DROVE encyclopedia topics

Description

Drovers' roads are often wider than other roads, so that they could accommodate large herds or flocks. Packhorse ways were quite narrow as the horses moved in single file, whereas drove roads were at least wide, sometimes upto wide. In the United Kingdom, where many original drovers' roads have been converted into single carriageway metalled roads, unusually wide verges often give an indication of the road's origin. In Wales, the start of many droveways, drovers roads are often recognisable by being deeply set into the countryside, with high earth walls or hedges. The most characteristic feature of these roads is the occasional dog-leg turn in the road which provided cover for animals and men in severe rain or snow. Some drovers roads had to cross mountains and it is likely that the so-called Roman steps in the Rhinogydd in Wales are an example of a drove road.

Drovers

The people using such routes were called drovers. They accompanied their livestock either on foot or on horseback, travelling substantial distances. Rural England, Wales and Scotland are crossed by numerous drove roads that were used for this trade, many of which are now no more than tracks, and some lost altogether. The word "drover" is used for those engaged in long distance trade – distances which could cover much of the length of Britain or other world regions where droving was used – while "driver" was used for those taking cattle to local markets. Drovers used dogs to help control the stock, and these would sometimes be sent home alone after a drove, retracing their outward route and stopping at the same places; the drover would pay for their food in advance on the outward journey.

Early history

Some form of drovers' roads existed in Romano-British times and certainly throughout the Early Middle Ages. For example, the old east-west drovers' road connecting the Dorset/Exeter region with London and thence Suffolk is along a similar alignment to the Roman road of the same route.

Drove as a placename can be traced to the early 13th century, and there are records of cattle driven from Wales to London and sheep from Lincolnshire to York in the early 14th century. Drovers from Scotland were licensed in 1359 to drive stock through England. These may be simply the earliest records of a more ancient trade. There is increasing evidence for large-scale cattle rearing in Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain. Cattle and sheep were part of the Romano-British economy. By the Anglo-Saxon period there was long distance movement of cattle, including stolen stock.

What is certain is that during the medieval period there was a substantial trade in cattle out of Wales into England, to which cattle from Ireland were added. These were driven across Somerset, Wiltshire and Berkshire to feed the growing population of London.

17th century onwards

By the 17th century Daniel Defoe described Smithfield as the greatest meat market in the world. In 1855 it was moved to the outskirts of the city, to a site known as the Caledonian Market on Caledonian Road, Islington, to avoid the problems of large numbers of stock being driven through the streets. Cattle were also driven to other major cities, to areas of intermediate grazing to be fattened for market, and to markets and fairs. Many of the greatest stock fairs, such as Tan Hill, Yarnbury and White Sheet in Wiltshire, were held on ancient sites to which cattle were driven for centuries, perhaps since prehistoric times.

In addition, geese, turkeys, pigs, and horses were also driven to markets, and in large quantities to London. Cattle were fitted with iron shoes, geese were fitted with boots to protect their feet, and the feet of turkeys were tarred and sanded. Daniel Defoe recorded that 150,000 turkeys were driven from East Anglia to London each year, the journey taking three months to complete. There is a record of a wager in 1740 on whether geese or turkeys would travel faster – the winner being the geese which could graze as they moved, while the turkeys had to stop to be fed.

The task of controlling herds of three or four hundred animals on narrow droves, keeping them healthy, and feeding them en route over several weeks required expertise and authority. There was licensing under the legislation intended to control badgers, although it seems to have been less rigorously applied to drovers. They were also exempted from the Disarming Acts of 1716 and 1748, which were passed after Jacobite uprisings. They were not necessarily literate but were respected as experts in their trade. The regularity of the Welsh trade across Wiltshire is proved by an inscription in Welsh on a cottage at Stockbridge, still visible in the twentieth century: "Satisfactory hay, sweet pasture, good ale and a comfortable bed".

Much of the trade in cattle from Wales to London was done on letters of credit. In 1706 the law was changed specifically to prevent drovers escaping their debts by declaring themselves bankrupt. The trade promoted the development of banking systems in both London and Wales. One drover set up his own Black Ox Bank in Llandovery in 1799, which survived until 1909 when it was taken over by Lloyds Bank.

Droving declined during the nineteenth century, through a combination of agricultural change, rail transport, cattle disease and more intensive use of the countryside through which the stock had passed for hundreds of years. The last recorded large-scale cattle drove out of Wales was in 1870, and of sheep in 1900, although it briefly revived during the rail strike of 1912.

America

Cattle drives in North America by American cowboys and South American cattle drivers are similar in nature; like most routes they started out by following a general geographic route before becomming roadways.

External links

Droving at the Border Collie Museum
Cattle drovers
The Telford Drove Story, oral history of a 40 mile (63.4km) cattle drove in 1943
www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Drover's roads today
Photo of two drovers taken in Montgomery in 1885, from Gathering the Jewels

References

Notes

Bibliography

Addison, Sir William (1980). The Old Roads of England. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. ISBN 0-7134-1714-5.
Haldane, A.R.B. (1997). The Drove Roads of Scotland. Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited. ISBN 1-874744-76-9.