Where shepherds watch

The striking, dark-grey Herdwick sheep, with its appealing white face and strong homing instinct, is integral to the culture and economy of the Lake District, but farmers feel their way of life is under threat. Tessa Waugh reports

- Tessa Waugh

IN a normal year, more than 15 million people visit the Lake District to enjoy its captivating fusion of jagged mountains, crystalline waters and rolling green pasture. It’s a glorious landscape, but, as is the case with any other, it didn’t evolve alone. At its heart is the indigenous population of Herdwick sheep—the name derives from herdwyck, an ancient word for pasture—and the families who have farmed it for centuries. For these people, this place is more than a crucial tourist attraction, it’s a workplace and a home and, at present, they feel increasingly vulnerable.

Some 95% of the national Herdwick flock lives in commercial flocks in the central and western dales of the Lake District. The breed probably arrived in Viking times, developing its singular traits, such as the lavishly layered grey fleece (thought to dry out faster than the white fleeces of its cousins) with a hairy outer that doesn’t part in vicious winds. The sheep may look endearing with their white, teddy-bear faces, but, among native hill flocks—Britain’s hardiest breeds —Herdwicks are the toughest of all, grazing at heights of up to 3,000ft and tolerating Britain’s highest rainfall counts.

As well as their refined physical attributes, Herdwicks possess a strong ‘hefting’ instinct, which means that, on a vast, unfenced fell, a flock will not stray beyond the area where it was reared. In turn, those sheep rear their young on that same portion of the fell and so on through the generations, enabling two or more separate farmers to graze the same fell without trespassing on each other’s ground.