwindled drastically in the 1960s and 70s before undergoing a revival recently due to the commercial viability of its fleece, while the Norfolk Horn, one of the oldest breeds in Britain remains beleaguered despire small increases in number recently.
The wonderfully named Castlemilk Moorit is the most endangered British breed and is currently classified by the RBST as 'critical'. This long-legged, light-tan sheep was specially developed in the early 1900s by Sir Jock Buchanan-Jardine on his estate at Castlemilk in Dumfriesshire. A committed aesthete Sir Jock wanted brown sheep to adorn his park and provide wool clothing for his workers. He crossed Shetland ewes with Manx Loghtan and Mouflon rams and the result was, according to British Sheep, "a prolific, graceful and agile parkland sheep having a distinct presence while retaining the desirable primitive qualities of the constituent breeds." Tragedy struck for the breed when the original flock was dispersed in 1970,[text continues in next image]
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A white-faced hill sheep, with a distinctive 'ruff; behind the ears, has been run in the Scottish Borders for many years and exported round the world. Its crisp, white, lustrous wool which will hold and reflect dye colouring well and give 'handle' and body to cloth, has been long recognised by Scottish cloth manufacturers who use it most for rugged country clothing and, when blended with finer wools, for elegant jacketing fabrics.
[image of sheep in front of a stone wall]
[text continued from previous image]but nine ewes and a ram were accidentally saved from slaughter and the entire breed today is descended from those ten animals.
Our view of farming may have become increasingly cynical during the 1990s, but no-one should deny the skills of the sheep farmer. For most of us, direct experience of the art of sheepfarming stops with One Man and His Dog, still surviving in the rump of the BBC's sports coverage left behind by the digital age.
But while we almost certainly do not know our bields from our buchts (shelters and gathering pens) and would be quite rightly baffled by talk of twinters and thrunters (two and three year-old ewes), we should salute the sheep as one of the cornerstones of human civilisation. Sheep and man go back a long way. Remains discovered at sites of early human habitation in the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia reveal that sheep were first domesticated from the wild around 5000BC. A constant throughout the history of farming, the rearing of sheep has deviated less from traditional methods than other sectors of modern agriculture.
Unlike intensive chemically fueled agri-business, most sheep farming today is relatively environmentally benign. Grazing involves little or no input of pesticides and artificial chemicals, while sheep are widely regarded as the best natural 'lawn mowers' when it comes to preserving and enhancing the[text continues in next image]
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EXMOOR HORN
The Exmoor Horn has a strong constitution. it grows a gold fleece of medium-length wool with a softer handle than is usually found in hill breeds. Exmoor Horn wool felts particularly well and gives an excellent finish to fabrics, such as regimental and billiard cloths for which the West Country was once famed. Indeed, this one of the local British breeds whose wool helped to estab ish[spelling in image?] the reputation of that industry when it relied solely on home grown wools
[image of smug looking sheep with enormous horns and yellowy tinge]
[text continued from previous image]growth of indigenous plant species in areas such as dry heaths or heather moors. While there is often a conflict between the economic and ecological demands placed on modern agriculture, certain types of sheep farming provide the most effective balance between the two.
Yet sheep farmers were experiencing troubled waters prior to foot and mouth. Over recent years the consumption of lamb in Britain has fallen, particularly in relation to pork and chicken. It is the most expensive meat and recent demographic research has revealed that lamb-eating, like regular church-going, is more popular among the over-45s. A significant proportion of British lamb was exported, primarily to France where the meat is less unfashionable, however foot and mouth will inevitably have a significant ongoing impact on this trade. Although the Meat and Livestock Commission's Sheep Strategy Council has identified younger consumers as a target group, through their 'Quick Lamb' campaign, there is no doubt lamb does still have an image problem. Sheep's milk is a further form of income for sheep farmers and one which is set to increase. Although more expensive and higher in fat than cow's milk, ewe's milk is responsible for some of the world's greatest cheeses (Roquefort, Pecorino and Feta), and the production of English ewe's milk cheeses is on the increase.[text continues in next image]
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WENSLEYDALE
The 'rastafarian' of the sheep breeds, the Wensleydale is characterized by its long, lustrous and curly fleece. It is used, normally blended with other shorter fibred wools, for its silky handle and appearance. The breed was developed in North Yorkshire in the 19th Century to provide rams for crossing onto hill breeds. A large sheep, recognised for its longevity, it is not numerous in Britain, but British stocks have provided the basis of small flocks in other parts of Europe and the USA.
[Two curly-fleeced sheep]
[text continued from previous image]Truth be told, the reason that young fashionable urban types should learn to love the sheep is simple: wool. Often imitated, but never bettered, wool consistently survives the vagaries of fashion and has proved as hardy as the Boreray, Britain's only feral sheep which thrives in the wild on the remote island of Boreray, 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides. As with England midfield players (David Batty, Dennis Wise et al), wools produced in Britain are generally coarser and more resilient than those of southern Europe, and although accounting for only 3% of world population, British wools are valued worldwide. The smooth texture and appearance of the wools of the Bluefaced Leicester, Teeswater and Masham breeds make them some of the most prestigious in the British wool. Shorter fleeced downland breeds, such as Suffolk, Clun and Dorset are predominantly used in knitwear yarns of for the Japanese futon market.
So just as the British sheep reaches it[spelling in image?] nadir, the moment has arrived for us to rediscover and celebrate the animal which is so much a part of the landscape of our nation. Finally cured of our ignorance we will soon forget foot and mouth and 2002 will see the beginning of the sheep's long awaited Renaissance. Bring on the Swaledale ★
Big thanks to the British Wool Marketing Board: www.britishwool.org.uk
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a note: 'jock' is i think a nickname for john buchanan-jardine
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