In A Drover’s Footsteps

In A Drover's Footsteps by Simon Whaley

(In A Drover’s Footsteps was published in Life in the Marches and Wye Valley Life)

For centuries, drovers from across Wales used the Kerry Ridgeway to drive cattle, sheep and even geese across the English / Welsh border before dropping down into the market town of Bishop’s Castle. Often, many ploughed on for several hundred miles, taking their stock to bigger markets in Birmingham, Oxford, Bristol, and London. Those bustling, financially rewarding markets were a world away from the tranquillity of this relatively level route and remain so even today.

Following in the footsteps of these drovers, a 15-mile stretch of this route can be enjoyed by walkers, cyclists, and horse riders. Starting from a minor road high in the hills above Newtown, Powys, the Kerry Ridgeway strikes out across the rolling hills on its gentle climb onto Kerry Hill. The start, beside Cider House Farm on the B4355, was once a drovers’ inn. It’s remote, understated, and on a spring or summer’s day, accompanied by the nostalgic notes of numerous skylarks.

The ancient ridgeway route doesn’t always follow the top of these gently rolling hills, but the outstanding views delightfully alternate from left to right. It never drops below 1,000 feet above sea level and on a clear day those views can stretch for 70 miles. The vistas to the left and right also have a geological twist, for Kerry Hill marks the dividing watershed. Streams running off to the left ultimately flow into the River Severn, whilst those on the right end up in the Wye.

Master drovers often carried letters, valuables, and money between towns, providing a basic postal system. This transfer system also facilitated financial transactions between areas. It was drovers who established the first private banks in the rural regions like Carmarthenshire. If asked to take money to London, they would simply leave the money at home, use the droving routes to take their stock to market, sell that and use the proceeds from those sales to deliver the money to its intended destination. Security of their animals was therefore a high priority and the Kerry Ridgeway’s altitude and extensive vantage points offered that protection.

Driving stock for long distances meant looking after their feet, so cattle were often fitted with iron shoes and even the geese wore boots. It was the arrival of the railways that led to the end of droving. The last recorded large-scale droving of sheep across Wales was in 1900, although during a brief railway strike in 1912, droving was briefly resurrected, but it didn’t survive.

The ridgeway gets its name from the village of Kerry, which is also where today’s users may see the local breed of sheep, which were driven along this route to local markets. The Kerry sheep were popular in these parts, being both versatile and sturdy animals capable of surviving in this environment. They often provide a perfect excuse for a smile, having white wool and white faces, with the exception of black patches around their eyes, mouths, and knees.

In places the ridgeway forms part of the English / Welsh border and, near Pantglas, it dissects Offa’s Dyke, originally constructed around 760AD and designed to stop cattle rustling, as well as raids between the English and Welsh.

The route ends where it drops gently down through high-hedged narrow lanes into the market town of Bishop’s Castle, which for many drovers was just a stopover point on their journey towards Ludlow and beyond.

(c) Simon Whaley