Well, That was Different!

Taking my Fell Pony foals with their dams to the river has become a fall ritual since I moved to South Dakota. In Colorado, there was a river in their summer pasture, so the foals got used to crossing water by following the herd to graze. Here, we don’t have live water in their pasture, so it’s a 30-minute trailer ride to the Cheyenne River. I time it in the fall so the water is low for a safe crossing and the road is dry, since we have a mile or so of dirt access. Catching the fall foliage is a bonus! It has become such a fun ritual that my friend Jackie likes to accompany us regularly, which is a blessing because she takes great photographs!

Rory followed us for a bit but then headed off the other direction. Photos by Jackie Gericke

So far, the trips to the river have followed a consistent pattern. I’ve already accustomed the foals to riding in the trailer with their mothers, so they have loaded into the trailer without much issue. Then they unload at the river and follow them to the river’s edge, then after some contemplation, they follow them into the water. We go back and forth across the river several times until they seem relaxed about it, then we reverse the process, walking to the trailer, loading, and returning home. Foal #5, though, was a different experience!

Willowtrail Rory loaded up with his mother Bowthorne Matty without any indication of the strangeness ahead of us. He unloaded fine, too, and followed her for a short bit towards the place where we cross the river. But then he turned around as if he’d passed some choice morsel he just had to go back to eat. I walked Matty toward him to encourage him to join us, but he calmly just walked further away. So we went back to the river and stood in the center. Usually a foal will get worried and come to the river’s edge to be close to their mom, but not Rory. He walked even further away, seeming to explore the new environment that he found himself in. He would occasionally get concerned and call out to us, but he was uninterested in joining us or even coming close.

Matty and I in the river waiting for Rory to join us. Photo by Jackie Gericke

After fifteen or more minutes, it became clear that having Rory cross the river that day was not meant to be. So the next step in the outing was to get back in the trailer and go home. Rory, though, had other thoughts about this, too. We spent another twenty or more minutes with me leading Matty toward him to get him to follow her back to the trailer. Then Jackie took Matty and stood near the trailer, and I tried herding Rory toward the trailer (his leading skills weren’t good enough for this situation yet). He still was uninterested in following his mother into the trailer. Then Jackie had the great idea of moving the trailer near a pile of brush that could act as a corral panel. I felt like we were in the Old West as I placed more brush strategically to create a chute of sorts. On the second try, Rory decided that getting in the trailer with his mom was an acceptable alternative to wandering around with me following him. We closed the trailer door with a heavy sigh.

I was so thankful for Jackie’s peacefulness with this time-consuming and unusual outing. It was clear Matty was quite content in Jackie’s company while we waited for Rory to be cooperative. Right before we got in the truck to come home, Jackie said, “It’s in trying times that one’s true horsemanship is revealed and you find out if you want to work with that person or not.” Very true, I thought. She then continued, “And I want to work with you, Jenifer.” It was such a blessing to hear that then.

On the drive back, I pondered what had happened with Rory at the river. I concluded that some genetics were at work. His paternal half-sister took a long time to cross the river with her mother last year. And his maternal half-brother had a similar but more stressful experience back in Colorado. In that case, Matty went across the river and her son didn’t follow. He was stressed out, and she was enjoying green grass. I watched for ten minutes, and neither of them appeared able to modify their behavior, so I reunited them and put them in a pasture without the river. The next day Matty and her son crossed the river together.

Rory back at the barn. Photo by Jackie Gericke

I doubt we’ll have an opportunity for a do-over at the river for Rory this fall. The weather is about to change dramatically which will likely end our river outings until next year. Rory will soon be well halter-broke so he can be introduced to water crossings at the side of a human partner rather than his mother. He’s a sensible young man, so I’m sure it will go fine. And next time Matty has a foal, I will allow for multiple trips to the river if necessary!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Polo and Fells and Fall River County

My Fell Ponies here are grazing on native buffalo grass which creates a durable turf that was important to early polo enthusiasts in our county.

The Fell Pony Society is celebrating its centenary in 2022. I have always been intrigued by the roots of the Society being in polo ponies. For instance, on the ‘About’ page of the Fell Pony Society website, it says, “Pony breeders had begun to record pedigrees in the second half of the 19th century, and the first Fell ponies were registered in the Polo and Riding Pony Stud Book in 1898.” (1) Closer to home for me, in 2022, I learned that the county where I live had a polo pony breeding farm at one time almost 100 years ago and there’s a connection to that effort on the ranch where my Fell Ponies and I now live.

This polo pony participated in the 1909 match which put the US on the international polo map when the team beat the UK for the Westchester/International Cup. From the 1925 edition of Types & Market Classes of Livestock.

The Polo Pony Stud Book was founded in England in 1893. Its aim was to support the breeding of ponies for the playing of polo and be a place for the registration of native pony stock, including the Fell. Native ponies were of interest to the Polo Pony Stud Book because of their hardiness and because individuals typically possessed “a clean-cut head, small ears, bright full eye, and well-curved nostril...” (2) You can see pictures of three prize-winning Fell Pony mares from the Polo Pony Stud Book era of Fell history on the Fell Pony Museum website (click here).

Polo horses and riders on the 7-11 Ranch 9 miles NE of Hot Springs, South Dakota. Courtesy Pioneer Museum, Hot Springs, SD

It was in 1925 that prominent businessman F.O. Butler announced he was bringing polo to his adopted home of Fall River County and Hot Springs, South Dakota. He had purchased the 7-11 Ranch north of town and was dedicating the ranch to polo pony breeding. He had previously established a polo club in Illinois where his permanent residence was. His family became interested in polo after 1909 when the US beat the British team to win the coveted International/Westchester Cup. The first known game of polo in Fall River County occurred in 1925 and was referred to as ‘hockey on hoof’ in the newspaper!

Polo being played on the 7-11 Ranch. Courtesy Pioneer Museum, Hot Springs, SD

In his book about F.O. Butler called Paper Mountain, author Robert Karolevitz writes, “South Dakota was, as one sportswriter put it, an ideal place for polo. There was plenty of flat ground not too valuable for other uses. The prairie turf was buffalo-tough and required little maintenance. What’s more: most people knew one end of a horse from the other.” (3)

Butler brought in breeding stock from Wyoming, Montana, California, New Mexico, Mexico, and Cuba. By 1928, there were 94 mares and three stallions at the 7-11. When F.O.’s son said he wanted hardiness and coolheadedness in his polo ponies, F.O. replied, “All right. The colts will get hardiness feeding over the hills and wearing their feet tough on the sand rock. That way they will develop bone and muscle as all of the western ponies have. The coolheadedness we will get by selecting our brood stock.” (4) In those words, there are certainly echoes of how Fell Pony characteristics develop.

Karolevitz also wrote, “[Butler] brought in a ten-ton roller to smooth out the new polo field at the ranch in time for the Hot Springs team to ride circles around the Fourth Cavalry foursome from Fort Meade, 13 to 2. [Butler’s wife] Fannie served tea after the game, a social touch not particularly commonplace in cowboy country.” (5)

In 1916, a park on College Hill in Hot Springs had a half-mile horse race track and by the next year the park had grandstands, bleachers, stables, and a full-time grounds keeper for numerous types of community events. F.O. Butler bought the park in the late 1920s or early 1930s and later donated to the town of Hot Springs. The park carries his name today. (6)

Butler Park in Hot Springs, SD now supports modern sports, but at one time there were stables where the library is in the background.

Depression and drought in the early 1930s ended Fall River County’s enthusiasm for polo, but the 7-11 continued to provide ponies to other parts of the country until a turning point of ranch operations in 1937. Polo was still being played in the Black Hills of South Dakota as recently as 2015. (7)

John, Olaf and Alvin Aaberg were three of the earliest Hot Springs polo enthusiasts. John became manager of the 7-11 Ranch after Butler purchased it and went on trips to buy breeding stock with Butler. These Aaberg men were great-great-uncles to several residents of the ranch where I live today. Occasionally the Aaberg descendants here give assistance to my Fell Pony herd.

Polo mallets, helmet and balls from the era of polo in Fall River County, South Dakota. Items in the collections of the Pioneer Museum, Hot Springs, South Dakota

Fell Ponies are descended at least in part from the extinct Galloway Pony. The Galloway also contributed to the Thoroughbred. The Fell Pony Museum website says, “Although the ancestors of our modern Fell ponies did include Galloways, the well-bred racing "Galloways" were derived from the native "Scotch" pony by several generations of maternal descent; making our Fells distant cousins-many-times-removed of today's racing Thoroughbreds.” (8) So perhaps today’s Fell Ponies living in Fall River County can trace very, very distantly in two different ways to an ancestor of the polo ponies that once were also born and raised here, either through the Galloway or through the Poly Pony Stud Book. It’s fun to ponder!

I am indebted to Dawn Johnson at the Pioneer Museum in Hot Springs for locating and showing me the Museum’s polo-related collections and describing her family’s connection to polo history in Fall River County. And I am once again indebted to Sue Millard, curator of the Fell Pony Museum website, for the treasure trove she has collected there. Finally, I am grateful to my friend Tracy Plessinger for pointing out the connection between the beautiful 7-11 Ranch and polo ponies.

1. http://www.fellponysociety.org.uk/about_breed.htm

2. https://www.fellponymuseum.org.uk/fells/19clate/fpsoc.htm

3. Karolevitz, Robert F. Paper Mountain: The Story of Frank Osgood Butler. Brookings, SD: South Dakota State University Foundation Press, 1980, p. 46.

4. Karolevitz, p. 47.

5. Karolevitz, p. 48.

6. https://frcheraldstar.com/news/1897-naming-writes-hot-springs-butler-park-named-for-chicago-born-businessman

7. https://newtonforkranchblog.wordpress.com/, 10/13/15

8. https://www.fellponymuseum.org.uk/fells/17_18C/galloways2.htm

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

The Puzzle Pieces of Packhorse History

Utterby Packhorse Bridge, Lincolnshire, England

When I was a kid, my mother enjoyed jigsaw puzzles. She made them family activities by setting up a table in the middle of the living room around which we all could gather and help turn the chaos of pieces into the beautiful image on the front of the box. I learned early that shape and color and location meant something, that one puzzle piece on its own might be interesting but it was far more interesting in the context of the whole. I feel the same way about packhorse bridges in England. They are iconic items of beauty, but they are also puzzle pieces in the bigger picture of packhorse history there, a history that isn’t always visible. Since the Fell Pony played a role in that history, making the history more visible is always of interest to me! (Click here if you’d like to explore more about packhorse history in the home region of the Fell Pony.)

We saw a sign for Salter’s Lane but then couldn’t find it again when we had time for a photograph!

On a recent visit to Lincolnshire, England, I was pleased to find that a few packhorse bridges there have interpretive signs connecting them to the other puzzle pieces of packhorse history in the region. Packhorse routes developed long ago in Lincolnshire to take wool to market towns and to the port at Boston. They were also used to take salt inland. Trade in salt is dated to Roman times, and wool production peaked in the area in the 1300s when religious houses depended on it for income.

Remains of a stone causeway leading away from the church towards Utterby Bridge.

As we entered the Lincolnshire Wolds on our recent visit, which is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it wasn’t the landscape that had me nearly jumping out of the car seat. It was a road sign saying we were turning onto Salter’s Lane! My pre-trip research had indicated that such a road existed in the vicinity of one of the packhorse bridges, so I knew we were close to one. We didn’t stop for a picture though, because we were losing daylight and needed to get to our hotel. Alas, on two separate excursions over the next few days, we were unsuccessful finding the sign again. For now, a crude hand drawing is my only memento of this puzzle piece!

An historic stone causeway lies under the planted trees between the graveyard of the Church of St Andrew and the hedge along the road.

The bridge that was nearby to the sign was in the village of Utterby. Utterby Packhorse Bridge is situated next to a church, which is another important puzzle piece. The bridge’s interpretive sign says, “Just over a mile to the west of Utterby lies the site of a Gilbertine priory and lost village of North Ormsby which was established in 1184 and housed up to 50 canons and lay brothers and 100 nuns and lay sisters.” We went to where North Ormsby and the priory once stood, and indeed they are lost; there was no indication there at all of the former community or religious house’s existence.

The bridge’s interpretive sign continues, “The priory is known to have had a profitable share in the wool industry and was endowed with the Church of St. Andrew’s at Utterby. As the earliest surviving parts of St. Andrew’s also date from the early fourteenth century, it is likely that the building of the bridge was funded by the priory to improve access to the church by providing a crossing over Utterby Beck, also improving the packhorse route.”

The name ‘Porterfield’ indicates this was once an overnight spot for packhorse trains. This spot is about a quarter mile from Utterby Packhorse Bridge.

The construction of the bridge with its three stone arches also suggests it dates from the 1300s. We confirmed that tombstones in the graveyard date to at least the late 1600s; some were so badly eroded that it was hard to tell if they were older. The bridge is thought to lie on an historic saltway, which is its link to the Salter’s Lane puzzle piece. The saltway was in existence long before the church and the bridge.

Two other puzzle pieces are visible near the bridge: remains of stone causeways or human-built reinforced road surfaces. One influences the lay of the churchyard, running between the graveyard and the hedge at the road. The other runs from the churchyard outside the hedge almost to the bridge.

The final puzzle piece we found was also noted on the interpretive sign. A nearby property called Portersfield was once a stopover point for traders following the packhorse route. The name now makes that explanation obvious, but if I had seen it outside the context of the bridge, I wouldn’t have made the association!

I am grateful to the Lincolnshire County Council for their interest in the history of the packhorse bridges in the county and for the very informative interpretive signs that they’ve erected near them.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Grazing Animals - Including Ponies - Doing Good

As you are likely aware, there is a debate raging about whether we humans should all be vegetarians, with the related opinion that livestock raised for meat should be removed from landscapes.  Like anything in life that’s important, it’s a complex topic.  Grazing animals such as cattle, sheep and goats can do damage to landscapes, a truth that fuels the pro-vegetarian/anti-livestock camp.  However, it is also the case that grazing animals can benefit landscapes when their grazing is managed with that goal in mind.  In a large swath of North America, grazing animals were an important part of healthy ecosystems prior to the arrival of Europeans to the continent, and around the world there are increasing numbers of farmers and ranchers who are successfully using livestock to improve landscapes and soil health.  In England, Fell Ponies are being used for this sort of beneficial grazing in their home region (click here to for more information).

In a recent paper in the journal animals, famed professor and livestock handling expert Temple Grandin laid out the current research that supports the title “Grazing Cattle, Sheep, and Goats Are Important Parts of a Sustainable Agricultural Future.” She concludes the article with “Well-managed grazing systems can be truly sustainable and improve soil health, help sequester carbon, and maintain plant biodiversity.  The grazing animals are part of the cycle of life and the natural grass ecosystem.  They are a natural part of the land.”  (1)  I have an ongoing assignment for Rural Heritage magazine to write articles on this and similar topics.

Usually, the discussions about the benefits of managed grazing involve the species that Grandin includes in her paper:  cattle, sheep, and goats.  A new book crossed my desk, however, that gives equine owners guidance on how to feed their animals with the same goals in mind:  improving landscapes and soil health.  Called Species-rich Grassland:  The Secret Key to Equine Health, the book is written by a German scientist who lays out in both an informative and entertaining way the science of managing forage and choosing forage products for the benefit of equines and their landscapes.  The book was published in 2019 and translated from German in 2021.  The author is a PhD ecophysiologist specializing in equine pastures, and she has copiously referenced current and historical research from around the world in this volume. 

Things that we regularly take for granted when we have equines are called into question in the book.  For instance, Vanselow considers mowing hay to be ecologically damaging in most cases because it reduces species diversity, both in forage plants and in the numerous other animal species that call pastures home.  Any hay meadow that has to be resown every few years also should be cause for reconsideration.  Fortunately, numerous case studies are given to show how to manage grassland more holistically, opening the reader’s mind to how our own landscape or the landscape from which we purchase forage products can be managed better for the health of our equines and other community members.

The book is available from the publishers of Rural Heritage magazine.  I highly recommend it for its thought-provoking and inspiring content.

1. Grandin, Temple.  “Grazing Cattle, Sheep and Goats are Important Parts of a Sustainable Agricultural Future, animals, 2002.12.2092, https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12162092, 8/16/22.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Pack Saddles and Fell Ponies

Turkey Trot Sand Lily prepared for packing equipment in canvas panniers into a logging job in a roadless area. Note that the rear girth on this saddle is farther back than would be comfortable on a male pony.

I received a question about pack saddles for Fell Ponies. And then I received another one. And then I received some fascinating information about pack saddles used during the packhorse era in Cumbria when ancestors of our Fell Ponies were an important part of transport and commerce. So I thought I had better collect the information that I have on packsaddles and Fells into one place.

Historic pack saddle at Eskdale Mill in Boot, Cumbria. It appears that the saddle and padding are integrated in this saddle. Photo courtesy Kate Hughes.

While the questions I received were about pack saddles, I consider here the topic a bit more broadly. Besides the saddle proper, there is a pad and usually some sort of container (often called panniers) which is attached to the saddle to enable loads to be carried. Sometimes there aren’t three distinct pieces to a pack outfit. For instance, the historic packhorse saddle at Eskdale Mill in Boot, Cumbria appears to have the saddle and padding combined together. And I have strapped loads directly to the saddles, as is often done with the famous Decker pack saddles, specially designed to be stronger for awkward loads.

A pack pannier system designed to be placed over a western saddle. Top: before a trash pickup project. Bottom: Before an overnight work pack trip. Photos courtesy Dawn Munro and Paula Guenther

A friend introduced me to yet another variation. She found panniers designed to fit over a riding saddle (do an internet search for Trail Max Saddle Panniers to see where to purchase them; at this writing, Amazon carries them.) Here’s what she shared after taking an overnight trip that went well: “Sometimes people face a barrier to packing with their equine because they think they need a formal pack outfit, but there are other options. The Trail Max Panniers are heavy duty and have straps in the right places. I used them with the vintage endurance trail saddle that is my normal and best fitting saddle. You can get plastic cargo boxes that fit the bags, but we did pretty well balancing the load without boxes. The only disadvantage to the design is that it is difficult to tighten the saddle’s girth with the bags full, so after the first quarter mile we needed a two-person lift-and-tighten maneuver. There is a big O ring that the rear flank cinch goes through and one at the center that can go to center D ring or pommel on saddle, whichever works better. I did remove the stirrups, fenders and leathers for a more streamlined profile. You wouldn’t have to, necessarily, and toward the end of hike out, I was pretty tempted to climb up and ride with legs cocked forward!”

When I responded to my first inquirer about pack saddles for Fells, I began at the beginning, meaning comfort of the pony. If a pony’s packsaddle is fit properly, the pony will work more willingly and safely than if the pony is asked to work with ill-fitting tack. Fitting pack saddles is similar to fitting riding saddles in that the length of the bars and ‘sit’ of the bars contributes to the comfort of the pony. For that reason, it’s important that you figure out a way to try out the packsaddle before buying, for instance by finding a local provider of packsaddles. (For an extensive article on saddle fit and Fell Ponies, click here.)

Often Fells have short backs so they require shorter bars than horses do. When I picked out packsaddles for a job for our logging and construction business several years ago, I considered both horse and burro sizes to fit the various ponies I was using on that job. I have even used a llama pack saddle on a pony, though it’s a compromise because llamas have a heavy fleece coat that allows for straighter saddle bars so extra padding is needed to fit the saddle to an equine.

Gravel being unloaded from apple-picking bags used as panniers on a packsaddle. Restar Lucky Joe is the Fell Pony.

The packsaddles I purchased for that professional job came with saddle pads. They were larger and thicker than pads for riding saddles to ensure that the back of the pony is sufficiently protected from the bars of the saddle as well as the load. Once you have the saddle and pad figured out, then you may add panniers of some sort. I have simple canvas bag-type panniers as well as apple picking bags for a gravel hauling job I did once (click here to read more). I also have nylon-lined open-top bags that I have packed greens for holiday wreaths in.

Linnel Doublet, known as Rusty, wearing an early 1900s English pack saddle while on a walk on an historic packhorse track in the Lake District.

Hynholme Amber wearing a replica of a vintage English packsaddle in the Lake District.

In 2015 my late husband and I took two Fell Ponies on a walk over Burnmoor in the Lake District on an historic packhorse track. Christine Robinson of the Kerbeck stud provided the ponies and pack saddles, to which we strapped our lunches in burlap bags. The ponies were Hynholme Amber (the black in the photos) and Linnel Doublet, known as Rusty (the bay in the photos). The two saddles were differently constructed. Christine recalls, “The saddle Rusty had on was purchased at a Vintage Traction Engine Show in Dorset. I haven't seen one like it before or after. It is actually with a friend of mine near Bristol, so I can't check exactly, but I remember it was stamped as being made in London in the early 1900s; sorry I can't remember the maker or exact date. I suspect it was Military. It also had stirrup bars on, so could be ridden on, but I'm not sure I'd fancy that! The saddle on Amber was made by my husband and was a copy of one belonging to a Heavy Horse Centre/museum. Although we use it as it is, it would originally have had pads and girth straps similar to the other one.”

Knowing my interest in packhorse history, Helen Caldwell of the Cumbria Industrial History Society sent me an excerpt from a book that is fascinating to ponder. It describes touring an historic hall in the Lake District and says in part, “Returning downstairs to the passage between the old portion and the kitchen, Mrs. Nelson, the occupier’s wife, told me that this part and the kitchen were at one time a shed. Pointing to several small remains of pulleys fastened to the beams, she said that over them ran ropes to lift the loads from the pack-horses. In the kitchen I found a pulley complete, and from this it is possible to visualize the scene in the old days. A long string of heavily-laden ponies would draw up toward evening in the yard and would then be led under this shed or porch in batches, there being arrangements to deal with about half a dozen at a time. Then, with an arrangement of ropes and hooks, the loads tied on the saddles could quickly be lifted off before the ponies were stabled for the night. The process would be reversed the next morning and considerable time would thus be saved, the unpacking and repacking of the merchandise being avoided.” (1)

It is possible that ‘to lift the loads from the pack-horses’ means to lift the entire saddle with panniers or other containers still attached. When you look at the packsaddle that Rusty wore on our trip over Burnmoor, it’s easy to imagine that that sort of packsaddle would be easy to lift by a pulley system as described. Alternatively, it’s possible that just the panniers were lifted and the saddles were removed in a separate step in the evening process. When lifting loaded panniers onto a packsaddle, it is always advisable - for the comfort of the pony and the security of the saddle - to attach both panniers at the same time to the saddle so that the saddle doesn’t try to spin from being weighted only on one side. The pulley system described here would be a tremendous help, with one person potentially being able to lift both panniers alone. Regarding ‘the unpacking and repacking of the merchandise being avoided,’ I feel this statement stems from a lack of understanding of packing. I have never unpacked the contents of the panniers at the end of the day. The whole point of having panniers or similar containers is to enable them to be removed still loaded and then be reattached in their loaded state to the saddle the next day. The pulley system described here instead provides advantages already discussed above: either enabling the entire saddle-and-panniers combination to be removed at once or the panniers to be removed by a single person.

Mowcop Black Bess putting a klibber to use for Eddie McDonough. Courtesy Eddie McDonough

Fell Ponies of course are not the only mountain and moorland pony breed that have a heritage of packing. For instance, Shetland Ponies were used extensively to carry peat on the isles of their home terrain. The packsaddles used there were called klibbers and were of very economical construction. Fell Pony enthusiast Eddie McDonough has constructed a klibber for his mare Mowcop Black Bess and has shared his design; click here for more information.

If you have read this far, you have likely concluded that there have been and continue to be a variety of pack outfits that can be used on Fells. The choice is up to the human involved in the packing project! If you are aware of other historic saddles or modern experiences packing with ponies, I would love to hear about them!

I am grateful to my ponies and to Christine Robinson, Eddie McDonough, Helen Caldwell, and my late husband for opportunities to advance my education regarding packing with ponies.

1. Palmer, J.H. Historic Farmhouses In and Around Westmorland. Kendal: Westmorland Gazette, Ltd. 1946, p. 90.

Integrating the Herds

For a variety of reasons, I had been running my Fell Pony mares in two herds: three mares with foals at foot in one and two mares and three fillies in the other.  After three of those ponies left for their new home, it was time to integrate the remaining ponies in a single herd.   

I did it at the end of the day when the open mares and fillies were hungry, thinking that they would head off to graze and the other mares with foals would be elsewhere.  But when I got to the barn, the mares and foals arrived there too, so it was fascinating to see what happened next. 

I opened the gate to the pasture from the corral so that the four mares and fillies could come out.  Before they did, though, the two mares and foals started to go in.  The oldest colt, Robert, did go in with his mother and Robert proceeded to try and interact with the mares, but the other mare, Matty, took one look at the situation and headed right back out to pasture with her son Rory following close behind.  She wanted no part of the interactions that were about to unfold. Meanwhile Honey defended Robert when one mare ran at him before Robert figured out that he needed to be a little bit respectful.  At that point, everybody followed Matty and Rory out to pasture.

I checked on the ponies ninety minutes later, and they were all together in a nook of the pasture.  Well, mostly together.  Matty still had Rory off to one side, but the rest were grazing together, with Robert still expressing interest in the females and they wanting him to back off.  I know the dynamics will continue to evolve as the two herds become fully integrated into one, and I look forward to watching!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Microchip Miracle Worker

To register our Fell Pony foals, we are required to microchip them.  Microchips are in hollow needles that are inserted in the neck (usually).  In order for the microchip to fit in the needle, the needle needs to be larger than your average vaccine needle.  It therefore is quite a poke and quite a test of a young pony’s tolerance for new experiences.  When I have a colt that is being gelded, I make sure the microchip is inserted while they’re under anesthesia.  But there are stud colt prospects and fillies that must endure the implantation of microchips while awake. 

I do what I can to prepare my youngsters for the microchipping experience by poking them with a toothpick while rubbing them in favorite places.  I have found, though, that some veterinarians are more skilled at inserting a microchip than others, causing less trauma.  I have been supremely impressed with how Dr. Stephanie Stevens at Cheyenne River Animal Hospital inserts microchips.  Some veterinarians want to shave the area, swab it with alcohol, and then give a local anesthetic.  In my experience, these steps just give the foal more to get worked up about.  Some vets have told me that the shave-and-swab step doesn’t really improve the cleanliness of the procedure enough to justify the additional time and effort. 

Dr. Stephanie’s technique is to first befriend the foal in the horse trailer where it is with its mother.  The befriending process eventually includes rubbing the neck where she will be working.  I appreciate this step because it’s something my foals are accustomed to from my handling.  Then she quickly folds the skin of the neck and inserts the needle.  The foals rarely take more than a single step backward before the procedure is complete.  I am always on the opposite side of the foal so I can’t claim to know exactly how she does it, but what I do know is that her relationship with the foal doesn’t change from before to after the insertion of the chip.  I consider Dr. Stephanie my microchip miracle worker and am so grateful to have her work with my ponies.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Things You Might Experience When You Bring a Fell Pony Weanling Home!

Willowtrail Storm King went to his new owner at eight months of age.  When his owner contacted me three months later, the stories she told were a beautiful composite of all that I have heard from people after they bring a Fell Pony youngster into their lives.

 From King’s owner:

 I love him and he is sweet as can be but also Stubborn with a capital S 😁.

 The farrier came a week ago and King was about as uncooperative as can be. So I asked the farrier if I could have a minute with him. I threw the lead rope over his back and easily picked up, held, patted, rubbed and squeezed all of his feet while he stood quietly. We decided the only thing different was me holding the lead rope versus King being at liberty. The farrier then proceeded to trim King with no fuss with the lead rope over his back.

He loves a good full body scratch, so I will drape myself all over him, scratch him everywhere and he loves it.

He does well with all the big horses.  He is the only one who gets along with everyone else, so he can go in with any of the horses on the property. He also likes to be alone sometimes, so occasionally he will be grazing all the way across the property from everyone else.

He is super smart and has shown me every weak spot in my fences and has visited the neighbors twice. He can open most doors and likes to get into the tack room, so we have had to find different ways to lock it. He likes to open the round pen and let himself in or anyone who might be in there out.

He's so much fun. Really one of the bright spots in my life.

 Having spent so many years with Fell Ponies, while they are bright spots in my life, I no longer realize how they differ from other equines.  Messages such as this one from King’s owner bring both a smile to my face and valuable perspective.  I am so luck that King has landed in such a great place.

 © Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Pony Cost of Ownership

Sometimes people inquire about Fell Ponies and then realize the purchase price is more than they can afford.  I tell them I appreciate their interest and hope they can fulfill their equine hopes, desires, and dreams another way.  Yet in my experience, the purchase price is just the first of many economic considerations to owning a Fell Pony.  The others can be collectively thought of as cost-of-ownership.  (I learned the same thing about owning a car.  Purchase price is one thing; fuel, insurance, maintenance, tires, and other related expenses vary considerably but are very real considerations when owning an automobile.)

When a client very wisely asked me about the cost of ownership of a Fell Pony, I sighed and said, ‘it depends.’  Even my own pony cost-of-ownership has changed over the years as I have changed locations and management strategies.  For instance, in the high mountains of Colorado, I had pasture only three months a year, so I fed lots of hay the rest of the time.  When I moved to South Dakota, my herd is able to stay on pasture most of the year, and I feed most of my hay in the spring and summer when I keep the herd off the greenest of the grass part-time to manage their weight.  Even with the same number of ponies, my feed costs have changed significantly as have their logistics.  I still make tremendous use of a dry lot so that my ponies can stay in their herd but off the pasture. Every year I learn something new to lower the expense of owning ponies, and every year I learn something new I want to buy to care for them better!

The University of Maine Cooperative Extension includes in their Guide to First-Time Horse Ownership (click here) a section called ‘Budgeting for the Expense of Horse Ownership.’  Their major categories are board, feed, health care, farrier, bedding, equipment, and other, including training and insurance.  My list would be a little different since most people I interact with own their own horse housing so instead of board there are expenses like fencing, water, manure management, pasture management, and equipment expenses for these activities (tractor, manure spreader, etc.).

Within the feed category are numerous subcategories like salt, minerals, digestible energy, and hay.  I choose to invest in the best quality of supplements I can because I consider it preventive medicine.  Hay costs vary not only by location and size of bale, but year to year, mostly up and up and up!!!  Fell Ponies are easy-keepers so require less hay than the typical horse, but they often are on dry lot more than a horse so may actually require more hay than a horse kept on the same property.

The University of Maine publication says about health care, “the amount spent on health care varies among horse owners, depending on the frequency of scheduled exams, deworming, and vaccinations. Breeding incurs much higher vet services for pre-breeding checks, pregnancy checks, additional vaccinations, and post-natal care. Emergency veterinary care can cause a significant increase in the costs associated with this category.”  I have learned the hard way that I can completely blow up my pony-keeping budget when an injury occurs.

Many Fell Ponies do quite well barefoot, so the costs farrier-wise are often the cost of a barefoot trimmer.  And Fell Ponies do best when kept in a way that they can move regularly, not kept in stalls, so there’s a potential savings on bedding but perhaps more thought needed for how to keep them moving without keeping them on pasture constantly where they can become overweight.  And it’s not just pasture that can make them overweight.  My first Fell Pony was two hundred pounds overweight when I bought her from having free choice hay in a feeder and not much required movement.

Equipment costs – saddles, bridles, lead ropes, cleaning equipment, etc. – vary by owner and type of use to which the pony is put.  With Fell Ponies being so versatile – ride, drive, draft, pack - they can cause this category to get big.  I have saddles, driving harness, draft harness, pack saddles…. you get the idea!!

It’s easy to assume that if you aren’t interested in showing, that the Other category might be one where expenses could be saved.  I have found, though, that these ponies make me want to learn, so training for me and them - whether on-line, purchased materials, or in person - is a constant, varying in dollar amount as I learn and search out new instructors.

The University of Maine publication has some very sound concluding advice.  “Maintain accurate records of costs and make adjustments to maximize the amount of pleasure received from the money spent for horse ownership…  The cost of horse ownership can be regulated by understanding the needs of the horse and selecting products that most efficiently meet those needs.”  I appreciate the advice to make mindful the connection between pleasure and expense outlays.  These ponies bring lots of joy that makes expenses on their behalf much easier to afford.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Equine Track Systems and Predators

A client asked if she could realistically keep an equine on a small acreage.  I suggested she look at track systems, also called Paddock Paradise by Jamie Jackson.  She then expressed concern about coyotes and other large predators with a pony in a track system.  Having lived with large predators myself and experimented with a track system, I realized I had more questions than answers for my client, and I needed to do some research.

A Fell Pony on my alpine pony track in Colorado, using deep snow as virtual fencing.

One of the first courses I took after moving to Colorado many years ago was about keeping livestock on small acreage in Colorado.  I immediately learned that what’s possible in other parts of the country regarding livestock isn’t possible in the dry climate of the Rockies.  Seven acres of pasture may support two horses in Minnesota, but in parts of Colorado seven acres only provides 17 grazing days in an entire year!  Getting creative with how those acres are used, then, is imperative to keeping both equines and the landscape healthy.  That’s where a paddock paradise or track system can help.

As a Colorado State University Cooperative Extension document says, “Wild horses travel great distances along familiar tracks each day, and paddock paradise tries to mimic this using a track system.…  The design can be as simple as running temporary fence along the perimeter fence of a pasture to create a narrow alleyway for animals to move within.” (1)  I used the concept to increase movement of my ponies during the winter months using snow banks as fence as shown in the picture (click here to read more).  I found it improved both their mental and physical health.

In Colorado, we had coyotes, mountain lions and towards the end of my time there, wolves.  Because my tracks were never fenced narrowly, I never worried about these predators because I figured the ponies had room to move if they needed to get away or position themselves for a well-placed kick or stomp.  On a narrow, fenced track, though, after my client asked, I wondered if predators could cause problems when their coping strategies are constrained by closely spaced fences.  Remember that dogs are also predators and can cause problems for equines.

The first thing my research turned up is that people have generally found that horses and large ponies like the Fell can take care of themselves well enough that predators won’t bother them.  Smaller ponies and miniature horses, on the other hand, may need to be stalled at night to keep them safe when large predator pressure is high. 

The other key point was to use electric fencing initially to build the track system.  A few of the reasons include:

• Electric fence can be relatively easily and economically changed if the design isn’t quite right for the situation.  Permanent fence can then be built when the equines and predators have revealed their patterns of coexistence.

• When sufficiently provoked, equines will take out an electric fence to get themselves to safety if they have to, providing valuable feedback to us as stewards.  I had this happen once when a tree fell down.  The ponies weren’t injured when they were startled and took out the fence, and the fence was relatively easily repaired.  The ponies still respected the fence thereafter, probably because it was only the first pony through the fence that endured the shock; the others just followed.

• Electric fence can be configured to effectively shock some predators. 

One feature of a paddock paradise design that I think would be helpful when planning to co-exist with predators is to incorporate a paddock or wide spot in the track where the ponies could run to if needed to more effectively deliver a kick or stomp.  Often people incorporate a corral at the barn into their track or a wide spot where they feed hay or leave minerals so the herd can gather briefly there.

One person with experience with equines co-existing with coyotes said they encourage their male dogs to urinate along the track boundary to discourage coyotes from entering the track.  They also use chain link fence and electric fence to discourage entry.  Another person uses wind chimes and electric fence.

My mind is eased now, having heard that there are ways to build track systems that allow coexistence with resident predators.  I am grateful for how easily good information emerges on the subject with an internet search!

1)      https://sam.extension.colostate.edu/topics/pasture-range/paddock-paradise-track-system-for-horses

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Pasture Ornaments and Housewives

My sister and I had a conversation about our mother. Mom passed away several years ago, but of course not a day goes by that I don’t think of her influence on my life. She worked outside the home only once briefly for pay, but she was never idle. Her pastimes were often civic-minded, a value that she and my dad successfully passed on to all three of us kids.

One night several years ago we had company for dinner. Our guests were both equine-minded, and my husband good-naturedly chided all three of us for our ‘frivolous’ equine hobbies. A few days before that we’d met with a client who asked how many ponies I had. I felt that beyond wanting the number, there was a curiosity behind the question about why anyone needs so many.

When I was talking to my sister about our mother, I remarked about what an impossible role model Mom had been. My sister and I both work outside the home for pay, yet the home Mom made and the numerous outside activities that Mom sustained are the pattern we were brought up with and judge ourselves against. We both do well with career and outside activities but aren’t as accomplished in some of the other things our mother did so well.

I once had a new pony who was in serious need of lessons on being a mountain pony. I put the new pony in with the mares, and after a few quiet moments a circus erupted and it was clear that the new herd member wasn’t terribly welcome. After we intervened in the high-spirited antics, things quieted down again and I noticed which pony the newcomer was standing with. Plan B regarding mountain pony lessons became clear. There couldn’t have been a better equine teacher that the new pony could have gravitated towards. Yet that pony would be called a pasture ornament by many because she was too old to work anymore.

The one time that my mother worked outside the home was when she was a state legislator. Her campaign for office was not only a family affair but also a natural extension of our family’s civic-minded activities, which included regular work on political campaigns. In the information book for the state government, Mom’s picture appeared with all her legislative colleagues, much like in a yearbook. Under each legislator’s name was their occupation. At least one other officeholder shared Mom’s occupation: homemaker. Not only was ‘homemaker’ an excellent description of what these women did outside elected office, but it also had fewer negative connotations than ‘housewife.’

When I got my first pony, my intention was to put her to work, which I successfully did. When I got my second pony, my intention was to put him to work. I was also successful with him. I’ve always tried to make sure every pony here has a job. I have to admit, though, that often the job is more in my mind than in how they spend the hours of their day.

Mom was aware of all the negative connotations of the term housewife and her frequent retort was, “Yes, all I do all day is sit around reading movie magazines and eating chocolate bon-bons.” We put a movie magazine and some chocolate bon-bons in her grave because we knew she’d never had time or use for them when she was alive. Maybe her afterlife would be different.

One day I had visitors who wanted to meet the ponies. We ended our tour in one paddock where we started talking about pony-related topics. One mare stood with us the whole time and eventually inserted herself into the conversation. I think I had been mentioning some grieving that I’d been going through, and my pony responded by moving closer to me and putting her head quietly and carefully over my shoulder. It was incredibly touching. And it wasn’t the first time one of my ponies (especially my Fell Ponies) has responded in some way to a heavy emotion I’m experiencing.

I was contacted by a Fell Pony enthusiast wanting to grow their herd, but they qualified their goal by insisting they didn’t want any new ponies to just be pasture ornaments. I wondered if they would consider Fells running on the fells of Cumbria to be pasture ornaments. And it made me think again about the term housewife and its similarities to pasture ornament. These two terms are so often used with heavy (negative) judgment. My experience, though, has been that those labeled with these terms often contribute so much to the quality of the life they share with others. I think of the many moments of profound peace I have felt thanks to my mother’s homemaking and my ponies’ presence in my pastures, moments that are priceless. My hope is that the people who use these terms judgmentally will someday experience the profound gifts that housewives and pasture ornaments bring to life.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

More stories like this one are in my book What An Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the picture.

The Ultimate Broodmare Compliment

It is a compliment from a broodmare when she allows us to see her young foal, since she can be expert in blocking a view with her body.  And it’s even more of a compliment when she allows us to handle her foal, whether it is disinfecting its navel, teaching it to wear a halter, or any of the other early-in-life handling chores we may choose to do with foals.  But in my experience, the ultimate broodmare complement is even more meaningful.

I was visiting with a veterinarian on a Sunday, so she had her young son at the clinic with her.  We were talking about pony breeding, and she explained to her son that we rarely get to see baby ponies born.  I agreed with her, as I have mares whom have never complimented me by allowing me to be present when they give birth.  This year, though, all three of my mares complimented me with that experience.

The first was Willowtrail Mountain Honey.  I had attended her first birthing experience a few years before, so I was hopeful I would again receive the compliment of her wanting my presence.  This time I had been monitoring her and could tell she had chosen to foal on a day when I had to be away for several hours.  If it had been a less-important event, I would have re-scheduled it, so I was terribly upset to be leaving.  Sometimes miracles happen, though, and when I told a friend about my dilemma, she immediately offered to come out to the ranch to sit with Honey while I was gone.  At a discreet distance from Honey, my friend read a novel in the spring sunshine, enjoyed tea in the shade of a tree, and struck up conversations with Honey occasionally.  Nonetheless, Honey chose not to foal while I was gone.

Willowtrail Mountain Honey giving birth to Willowtrail Robert

I arrived back home in the late afternoon and took over watching Honey.  Every two hours or so, I checked her waxing and behavior.  I went to bed without her foaling, and I set my alarm for every two hours.  Honey could have chosen to foal, then, when I had just gone back inside but instead she waited until I appeared at 1am to begin the last stages of labor.  Willowtrail Robert was born not long after.  (I always ponder when the actual moment of birth is, since it’s not uncommon for hind legs, for instance, to stay inside the birth canal for several minutes after the rest of the body has greeted air.  Some foals try to stand before their hind legs are fully ‘born’!)

It might be fair to say that a greater compliment came to me a few weeks later when it was Drybarrows Calista’s turn to give birth.  The previous year she had chosen, with help from my timed monitoring schedule, to give birth without me there.  So I felt especially honored that she chose differently this year, giving me the great compliment of wanting me there.  Rambler was born shortly after midnight.

Drybarrows Calista giving birth to Willowtrail Rambler

Mare number three was Bowthorne Matty.  Matty had previously had seven foals for me, and I had been honored to attend birthing for many of them.  This time I almost missed the birth of number 8, Willowtrail Rory, because I forgot to set the alarm for the two-hour check.  Bless Matty for sending me a wake-up call so I could be there! 

Bowthorne Matty and Willowtrail Rory when he first stood at sixteen minutes

I consider a mare choosing to have me present for the birth of a foal to be the ultimate compliment she can give me because it is such a major physiologic and emotional event for her.  And as a breeder, it is an incredibly meaningful one for me.  In Carolyn Resnick’s horsemanship program, she considers her ‘Sharing Territory’ exercise to be the most important. It is about spending time ‘doing nothing’ with an equine but the reality is that it is very much about being present which can be more challenging than ‘doing nothing’ for us humans!  Carolyn says that when done correctly, Sharing Territory builds a strong bond between human and equine.  The time I spend with a new mother and pony is very similar to Carolyn’s Sharing Territory exercise, and I credit it and all the other relationship-building that I do with my ponies for the compliments they give me back.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

You can find more stories like this one in my book What An Honor, available by clicking here or on the book cover.

Treats. Treats? Treats!

Every pony person at some point ponders whether to give treats to their partner. Horse people have the same wondering. Some of my ponies get treats and some of them don’t. I’ve had the bad experience of giving a pony a treat that I shouldn’t have. It took months for the pony to come back around to not begging constantly and being pushy looking for me to give it something to eat. Because of that sort of experience, I’ve always said that some ponies can have treats and others can’t.

However, I started thinking about the topic differently thanks to a master horsewoman. She suggested the idea that ponies can be taught to have good manners around treats. It was a statement that seemed so obvious when I heard it but one I had never considered before. This horsewoman, Carolyn Resnick, believes in beginning all her training at liberty and beginning it around food. Her point is that if you don’t have good behavior at liberty and around food, how can you expect to have it when doing other things with the equine constrained in some way by tack? It is a fascinating study.

This begging behavior needs to be reshaped before the pony receives a treat. She needs to seem uninterested, preferably standing back in a relaxed manner with ears not back.

These weren’t completely new ideas. I ask my ponies to have good manners around feed buckets, for instance, which definitely improves our relationship. They aren’t allowed to eat after I put the bucket before them until I give them permission. Carolyn points out that the starting point around giving treats is to understand what good behavior around treats looks like. I admit I had never consciously considered what good behavior would look like when giving a treat; I just recognized bad behavior and then didn’t see the opportunity for reshaping it!

Carolyn also says that we create food-aggressive equines by the way we feed. This, too, was a new idea to me, in part because, again, I had never really given it much thought. But now it totally makes sense. If we feed our equines without recognizing the opportunity for shaping good behavior, some will end up taking advantage of the situation by becoming pushy, or worse, such as rearing or biting or kicking. I have seen all these behaviors in my ponies at some point, including in foals around their mothers! I am thankful for Caroyln’s Waterhole Rituals for the opportunities they present for shaping good behavior.

For the moment, for the safety of people such as outside buyers and visitors, I will continue to say that some ponies should not be given treats. And when I can I will suggest that there is another perspective!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

There are more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony: What’s Possible, Practical, and Powerful with Small Equines, available by clicking here or on the book cover.

Ideal Weight for a Fell Pony

I got a question from a Fell Pony owner about the ideal weight for a Fell Pony. I love it when Fell Pony owners ask good questions! My first reaction was that ‘ideal weight’ is not a number. I know Fell Ponies as short as 12.2hh and as tall as 14hh or taller, so the ideal weight of any one pony will vary depending on their individual and unique stature. And their weight can and even should vary by season, as well as by work load and by age and by breeding status.

A barely visible valley down this Fell Pony mare’s back indicates body condition at the higher end of the preferred range.

When I bought my first pony, my mentor introduced me to checking for body condition. After reinforcing their lesson about ponies as easy keepers, they explained that you have to use your hands to assess fat covering because hair coats can make visual assessment inaccurate. Since then, I’ve seen numerous articles about how so many equine owners don’t recognize the body condition of their hooved partner. For my inquirer, then, I wanted to find and share a good body condition scoring website. When I did a quick search of the internet, though, I found not one but three sites that together provided what I felt was necessary information.

Body Condition Scoring ranks body condition numerically to identify the ideal fat coverage of an equine, rather than assign a particular weight in pounds as a target. In the US, the scores typically range from 1 (Poor) to 9 (extremely fat), with the adjectives thin, moderate, fleshy and fat in between. I have also heard of a scoring system in France that ranges from 0 to 5, with scoring often done in .25 increments.

On the 0-9 scale, I have personally seen Fell Ponies all the way from a score of 3 (thin) to 8 (fat). The pony scoring 3 (Withers, shoulders and neck accentuated) was a hard keeper for a Fell Pony. The pony scoring 8 (Crease down back. Difficult to feel ribs. Area along withers filled with fat. Area behind shoulder filled with fat, noticeable thickening of neck) was on very rich pasture. (The photograph here isn’t even close to what that pony was like; the crease or valley down its back was nearly an inch deep, compared to barely a quarter inch here.) And pasture isn’t necessary to create high body condition scores. My first Fell Pony mare was two hundred pounds overweight when I bought her, which was in January and she was being fed free-choice hay.

The first helpful website I found was one hosted by the feed company Purina. I appreciated this summary statement: “Most horses, including performance horses and growing horses, should be in a body condition score of 5-6. For optimum reproductive efficiency, broodmares should be a 5-7, and not allowed to lose condition such that they are below a 5 during breeding season. Horses over a condition score of 7 may be at a greater risk for developing metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance.” (1) Purina’s site (click here) has a diagram that effectively shows the areas of the equine that should be monitored for fat deposition (or not). There are good word descriptions of each score from 1 (poor) to 9 (extremely fat).

The second site that I found helpful was Texas A&M University’s (click here). This site had pen-and-ink drawings of each body condition score from 1 to 9. The advantage of drawings is that the artist can more easily draw our eye to key details than a photographer can. In this case, it is more obvious where the changes occur as you move up the scale from thin to fat. Also, this description is in PDF form so is easier to print if that’s something you like to do.

The final website from thehorse.com via the University of Kentucky (click here) describes how to actually score your pony’s body condition yourself. There are helpful photographs showing someone palpating each area of a horse’s body where fat deposition is common.

I don’t think determining ideal weight is any different for a Fell versus another equine, at least as far as body condition scoring is concerned. The most important thing for Fell Ponies is that they are given a time during the year when they lose weight down to a 3-4 score and then they can gain it back up to 5-7. It’s hard on us humans to let them lose weight and become thin, but it’s a completely natural cycle for them, since living out yearround as they’ve done for centuries on the fells of their homeland means gaining in the summer and losing in the winter. The key is that they need to lose weight at some point during the year. While keeping an equine at the same body condition yearround is what some experts recommend, I have had a veterinarian as well as veteran Fell Pony breeders say that the cycle of losing weight and gaining it back is natural and beneficial.

When it comes to body condition scoring my ponies, I often do it visually, which definitely has inaccuracies and disadvantages. When I do a physical examination, I use the fat covering over the ribs to check condition first, just because I have found that that area isn’t as easy to discern visually as, say, the area behind the withers. Checking the ribs in the winter months is especially important since the hair coat then obscures important detail.

So what is the ideal weight for a Fell Pony? It’s not a number of pounds. It is a healthy body condition for the individual pony in their individual living situation at a particular time of year. Mostly, determining our pony’s ideal weight is an opportunity to get to know our pony better, and, really, what could be better than that?!

1) https://www.purinamills.com/horse-feed/education/detail/body-condition-scoring-your-horse

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Packhorse History in Eskdale and its Surroundings

Esk Dale is truly magnificent, full of contrasts and steeped in history.  It can also boast a unique feature in that, at its head, are the highest mountains in England, the Scafells, and its feet are well and truly in the sea at Ravenglass. – Michael Hartwell in An Illustrated Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of the Lake District (1)

Fell Pony Linnel Doublet looking out over Eskdale from the historic packhorse track between Wasdale and Eskdale over Burnmoor on the author’s 2015 traverse of the track.

The Fell Pony is the native pony of northwest England, including the Lake District.  However, the Fell is often not recognized for its many and diverse roles in the history and landscape of the northern hills.  For instance, in the nomination documents for the Lake District for recognition as a World Heritage Site, the Fell was absent despite its ancestors being the primary mode of transport of goods during the packhorse era and the Fell being a native dweller of the fells like its better-known brethren the Herdwick Sheep.  While packhorse bridges are often recognized as historic and picturesque parts of the region, the many other features that harken back to the packhorse era, including the ponies themselves, are not recognized as such.

From 2016 to 2017, Maggie B. Dickinson wrote a series of thirteen articles for Cumbria magazine about the packhorse history of the area.  Her series built on her many decades of research about packhorse bridges and related features in northern England.  Because of my interest in the working heritage of the Fell Pony, Maggie subsequently gave me permission to build upon her work and document more about how the ancestors of today’s Fell Ponies were used in the commercial and industrial past of the region.  I am grateful to Maggie for sharing her knowledge, her photographs, and her insights with me.

Wordsworth's view of the features of the Lake District as spokes of a wheel radiating from the hub (red dot) at ScaFell.  My progress documenting the packhorse history of the region is hatched in green. 

The poet William Wordsworth, in his Guide Through the District of the Lakes in 1835, encouraged his reader to imagine themselves suspended like a cloud above the Scafells where they would see diverging from their feet numerous valleys “like spokes from the nave of a wheel.” (2) In the illustration at right, the nave or hub of the wheel is shown in red. In hatched green are areas whose packhorse history I have previously explored. For instance, the packhorse history of the spoke that is the Lickle valley is in the southwestern portion of the Lake District (click here if you’d like to read that article). Clockwise from the Lickle is the spoke that is the Duddon valley (click here if you’d like to read that article.) Further north is Burnmoor and its historic route (click here if you’d like to read that article). Counterclockwise from the Lickle is the Furness region which influenced both the Duddon and Lickle valleys (click here if you’d like to read the Furness article). And then further counterclockwise are Morecambe Bay and the sands routes that crossed it (click here if you’d like to read that). Here I will explore the spoke that is the valley of the River Esk, clockwise from the Duddon valley. I will explore Eskdale’s near neighbor, again clockwise, the spoke that is the River Mite, in a future article.

As Hartwell indicates in the opening quote, Eskdale begins under the Scafells and runs to the sea at Ravenglass.  However, some sources say that Eskdale is north of the Esk and Birker & Austhwaite is south of the river.  I will use the more general rather than specific meaning of Eskdale here. 

At one time, Ravenglass was a port town, with a harbor collecting the waters of not only the Esk and the Mite but also the Irt (the next spoke clockwise from the Mite).  Maggie says about Ravenglass’s place in packhorse history, “Ravenglass has enjoyed much activity, especially during the smuggling period.  Apart from the legal import and export of goods, there were hidden dropping off and picking up points used by smugglers in the quietest of places along the coast either side of Ravenglass.  Eventually Whitehaven, a much larger harbour and port to the north, became the main base for shipping and Ravenglass fell into obscurity.”  If you haven’t read Rudyard Kipling’s poem “A Smuggler’s Song,” about pack ponies and illicit cargo, I highly recommend it;  click here to access written, spoken, and sung renditions.

Since the River Esk penetrates deeply into the Lake District, transit through its valley naturally occurred as early as humans were moving about.   Recorded history says that first defense and then trade were the primary reasons for travel through the valley.  Trade began in Neolithic times 4,000 years ago.  Then the Romans built a road through Eskdale for defense purposes in the first century AD and constructed forts at either end of the valley to oversee and protect their interests.  It is likely that they used pack ponies to access areas away from their roads.  Supporting this assertion, Sue Millard notes in her book A Century of Fells that pack saddles were found during excavation of Vindolanda, a Roman Fort east of Carlisle along Hadrian’s Wall. (3)

Subsequently, during the monastic period (roughly 1000 to 1500AD), Furness Abbey had interests in Eskdale and Miterdale and used packhorses to move goods.  And then in the post-monastic period, packhorse trains followed numerous tracks through the valley taking goods for export to the ports at Ravenglass and Whitehaven and bringing imports, legal and otherwise, on the return journey. 

Anyone interested in the history of Eskdale is indebted to Miss Mary C. Fair, an amateur historian and archaeologist who lived in the valley from 1875 to 1955. Miss Fair published numerous papers about Eskdale in the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeology Society (referred to here as Transactions). More recently, the Eskdale & District Local History Society completed a four-year project revisiting Miss Fair’s work, publishing Walking In The Footsteps of Mary Fair (Footsteps) in 2008. I am grateful to Jamie Quartermaine of Oxford Archaeology North for sharing a copy of Footsteps with me.

While Mary Fair’s work was principally about the Roman period and thereafter in Eskdale, she also made notes about the Neolithic period (4,500-2,350 BCE).  I was fascinated by a description of the Neolithic period in Footsteps.  Specifically, I was intrigued that “Craftsmen were fashioning the volcanic tuffs found on the high central and western fells into stone axe heads, at the time a valuable and tradable commodity.  Axes from this area have been found in large quantities in Ireland and as far afield as the northern coast of France, which suggests that the centre of the Lake District was, in a manner of speaking, a silicon valley of its day.” (4)  This telling indicates that international trade from Eskdale was actively underway up to 2,300 years BCE, which left me wondering if pack ponies were in use earlier than the Roman period.  On Dartmoor, ponies were domesticated around 1500 BCE, with horses domesticated about 500 years earlier.  (5)  Perhaps in time we’ll know more about how long ago ponies were domesticated in northwest England and if they may have helped with trade during the late Neolithic period.

This map locates features in Eskdale and nearby areas in the Lake District of Cumbria with connections to packhorse transport, including mines, Woods, peat, mills, and more. (c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

The map here shows the valleys of the River Esk and River Mite, with the valleys approximated in pale yellow.  There is a low pass between the two valleys at Eskdale Green, roughly in the center of the map.  The Duddon Valley, our previous topic, sits off to the lower right of this map.  In addition to my gratitude for Maggie B. Dickinson’s assistance, I am grateful to Fell Pony trekker Vyv Wood-Gee for her interest in packhorse-related features and her sharing of photographs that you will see below.

The map indicates the rough locations of features that are related to the historic use of packhorses in Eskdale and its environs.  While ‘packhorses’ is the usual term, history says they were ponies by stature since they were usually less than 14hh; a stout but shorter equine made it easier to lift the loads onto the pack saddles.  While some of the packhorses in use during the peak of the packhorse era were imported - jaggers from Germany for instance - some were also likely locally reared and therefore ancestral to today’s Fell Ponies, the breed that calls the region home today.

Purple elements on the map indicate Roman features, including the road from upper right to lower left.  Black lines are modern roads.  Green lines indicate historic packhorse tracks that may today be footpaths or bridleways.  Often modern roads follow the same routes as historic tracks because those routes were found over time to be the most efficient way to get from point A to point B.  A narrow-gauge railway ascends the Mite valley from Ravenglass to the pass over to Eskdale and terminates at Dalegarth near Boot.  Its track is shown by a double hatched black line.  Another full-scale railway hugs the coastline.  Maggie says, “This is the Cumbrian Coast Line which runs from Carlisle and down through Workington, Whitehaven, and to the southern end of the Furness Peninsula to Barrow and then up through Ulverston, Grange-over-Sands to Carnforth near Lancaster where it connects with the West Coast Main Line” 

Fell Pony Wellbrow Drifter ambles down the old Roman road under Muncaster Fell in Eskdale in September 2021.  Copyright and Courtesy Vyv Wood-Gee

On the map, ‘Grounds’ are shown as green circles. These are current or former farms with historic associations with Furness Abbey during the monastic period. The Lake District National Park World Heritage Site documentation says about ‘Grounds:’ “Following a formal agreement between the Abbot of Furness and squatters in 1509, a series of permanent steadings was established by carving out small, irregular fields from the monastic commons, and building a basic, humble farmstead or ‘Ground’. Each ground is named after the original family….” (6) Maggie considers the monastic era to be the beginning of significant use of packhorses for moving goods, though there is evidence that the Romans used packhorses in rougher remote areas in their era. Places like Grounds, as part of the Abbey’s network, would have been serviced by packhorses.

‘Bridges’ are either known to have packhorse associations or are worthy of further investigation for packhorse associations.  Bridges have the most obvious connections to packhorses and they have been the most researched and identified.  However, some bridges have yet to be given the credit that they deserve and others are on historic packhorse routes and have been rebuilt since the packhorse era.  Maggie and others have found many bridges that are not yet on the most common lists of these important features.  Bridges are considered to be genuine packhorse bridges when they are on a known packhorse route, have low (or even no) parapets to allow panniers to pass over them, are narrow and were built during the packhorse era.  The packhorse era is generally considered to have been prior to about 1750 when the turnpike roads began to be constructed in earnest.  However, in places, road improvements didn’t come until much later, so packhorses continued in use.

‘Woods’ were forests managed historically for making charcoal and other woodland products.  As Maggie points out, some forests were coppiced:  “managed by pruning so that new growth sprouted back quickly from the roots or stumps, thereby creating wood suitable for charcoal and other purposes.”  Charcoal was the fuel source for iron smelting, an early and prominent industrial activity of Eskdale and Miterdale.  Bobbins, an example of other woodland products, were needed by the Lancashire cotton mills and were a common product of the woodlands of the region. Maggie says, “These bobbins were sent to the Lancashire Cotton Mills in the mid-1800s, and at this time the packhorses were still in full swing in such remote areas.”

Mines, quarries, and drifts are shown, though we do not have clear information about the dates of their workings.  Hence we don’t specifically know which ones would have been serviced by packhorses.  An article on the mines of Eskdale by the Cumbria Industrial History Society says, “The iron ore deposits, reddish in colour, outcrop on the surface and must have been used for ‘ruddle’ or pigments since early times. Iron has been smelted in the valley since at least Roman times, as the many small banks of slag testify. Presumably local ore was used.” (7) During their era, packhorses would have been used to move ore from mines to smelting sites.

Pitsteads are remnants of charcoal making platforms in the Woods.  Their locations are from Mary Fair’s publications in Transactions.  Pack ponies were used to transport charcoal from the Woods to the iron smelting sites called bloomeries during their era.

The Woolpack Inn in Eskdale has packhorse era connections. Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson

On the map, ‘Inns, halls, castles’ are places of manorial activity, lodging and/or eating/drinking with known or probable packhorse associations. These places were near a known packhorse route. Additionally, they would have had a place for the packmen to sleep, had enclosed grass paddocks for the ponies to graze in overnight, and had space under lock and key for the packs to be stored.

Maggie adds, “In addition to the monastic system, there were other factors we inherited from the French after the Norman Conquest, like the feudal system which brought castles into being, so that with monasteries, priories, abbeys, castles, manor houses and the like, the population grew around these locations, and the need to trade became vital, so that market charters (many of which still exist) were given to towns and villages for the ease of trade, hence the need for pack ponies on routes where wheels could never go.”

‘Mills’ were water-powered so are along water courses and were used for corn as well as for processing wool and cloth (woolen, linen or hemp).  Other mills made wood products.  Prior to good road access, packhorses would have brought raw materials to the mills and taken finished products away to market. 

Bloomeries are shown on the map.  Iron ore was smelted at them, using charcoal for fuel.   Iron ore during the medieval period would have been brought to the bloomeries by packhorses or cart and horse, and charcoal would have made the short trip from the Woods to the bloomeries similarly.

‘P’ marks the locations where peat was cut and stored to be used as fuel or where evidence of its transport has been found.  In a 1984 Transactions paper by Angus Winchester, the author suggests that in Eskdale, peat was often sledged - a horse or pony put to an implement drug on the ground on which the peat was stacked.  However, he also notes use of pack ponies from some peat storage huts where sledge tracks were not found.  “The position of some of these huts near steep slopes with no evidence of well-built tracks perhaps suggests that peat was transported from them without vehicular aid, either in panniers on pack horses, or on human backs.” (8)

Finally, on the map, a church with a packhorse association is indicated, as is Hollins Farm, an overnight stop by drovers and probably packmen.

The descent into Eskdale from Hardknott Pass.  Bob Orrell and his Fell Ponies used this road on their Saddle Tramp in the Lake District.  Courtesy Rob Farrow via geograph.co.uk, Creative Commons license 2.0

At the far right of the map, Hardknott Pass is indicated. This is the first of several important passes into Eskdale from other parts of the Lake District. The Roman Road comes over Hardknott Pass, as shown by the purple line, connecting two of the approximately 25 Roman forts that were built in Cumbria from AD71 to AD383. The Roman roads in Cumbria were remarkably straight in most places. These are in contrast with the later packhorse tracks which tended to follow grades to make it easier on the loaded animals. And while the Roman roads connected the Roman forts, the packhorse tracks tended to connect market towns, quarries, and farms. According to the Roman Roads Research Association, “From the top of the pass the modern and Roman lines coincide but at the end of the hairpin bend that swings to right…, the Roman road diverges and takes a higher line to the fort.” (9)

In 1982, Bob Orrell published his book Saddle Tramp in the Lake District about his travels around the region with two Fell Ponies.  Bob, Thor, and Jewel traversed Hardknott Pass, with Bob expressing his appreciation for the packhorse history, and harrowing present, of the route:

…we plodded up the tortuous pass, overtaken at frequent intervals by startled motorists, surprised to find two pack-pones where they rightly belonged.  If the occupants of those brightly painted metal monsters did but know it, the horse had carried goods and people over Hardknott Pass for hundreds of years and it was the last route to be regularly used by the pack-horse gangs, before wheeled transport finally ousted them from the Lake District forever…. Descending into Eskdale we had to take great care on the smooth tarmac.  The spinning tyres of countless cars had left a coating of rubber on each bend and I had one heart-stopping moment when both ponies skied down a particularly greasy section and slid to a halt on the brink of a long drop into the valley. (10)

In Saddle Tramp, Bob also related an often-told tale about how a packhorseman was assisted by a black stallion on their travels from Kendal over Hardknott Pass on their way to Whitehaven:

The locals tell a grand story about a character who used to travel over Hardknott Pass with a gang of pack-horses, plying between Kendal and Whitehaven.  He rode a pony and, being rather fond of his ale, had a habit of dashing ahead of his pack-horse [gang] to an inn, where he would sit drinking until they had passed, led by an old black stallion who probably knew the way better than anybody.  A few more drinks and he would overtake them again and wait at the next inn.  Apparently he did this all the way to Whitehaven, but whether he managed to ride back to Kendal, or was carried, history does not record. (11)

From above Hardnott Roman Fort looking toward Eskdale. The Fort is midground center-left, and Ravenglass and the Irish Sea are at the distant upper right.  Copyright and courtesy Mountain Coward

  Hardknott Fort is one of the most impressive sites of the Roman Occupation to be found in the whole of Britain.  – Robert Gambles in The Story of the Lakeland Dales (12)

Hardknott Fort is shown as a purple diamond on the map.  While the Fort did not have known packhorse associations, it is nonetheless an important landmark in Eskdale and is accessed by the Roman Road that was later used by many packhorse gangs. 

Footsteps paints a dramatic picture of the setting of Hardknott Fort. “At the head of the valley, perched on the edge of a rim of crags, is Hardknott Fort with its impressive backdrop of England’s highest mountains. One of the best descriptions of the fort was made by Chancellor Ferguson during the first excavation in 1892. He likened it to ‘an enchanted fortress in the air; the work of superhuman powers to the native Britons.’” (13)

Robert Gambles in his book The Story of the Lakeland Dales, expands on his quote above by explaining that the impressive Hardknott Fort was actually not long-lived.  “Hardknott had a fairly short life as an active military station.  It was probably built towards the end of the first century AD and appears to have been destroyed and abandoned towards the end of the second.” (14)

According to Maggie’s research, the Roman route over Wrynose and Hardknott passes was known as Smuggler’s Road and is believed to have been the last of Cumbria’s packhorse roads.  In an article for Cumbria magazine, she told the story of moonshiner Lanty Slee.  “Not content with local trade he would use the cover of darkness to trek over Wrynose and Hardknott passes – two of the hairiest roads in the country – either leading a single packhorse with bulging panniers or among a group of smugglers, [heading] for the old Roman port of Ravenglass.  There he exchanged whisky for foreign goodies such as rum, brandy, tobacco and sugar….  On risky journeys Lanty’s whisky was frequently carried in pigs’ bladders, rather than bottles….  When his dogs gave [an alarm] signal he could split the skin and rid himself of the evidence.  The round trip from Langdale to Ravenglass on foot, of almost thirty miles, was arduous and life-threatening in inclement weather, and poses the question of when Lanty found time to sleep.”  (15)

Brotherilkeld, an historic farm with connections during the monastic era to Furness Abbey and also having more recent Fell Pony associations.  Photo copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson.

At the base of the pass, we find on the map three features: a Ground, a bloomery and a pitstead.  The Ground is referred to as Brotherilkeld (or similar spellings) and was connected to Furness Abbey during the monastic era.  Brotherilkeld has been owned by the National Trust since 1961.  According to the National Trust website, “Like many other places in the Lake District, Norse settlers and farmers left their mark through numerous place names, including Brotherilkeld meaning ‘the booth of Ulfkell’.” (16) Booth is an old English word for a livestock shelter according to Merriam-Webster.

Gambles explains in The Story of the Lakeland Dales: “In 1242 the Abbot negotiated a remarkable transaction whereby in exchange for a coastal property at Monkfoss, near Black Combe, the Abbey acquired 14,000 acres of Upper Eskdale including the already long-established sheep farm or ‘herdwick’ of Brotherilket.  They thus obtained not only a valuable economic asset but also control of the communications routes, via Hardknott, to their other possessions in High Furness and, via Esk Hause, to their farms and granges in Borrowdale.  They also secured access, via Lingcove (where their bridge still stands) and Ore Gap, to the iron furnaces in Langstrath for the smelting of the ore they mined in Eskdale.”  (17)  The bridge that Gambles mentions here is shown at the extreme upper right corner of the map. 

Brotherilkeld has connections to Fell Ponies, not only because Bob Orrell and his ponies Thor and Lucy camped there for two nights on their Saddle Tramp.   In a 2012 article in The Guardian, Tony Greenbank told a story about the Harrison family that currently stewards Brotherilkeld.  “[Eric Harrison’s] family has shepherded Brotherilkeld farm at the head of Eskdale for more than 100 years and he has farmed here for 40 years plus with his brother Geoff….  When he was eight, Eric accompanied farmer Tom Crozier and a horse called Zebe that worked on the farm to Harter's summit [Harter Fell is the tallest peak to the south of Brotherilkeld, between there and the Duddon Valley].  Eric had hoped – as boys will – to hitch a ride on the sturdy fell pony, but Zebe (which always wore a chain so it could be readily caught when it trod on the links) was carrying a bag of cement needed to make a platform for the Ordnance Survey trig point on top. Eric was forlorn to find that neither could he ride down. The steep angle tipped him headlong over the horse's head, down towards the leafy belt of trees by the river Esk.…”  (18)

Lingcove Bridge over a headwaters tributary of the River Esk.  Photo courtesy and copyright Maureen Fleming

Not far from Brotherilkeld on the map is a marker for a bloomery and pitstead. These features are mentioned in Mary Fair’s 1921 Transactions paper called ‘Bloomery Sites in Eskdale and Wasdale (Part 1)’: “To the right of the road ascending [Hardknott] pass about 50 yards over the bridge are remains of a hearth or kiln, the bottom of which is covered with burnt matter…I have not been able to find a slag-heap, but through the gate above, at the right beside the ancient track leading from a ford, is a heap of iron ore. There are charcoal pitsteads in the wood at the opposite side of the road from the hearth.” (19) During their era, pack ponies would have moved charcoal from the pitstead to the bloomery and ore from mines to the bloomery.

Above Brotherilkeld over a tributary of the River Esk sits Lingcove Bridge, also called Throstlegarth or Roman Bridge.  It physically has the characteristics of a packhorse bridge in terms of width and low or no parapets.  However there is disagreement about it being on a known packhorse route.  Hinchliffe, widely considered one of the best authorities on packhorse bridges, wrote in his book A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England, “It is said to be on a route leading from Brotherilkeld via Ore Gap into the Langstrath valley where there was a smelting furnace or bloomery; a route used by iron miners.  This is difficult to confirm from present evidence because the path between Brotherilkeld and Ore Gap is on the same side (east) of Lingcove Beck throughout.” (20).  Gambles says in the quote above that the bridge has monastic connections, which would confirm its connection to packhorses since Furness Abbey made significant use of pack ponies.  Hartwell in his book on packhorse bridges also indicates monastic connections, “There has probably been a crossing at Throstle Garth for hundreds of years….  The monks from Furness Abbey had a monastic sheep pasture around Throstle Garth Bridge where the remains of the sheep folds are still in evidence.” (21) 

Also above Brotherilkeld are locations of peat moss.  In Winchester’s 1984 Transactions paper called ‘Peat Storage Huts in Eskdale,’ he wrote, “A survey of these peat storage huts in Eskdale was undertaken in August 1982, with the help of a small group of American volunteers, recruited by the Earthwatch organization of Belmont, Massachusetts, as part of a project organized by the Brathay Centre for Exploration and Field Studies…. What is unusual about the Eskdale huts is their location out on the fellside: most other Lakeland ‘peat houses’ were situated among the other buildings of the farmstead….  All that can be said with certainty about the origins of the peat scales is that some, at least, were in existence by the late 16th century.”  (22)  Pack ponies would have been one form of transport available at the origins of these peat scales.

During the survey of Eskdale peat scales, thirty-five huts were located, and two types were identified.  Type A huts were more primitive and likely went out of use in the mid-1800s.  Type B huts had slate roofs on their stone walls, as compared to bracken on the Type As, and the Type Bs “were nearly all associated with well-made sledge tracks and several had stone-built ramps leading to their upper doorways and levelled areas in front of their lower entrances….  The absence of the [Type B] storage hut from the upper reaches of the valley may indicate that the smaller deposits of peat in that area had ceased to be worked (or had been worked out) by the date of the change of building style.” (23)  On the map, the three indicators marking Peat are from this survey, with two of the three being Type A huts and the third, the farthest north, being a hut of unclassified type.  Pack ponies were known to carry bracken, so it’s possible that the construction of the Type A huts may have involved them.

Wha House Bridge over the River Esk.  While not considered a packhorse bridge, its location suggests that a bridge likely existed in this location during the packhorse era.  Photo by Mick Knapton and used via Creative Commons License 3.0

Traveling down the river and the Roman Road we come to a bridge over the River Esk. Wha House Bridge is not considered a packhorse bridge. However, its location both topographically and on the Roman Road suggest a bridge in this location likely existed during the packhorse era and would have been used by packhorses. With a known packhorse route on the south side of the river and the Roman Road providing good transit on the north side of the river, and with packhorse-related features on both sides of the river, it seems likely that a bridge at the Wha House location would have been an important feature, just as it is now for modern vehicular traffic.

There are three mines, quarries or drifts shown north and south of Wha House Bridge.  These features were located via a map called ‘Detailed Old Victorian Ordnance Survey Map 1888-1913.’  This map, which I will refer to as Detailed Old Map, has been a valuable resource for investigating routes, tracks, and bridges as well as the location of peat moss, quarries, mines and drifts.  (24)

Doctor Bridge across the River Esk is an important link between numerous historic packhorse routes.  Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson

A green line on the south side of the river heading west from Wha House Bridge is an historic packhorse track according to Bob Orrell in Saddle Tramp: “…having spent much of the morning talking to the Harrisons [at Brotherilkeld], the day was well advanced when I rode Thor down to Wha House bridge and a gate leading into a tree-lined meadow. The old pack-horse track crossed the meadow to a wood and on through bracken, so tall at times the ponies were out of sight under it. Crossing the boulder-strewn beck, the track improved, following a well-worn route through pasture land and numerous gates, to Penny Hill Farm. In the days when packhorses and droves of cattle passed by from Ravenglass, the farm was an inn called Pyet’s Nest.”(25) On the map, Pyet’s Nest is indicated. Maggie suspects Pyet is a surname.

Continuing on from Penny Hill Farm, still on the south side of the river, we come to a bridge across the Esk.  Today the bridge is called Doctor Bridge, and there is a popular tale from 1734 about a local surgeon living at Penny Hill.  It is said he wanted the original packhorse bridge at this location widened to accommodate his pony and trap.  However, Gambles and colleagues published an article in the Friends of the Lake District’s newsletter Conserving Lakeland that tells an alternate interpretation of the bridge’s widening. 

According to the article, documents uncovered at Penny Hill Farm say the bridge was widened circa 1817.  In addition, the bridge wasn’t called Doctor Bridge until 1860 or so on an Ordnance Survey map.  “So the link between the ‘doctor’ and the ‘bridge’ is by no means proven,” say the article’s authors.  Nonetheless it is clear from its location that it was an important feature during the packhorse era.  Hartwell says in his book on packhorse bridges, “…although today it provides access to only two or three farms, it was (in the 1700s) on an extremely busy route.  In fact, it was on the main thoroughfare between Esk Dale and the Duddon Valley.” (26)  There is a picture of this ‘main thoroughfare’ below.

The indications of peat on the map south of Doctor Bridge and Penny Hill were identified by Winchester in his 1984 Transactions paper.  Three in the more eastern location were Type A, or older, and the more westerly one was a Type B or newer and more elaborate.  Winchester asks an interesting question in his paper after reviewing a relevant lawsuit: “an attempt must be made to consider why the inhabitants of Eskdale went to the expense of building such structures, while many other Lake District communities seem to have succeeded in obtaining their peat without storage huts on the commons.  The reason given in the 1795 lawsuit papers… was that ‘it is often difficult to win their peats in summer’. Presumably, the phrase ‘to win’ is used here to cover the whole process of obtaining peats, from cutting them to bringing them to the farmstead. Inability to complete the process in the summer could arise from two factors: either the climate on the exposed, high level peat mosses might have been too wet to allow the peats to dry sufficiently, or perhaps, aggravated by the slowness of drying, the farming calendar of the summer months (hay-making, sheep clipping, harvest) might not have allowed sufficient time to carry the peats down….  It may be argued that precipitation in Eskdale is not appreciably higher than elsewhere in the Lake District and that climate alone cannot explain the need for peat scales in the valley. The relatively high altitude of the peat deposits would account for some difference in climate between the Eskdale peat mosses and those of some other valleys, but the decisive factor may perhaps have been the extremely steep fellsides of Eskdale which separated the farmsteads from their peat supplies. It might well have been considered preferable to carry completely dry peat down these at intervals during the winter than to carry the extra weight of water in crumbling, semi-dried peats in the summer.” (27)  Certainly if pack ponies were used to carry the peat, having the peats be drier and lighter would allow a larger load to be more safely carried down the steep tracks.

On the map, the mine noted south of Penny Hill is an old copper mine.  Its location is documented in the 1923 list of Ancient Monuments in Birker and Austhwaite.  (28)  No indication of the dates of its working were given, so it’s unknown whether it would have been serviced by pack ponies.

Woods are indicated on the map along the river downstream from Doctor Bridge.  The Detailed Old Map names the first pair Oak How and Crag Coppice and the downstream pair Ash How and Great Coppice.  Mary Fair refers to them as Birker Wood, and she found numerous pitsteads there.  According to Maggie, ‘how’ is Norse for hillock. 

A bloomery is indicated on the map between the two pairs of Woods.  Mary Fair calls the bloomery Low Birker and she also locates pitsteads in a Wood nearby.  “[The bloomery] is situated on the ancient road on the south side of the Esk….   In the field at the other side of the wall there are heaps of oxide mixed with metallic ore on the banks of the stream, and red oxide and slag are scattered here and there in the earth of the field lately turned up by the plough….  There are numerous charcoal pitsteads in Birker Wood.” (29)  Charcoal would have been moved from the pitsteads to the bloomery by packhorse during their era.  Ore may also have been moved to the bloomery the same way in that era.

Sign marking the site of the historic Woolpack Inn.  Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson

Across the river from Doctor Bridge and Penny Hill Farm, two features lie on the Roman (and modern) road. The first is a bridge across a tributary of the Esk, and the second is an inn. The bridge crosses Blea Beck and is called, suitably, Blea Beck Bridge on the Detailed Old Map. Like Wha House Bridge, it is not considered a packhorse bridge but a bridge at this site likely existed during the packhorse era when a route likely followed the Roman Road.

Herdwick sheep and spectators at Eskdale Show in 2015 with the dramatic fell backdrop.  Courtesy Eddie McDonough

The inn, on the other hand, has known packhorse associations and is pictured above. The Wool Pack Inn, according to Mary Fair, was originally called the Dawson Place. (30) And the Old Cumbria Gazetteer website calls the location Dawson Ground, hinting at a possible historic connection to Furness Abbey. (31)

A visitors’ guide website says, “The isolated Woolpack Inn and the nearby Youth Hostel are well frequented by hill-lovers for most of the year, but on the last Saturday in September the narrow road is thronged for the Eskdale Show.” (32) 

The Eskdale Show history page once included this tidbit about the Woolpack and the iconic Lake District sheep breed the Herdwick: “In some of the early years, over 500 [Herdwick] tups came to Eskdale Show, the majority of which would be walked there, taking several days to reach the Woolpack. For example, Keswick sheep would be walked up Borrowdale then over Styhead Pass into Wasdale, then over Burnmoor Tarn track into Boot and on to the Woolpack. In 1867 there were entries from as far away as Threlkeld, Buttermere, Windermere, Coniston and Cockermouth. It would have been a tremendous sight seeing all the Herdwicks converging into the Show field.” (33)

Hollins Farm in the 1970s.  The name 'hollins' indicates it was used by drovers when moving cattle and may have been used by packmen in their era.  Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson

Down the Roman Road from the Woolpack Inn and slightly north is Hollins Farm. The name ‘Hollins’ indicates the farm was once used by drovers for overnight stops. Maggie says it was possibly also used by packmen. On the Detailed Old Map, numerous tracks are shown to the farm, including coming down Whillan Beck connecting to the historic track from Burnmoor.

Along that track, a mill is shown called Gill Bank.  On the Detailed Old Map, it is labeled a sawmill.  The Cumbria Industrial History Society says it was a carding mill in 1810. (34)  Carding mills prepared wool for spinning by brushing the fibers to evenly align them.  The PastPresented website includes a collection of deeds for Gill Bank Farm beginning in 1696, with a miller in residence as early as 1754, as well as a weaver.  Starting in 1813, the noted poet William Wordsworth owned Gill Bank Cottage for a time.  ‘Peathouses’ are also mentioned in 1813. (35)   On the Old Detailed Map, a bridge is shown crossing Whelan Beck between the farm and the mill.  It is possible that pack ponies would have serviced this mill and the peat houses prior to improved access.

Continuing down the Roman Road from Hollins Farm is the village of Boot.  According to Hartwell in his book on packhorse bridges, “The name ‘Boot’ is derived from the Viking for ‘dwelling place.’” (36) 

Postcard of Gill Bank(s) Mill, north of Boot, circa 1920. Courtesy Maggie B Dickinson

The History page of the Eskdale website elaborates on the Viking/Norse period of the region’s past. “The most influential settlers, though, were the Norsemen in the 9th and 10th centuries. These were not the loot-and-pillage Vikings who swept the east coast but farmers who recognised the landscape from their homeland….Many of the thick walls at Boot and Brotherilkeld are a result of their [Viking] land clearance. Their language is also still very much alive in many of Eskdale's names, like Blea Tarn, Scafell, Birkerthwaite, Scale Gill and Dalegarth.” (37) Thwaite, for instance, means clearing in the forest.

Boot Bridge in 2015 with two Fell pack ponies and the author, right, and Christine Robinson, left.

Between the Woolpack Inn and the village of Boot, there are numerous quarries, mines, or drifts indicated on the fellside north of the river.Gambles, in The Story of the Lakeland Dales, says, “Eskdale’s iron ore was mined for close on 2,000 years from Roman times until the last venture ended in 1913. The haematite outcrops may best be seen on the fellsides near Boot.” (38) Those more recent mineral mining ventures as well as an interest in the local granite inspired the building of the narrow-gauge railway that dominates the experience of many Eskdale visitors today and which also of course put natural horsepower out of business.

My introduction to Boot was quite different from that of most modern visitors.  It was via, not surprisingly, a packhorse bridge.  Boot Bridge (also called Mill, Eskdale or confusingly Bleabeck) crosses Whillan Beck, a tributary of the Esk.  The bridge gives access from Boot to an historic corn mill.  It is also on an important packhorse route to Burnmoor and thence Wasdale.  The route over Burnmoor to Wasdale was also a corpse road; click here to read more.

Eskdale Mill in Boot on the left with Boot village ahead over the packhorse bridge and used millstone in right foreground.  Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson

Bob Orrell points out in his book Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast that, “Eskdale is one of the few valleys in Cumberland that does not have a lake you can sit by, but in the hamlet of Boot close by the station, there is Eskdale Mill, that has a recorded history going back to 1294 and is claimed to be one of the oldest water-powered corn mills in England.”(39)

The mill’s website is very informative.  For instance, it says that “The earliest millstones would have been made from English millstone grit brought here from the Pennines.  Cologne stones from the Rhineland were probably installed during the middle of the 1700s to grind imported wheat.” (40)  The Pennines lie to the east of the Lake District.  Since those earliest millstones were installed prior to the mid-1700s, it begs the question of if and how natural horsepower would have been used to move them from the Pennines to Boot.  Perhaps over Hardknott Pass?  Or by boat to Ravenglass and then up the Roman Road somehow?  So far, Maggie has been unable to discover how the millstones were transported.

The mill website then goes on to say, “People began to combine water-powered corn mills with corn-drying kilns during the 18th and 19th centuries. These kilns were needed to dry out the damp grains, particularly oats, in the colder and wetter areas of Britain, including the Lake District. They could then be ground effectively by the millstones. At Eskdale Mill a permanent, purpose-built kiln was added between 1795 and 1819, using locally-cut peat for fuel. Since at least the 1500s Eskdale people had enjoyed the right to cut turves of peat from the common land. Peat was cut from the moorland above the mill.”  (41)

The mill website also says, “Farmers usually delivered their grain to the mill themselves, but the miller would return the ground flour using his own horse and cart.”  (42)  Maggie points out in her Cumbria article about mills that this mill is a ‘bank’ mill, taking advantage of the sloped terrain.  “The pack teams climbed to the higher ground at the rear of the split-level structure to access the drying kiln, where their panniers could be directly unloaded to avoid hoisting.  Oatmeal and barley were the most popular local grains for milling because wheat was a luxury and tended to be grown on the coastal plain.” (43)  The transport of peat to the kiln of course might also have been accomplished by pack pony.

Historic pack saddle at Eskdale Mill in Boot. Courtesy Kate Hughes, Eskdale Mill manager

Of particular interest to us at the mill today is an historic packhorse saddle.  Hinchliffe says in his 1994 book about packhorse bridges regarding the pack saddle display at that time: “The small exhibition inside the mill displays a padded wooden packsaddle on which were loaded two sacks of corn.  The display also notes that there was once a regular weekly gang of 20 packhorses en-route through Boot from the west to cross Hard Knott and Wrynose on the way to Ambleside.  From Boot they would probably cross the other Eskdale packhorse bridge - Doctor’s Bridge.” (44)

Fell Pony Hynholme Amber looks toward a peat storage hut along the track from Boot to Burnmoor in 2015.  From this perspective it appears to be a Type B or more modern peat scale.

On the map, along the historic track from Boot north to Burnmoor and Wasdale, peat activity is indicated, as suggested by the mill website. In Winchester’s 1984 paper on peat storage huts in Eskdale, he wrote, “The largest concentration [of peat scales] is the cluster of nine huts on Boot Bank at the head of the track from Boot to the peat mosses on Longrigg.”(45) The photo here shows a hut near Longrigg. I didn’t know at the time that I took the photo that the structure had packhorse associations, or I would have gone to investigate! From this photo it appears that this is what Winchester in his Transactions paper describes as a Type B or more modern peat scale, built to take advantage of the slope so that horse or pony drawn sledges could be pulled to the top to unload fresh peat and to the bottom to load dried peat for transport to Boot village below.

The historic packhorse track from Wasdale and Burnmoor continues through Boot to the south.  First the track passes a Wood, called Hows Wood on the Detailed Old Map.  The track then stops at the only church shown on the map.  The reason St. Catherine’s Church is shown on the map is that the historic route from Wasdale was not only used for movement of goods and livestock but also as a corpse road.  Bob Orrell in Saddle Tramp explains, “In the days before Wasdale Head had its own consecrated ground, those unfortunate enough to expire in this remote corner of Cumberland were denied their final rest until the mortal remains had been carried, on horseback [over Burnmoor], for burial to St. Catherine’s in Eskdale.” (46)  To read more about this corpse road including the numerous ghost stories associated with it, click here.

Across the river from St. Catherine’s, numerous features are shown on the map.  The mines that are indicated are from the Detailed Old Map which shows numerous old drifts.  Mary Fair confirms these features.  The Detailed Old Map also shows Force Wood along the tributary of the Esk that is called Birker or Stanleygill Beck. 

The location of the bloomery is from Mary Fair’s work.  She called it Underbank Wood, indicating another Wood was in the area.  “This is across the river from the old church, a little to the east…  During the time in the 19th century when iron ore was mined at Boot, operations were also carried on here. A bridge was built across the Esk carrying a waggon-way to an adit in the fell side, now fallen in. There are other numerous shafts sunk in the fell side. The waggon-way joined the railway (crossing the high road and the Whellan Beck), between Boot and Beckfoot.” (47)  If operations were carried on here before the 19th century, then this bloomery may have been serviced by packhorses for ore and for charcoal.  And of course it’s possible that the wagons were sometimes pulled by ancestors of today’s Fell Ponies, if not by horses.

Ellerbeck Bridge. Courtesy Mountain Coward

Going up Birker Beck past Force Wood, there are two Grounds and two bridges. The Grounds are called Low and High. Being Grounds, they have an historic connection to Furness Abbey which was a major user of packhorses and builder of packhorse bridges. The two bridges in the area are called Whincop and Ellerbeck, and for numerous reasons they are worthy of further investigation as packhorse bridges. Their proximity to the Grounds, their proximity to a major route to the Duddon Valley, and because of their appearance all suggest that they could be genuine packhorse bridges.

Whincop Bridge. Courtesy Mountain Coward

Downstream on the south side of the Esk from Birker Beck we see a cluster of features: an Inn, a bloomery, a pitstead, a bridge, and a Wood. The Detailed Old Map locates Newhall Coppice and Low Wood here. The ‘Inn, Hall, or castle’ is Dalegarth Hall, the subject of a 1928 Transactions paper by Mary Fair. The paper’s introduction explains how far back the place has been inhabited.“ The ancient habitation on the south bank of the Esk known today as Dalegarth Hall is of interest on account of its long association with a branch of the distinguished family of Stanley [who farmed in the valley for over 500 years…].It is a matter of general knowledge that the original name of the estate was Austhwaite, the occupants taking their name from it, the manor being granted by one of the Boyvilles in 1102 to the family styling itself de Austhwaite who remained in possession till about 1345 when the line became extinct in male succession, the heiress, Constance daughter of Thomas, the last de Austhwaite, marrying Nicholas Stanley of Greysouthen. We first hear of Dalegarth in 1437, when Thomas Stanley, great-grandson of the above Nicholas, is recorded as being of Dalegarth when he married Anne Hudleston.” (48) It is clear from this long history that packhorses would have serviced Dalegarth Hall for some time.

In her 1921 Transactions article on bloomery sites in Eskdale, Mary Fair describes the nearby bloomeries and pitstead.  “There are two (if not more) bloomery sites here….  [No. 1] is situated about 100 yards through the wood east of the gate by Turn Dub. There is a small heap of slag on the old road, another to the right in the wood, and over a wall to the left, more heaps of heavy slag on the bank of a small runner. No trace of hearth. There are heaps of charcoal in the vicinity, and pitsteads in the wood….  No. 2 is in the wood beside the road immediately behind Dalegarth Hall. This appears to have been a more extensive working than the other, judging from the slag-heaps. There are also the remains of a hearth which is about 20 feet in external diameter at the top. There is a well-defined channel or conduit leading from the bottom to a trough made of rough masonry. Adjoining are small heaps of charcoal and patches of oxide puddle.”  (49)

She continues, “I have been told by a dalesman that his grandfather could remember the smelting of iron in the woods in the old rude way, so that many of these small sites may be comparatively modern. Iron ore abounds in the fells all round Eskdale, and no doubt has been worked from early times. Every wood contains numbers of charcoal pitsteads, and the number of the bloomery sites suggests that the iron required for the dwellers in the dale was smelted locally….” (50)  She concludes that many of the smaller bloomeries were of 17th, 18th, or early 19th century origin with two others being possibly Roman.  It’s likely then that packhorses brought ore and charcoal to them at least in the earliest years.

South of Dalegarth Hall, peat is indicated.  In Winchester’s 1984 Transactions paper on peat storage huts, he indicates that the storage hut in this location was owned by Dalegarth Hall and was a Type B or more modern hut.  The Detailed Old Map shows Tonguesdale Moss in this vicinity.  Winchester says, “The change to a more substantial type of hut may have been associated with the construction of durable, graded sledge tracks up to the peat mosses, and it may also have been related to a concentration of peat-digging in the extensive mosses between Blea Tarn and Burnmoor on the north and around Low Birker Pool and Tonguesdale Moss in the south.” (51)  Peat at Low Birker Pool is indicated just east of Whincop and Ellerbeck Bridges.   Winchester noted on his map in his paper that there is evidence of former peat cutting at both Low Birker Pool and Tonguesdale Moss.  It seems likely that early peat cutting could have been assisted by pack ponies, and then later sledges were horse (or pony) powered.

The historic track, now motor road, between Eskdale Green in Eskdale and Ulpha in the Duddon Valley. 
Courtesy Eddie McDonough

The bridge in the vicinity of Dalegarth Hall is called Trough House Bridge.  Maggie says that Dr. Sam Forrester, a respected historian of the Lake District, mentions in his papers at Armitt Museum that Trough House Bridge is a widened packhorse bridge.  Certainly its location alone suggests that would be the case since it crosses the River Esk and connects Boot to the heavily used route to the Duddon Valley. 

Across the river from Dalegarth to the north are two bloomeries.  In her article on bloomeries in Transactions, Mary Fair names them Stanley Ghyll Guest House and Vicarage Glebe.  Regarding the first, “Two slag-heaps in the garden here, near to the river Esk. Owing to disturbance of ground due to making the garden, the scope of the work cannot be traced. Before the building of this place, the ground was open common.” (52)  According to the Guest House’s web page, the house was built in 1894 by the then-owner of the Woolpack Inn. (53)

Regarding the Vicarage Glebe bloomery, Mary Fair says, “Many years ago I noted a small heap of heavy slag under the bushes on a steep bank beside the river Esk, about 50 yards below the Dalegarth [Trough House] Bridge. It is now quite overgrown, and not to be located. No hearth found. A little lower down the river it is probable that there was a ford giving communication between Dalegarth Hall and Beckfoot (now the vicarage).” (54)   Depending on when these bloomeries were in use, they may have been serviced by pack ponies hauling ore and charcoal.

Near Trough House Bridge, we see a second bridge indicated on the map.  Beckfoot Bridge crosses Whellan Beck near its confluence with the Esk, along the ancient route of the Roman Road that is now a modern road.    While today’s bridge is not a packhorse bridge, it seems entirely reasonable to assume that there was a bridge in this vicinity during the packhorse era to facilitate movement of goods along the north side of the river. 

Map showing the historic tracks down from peat beds such as Sineytarn Moss to peat scales (P) for storage and then to the farms where peat was used for heating.  Note the switchbacks in places, indicating steeper sections of the tracks. According to Winchester, the peat scales shown were owned by Vicarage, Spout House, Fisherground, and Hollinghow. (55) (c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

At Beckfoot Bridge near the confluence of Whellan Beck and the Esk, an historic packhorse track is shown heading up to Blea Tarn. In Winchester’s paper in Transactions about peat storage huts, the historic track is shown on his map with two peat scales along it, one of each type. He suggests that the newer one likely replaced the older. The track is full of switchbacks, making it easy to imagine how useful pack ponies would be to bring the turves down from the peat scales to the farm below before the track was improved into a sledway.

Gambles in his book The Story of the Lakeland Dales paints a vivid portrait of the role these peat scales played: “…there is a wealth of interest in the variety of the landscape and in the history of the generations of men and women who have lived, worked and died there.  No reminder of these people could be more poignant than the ruins of the many tiny stone huts scattered on the moors between Blea Tarn and Burnmoor.  Some are built like miniature bank barns, others are plain, low structures with simple gables; all are of the local Eskdale granite and when new, must have made a welcome splash of colour on these drab uplands.  They have been identified as peat storage huts, or peat scales, where local folk left their cut peat to dry, later to be taken down along sledways, some of which can still be traced.  The depletion of the woodlands had by the mid-19th century made it necessary for them to seek out the deep peat deposits on the moors as an alternative source of fuel for cooking and to heat their cottages.  It is easy to forget in an age of electricity and central-heated comfort that such basic necessities of life had to be won by so much constant effort and hard labour.” (56)

The peat indicated on the map above Blea Tarn is shown on the Detailed Old Map as Mitredalehead Moss with White Moss above it.  To the west the peat indicated is Sineytarn Moss with its own historic track down to the farm at Spout House with two peat scales en route.  Further to the west, a pair of peat storage huts are indicated along an historic track to Fisherground, which Winchester says owned one of the huts.  While now a campground, Fisherground’s name implies an historic connection to Furness Abbey and thus to pack horses. 

Vyv Wood Gee captions this photo from her 2021 ride in Eskdale:  “Murthwaite Posh questioning the date and origin of the bridge over the River Esk east of Muncaster Head.”  Forge Bridge is definitely more modern than the packhorse era but is in a location where a bridge during that era may have existed.  Photo copyright and courtesy Vyv Wood-Gee

In the same vicinity, the Detailed Old Map shows numerous pits, drifts, and quarries. A history of Eskdale mining says about this area that “The workings [of a nineteenth century mine] overlie an extensive earlier landscape consisting of a complex of settlement and agricultural field-system remains, as well as peat huts and sledways ascending from the valley floor at Fisherground.” (57) This earlier worked landscape was likely serviced by packhorses during their era.

South of the river from Fisherground, the historic track snugs the river from Dalegarth Hall through Milkingstead Wood to Forge Wood and Forge Bridge.  The names would certainly make one think that metalworks had been undertaken here, and a bloomery and pitstead are shown on the map.  Mary Fair says in her Transactions article on bloomeries:  “There is a bloomery site in a small paddock adjoining the farm now called the Forge Farm. The old name of this farm is Howe Howe or Howe Powe. It has only been known as the Forge Farm comparatively recently. The ground has been ploughed though now pasture, but the tenant (Mr. William Southward) informs me that a quantity of slag and cinders is scattered about over the field under the grass. I saw plenty of heavy slag and clinker in the dyke bank dividing the field from the wood, and also on the banks of a runner at the foot of the wood. No traces of hearth. There are numerous charcoal pit-steads in this wood, and Mr. Southward tells me that he remembers charcoal being burned there.” (58)  It is unclear whether the activities described here were during the packhorse era and whether there may have been earlier activity. 

Eskdale Green and its convergence of many packhorse tracks.  Noted features are mentioned in the text.  (c) Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

The village of Eskdale Green sits northwest of Forge Bridge on a slight rise between the Rivers Esk and Mite. Mary Fair wrote extensively about Eskdale Green’s many ties to the packhorse era in her 1921 paper in Transactions called “A Relic of Pack-Horse Days in Eskdale.” Eskdale Green was important because it was a converging point of numerous historic packhorse tracks.

Above is a map showing the many tracks converging on and leaving Eskdale Green, including locations of key features from Mary Fair’s article.  The two rivers are in light blue, with the Esk lower right and the Mite extreme upper left.  The route along the Roman Road to Hardknott Pass and thence Ambleside is on the right in purple, and at lower right is the route along the south side of the river that eventually leads to the Duddon Valley and then Broughton-in-Furness.  There are three routes to Ravenglass shown, one on the north side of Muncaster Fell which begins mid left and the other two on the south side of Muncaster Fell, one on each side of the Esk.  The route on the north of the river on the southside of Muncaster Fell begins lower left.  The route on the south side of the river is shown lower right.  There is a road connecting Eskdale Green to Muncaster Head and the Roman Road across the east side of Muncaster Fell.  And there are three routes leading out of Eskdale Green to the upper left and top toward Whitehaven. 

Mary Fair identifies a blacksmith at Randlehow (center of map) and another blacksmith below the King George Hotel, shown as King of Prussia Public House on the Detailed Old Map and here, center right.  And she identifies a third blacksmith from the name Smithybrow Lane at the top of the map.  Maggie says, “There must have been many forges in the days of horses, especially with the traffic that the area had from packmen and drovers.” 

Mary Fair also describes a second inn besides the King George:  “Near Eskdale Green railway station there was a tavern on the pack-horse route, now marked by a barn. The sign of this tavern hung in a tree. Probably it, like John Nicholson's smithy above it, did an excellent trade when the commerce of the country-side was carried on by the trains of packhorses.” (59)  Mary Fair doesn’t draw attention to nearby Whinnyhow Wood, but it certainly has a connection to equines in its name! 

Fell Pony Wellbrow Drifter traverses an historic packhorse track, now a bridleway, from Eskdale Green along the southern end of Bankend Wood. Courtesy Vyv Wood-Gee

Two bloomery sites are shown on the map in the vicinity of Eskdale Green. Mary Fair identified these in her Transactions paper on bloomeries in Eskdale. During the packhorse era, charcoal and ore would likely have been brought in with packhorse assistance. The peat south of Eskdale Green is shown on the Detailed Old Map as Forest Moss, which Mary Fair tangentially mentioned in her packhorses Transactions paper: “Beyond the [Randlehow] smithy another road came across the bog [emphasis added] from an ancient track passing across towards Whitehaven from Muncaster Head direction. There is still a right of way across this soft ground.” (60) This track is noted on the map with a red arrow captioned “Muncaster Head and Roman Road.”

The historic track leading south out of Eskdale Green over Forest Moss passes a bloomery and Bankend Wood.  Footsteps says, “Near to Bank End is the site of an old ‘bloomery’ – an iron ore smelting hearth – which would produce sufficient iron for local needs….”  (61)  Mary Fair in her Transactions paper on bloomeries locates this bloomery at Forest Howe, and in another Transactions paper she locates it at Rabbit How, all in the same vicinity (62).  In her bloomeries paper, she wonders whether it could be Roman in origin.  She asked the same question about Muncaster Head (described below), but subsequent excavation pinned that site to the 17th century and after. (63)  It is likely, nonetheless, that packhorses would have been used to service this bloomery, hauling charcoal and ore, during their era.

Footsteps gives an interpretive account of an historic tenant of the local farm:  “Here in Eskdale [in 1493] Will Tyson looked at his scanty crop of oats and pulled a heavy peat sled down Rabbit How for his winter store.  His son, also Will, was up on the fellside cutting coppice for the forge’s charcoal.  In the longhouse his wife was spinning the coarse grey wool while a skillet of hare simmered and hams smoked above the fire.  The bracken thatch was letting the rain in and the hogg runts [lambs] were churning up the beds of ling [heather] on the damp dirt floor.” (64)  This account suggests that peat was brought in using human rather than pony power.  The telling could be artistic license or true for this location and family.  A drawing illustrating the story included a man mounted on a pony, suggesting that equine power was in use in some way and perhaps, as is so often the case, the equine power in use was invisible to historians.

The historic track from Eskdale past Bankend Wood continues south toward Muncaster Head.  Vyv Wood-Gee and her partner rode this historic track on their Fell Ponies in 2021, and I am grateful for the photos she shared from the trip.  Today Muncaster Head is a farm, but in the past it was home to one of the largest bloomeries in Eskdale, dating from at least the seventeenth century.  A 1970 Transactions paper by Tylecote and Cherry says that large quantities of ore came from Egremont to the northwest, but there is also evidence of Eskdale ore on the site.  (65)  The local ore may have been transported by packhorse during their era. 

Regarding charcoal to power the bloomery, Tylecote and Cherry say, “There was no sign of charcoal-burning on the site and there is therefore no doubt that the charcoal was made in the woods and brought to the site by pack animal.” (66)  Footsteps says, “As early as 1639, 1000 trees were felled in Eskdale, Miterdale and Wasdalehead for charcoal for the Muncaster Head forge, to the considerable distress of the Earl’s tenants.” (67)  The distress was due to the wood not being available for their use for fuel, which pushed them to begin using peat in earnest.

South of Muncaster Head and its features are the features where Linbeck Gill joins the River Esk.  Linbeck Gill is fed by Devoke Water.  In this area we see on the map a bloomery, bridge, mill, and Woods.  The Woods are shown on the Detailed Old Map as High and Low Coppice.  Linbeck Bridge crosses Linbeck, carrying the riverside route on the south side of the river which was historic as well as modern.  Linbeck Bridge today is not considered a packhorse bridge, but because of its location along an historic route, it is likely that a bridge existed in this location during the packhorse era. 

The mill and bloomery at Linbeck occupied the same site.  Mary Fair says in her Transactions paper on bloomeries:  “About a mile from the Forge Farm along the old road beside the Esk on its south side, is the ruin of a mill called Linbeck Mill. This is built on a slag-heap which extends to the beck, and other heaps are on the bank of the Esk. The old mill race (now dry) is cut through one of these slag-heaps. Adjacent are mounds of charcoal. There is a hollow much overgrown with bracken which may be a hearth site.... Mr. Southward informs me that the mill was working up to about eighteen years ago [1903]. An older mill, now completely vanished, formerly existed higher up Linbeck Ghyll.” (68)  In their era and if the mill and bloomery were operating then, packhorses would have been used for the transport of material to and from the mill and at least for the movement of charcoal to the bloomery if not also ore.

Murthwaite Posh on a bridleway along what was once the Roman Road along Muncaster Fell, now called Fell Lane.  Photo taken at about the location of the ‘o’ in ‘Roman’ on the large map. Courtesy Vyv Wood-Gee

Continuing downstream on the Esk but along the Roman Road, a Roman feature is shown. Robert Gambles describes it in his Story of the Lakeland Dales: “At Park House on the route of the Roman road under Muncaster Fell, a pottery and tilery were discovered which probably supplied most of the requirements of the various Roman buildings in Eskdale, making use of the local clay. Those who first read Collingwood’s description of this as being ‘of immense and expensive construction’ and then proceed to search for the site on the ground will be profoundly disappointed. There is very little to see other than a few grassy mounds and only the expert studies which have been made shed significant light on an important piece of Roman archaeology.” (69)It is easy to imagine that the stones or tiles used to build the buildings at the tilery were re-purposed into other buildings in the area.And it is easy to imagine that local horse or pony power would have been used to move these materials about, probably via sledge.

Numerous Woods and a Peat area are shown on our map between the Roman tilery and Ravenglass.  Parkhouse Moss is the Peat area and is shown on the Detailed Old Map.  The Woods shown on the Detailed Old Map include Birks Coppice, Parkhouse Coppice, Chapel Wood, Spout Wood, Tarn Wood, and Green Wood.  There is also a Whinny Bank shown, perhaps a reflection of historic use of packhorse or other equine power.  On the south side of the River Esk are Hinninghouse Wood, Waste Wood, Whins Wood, and Ewecrag Wood.

Two ‘Inns, Halls, or Castles’ are shown on our map near the mouth of the River Esk.  The northern one marks the location of Muncaster Castle.  In Bob Orrell’s book The Best Guide to Ravenglass, he writes, “The name Muncaster is a corruption of Mulcaster or Moelcastre, meaning ‘the castle on the sand or promontory by the sea.’” (70)  In his book Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, he suggests that the spot has been occupied since the 13th century, though “The original castle would have been little more than a fortified tower built on high ground with a spectacular view of the Eskdale valley and the sea to give an early warning of invaders.” (71)  He also says, in the 1980s “…I was riding through the estate and [Sir Geoffrey William Pennington-Ramsden, Bart.] stopped to admire Thor, my Fell pony.  While Thor gorged the seventh Baronet’s grass we sat on a convenient log and he told me about the horses he had bred in his youth…” (72)  It is likely, given the long history of occupation on this spot, that packhorses would have serviced Muncaster Castle during their era. 

Numerous Woods are shown on our map in the vicinity of Muncaster Castle.  The Detailed Old Map names them Dovecote Wood, Decoy Wood, Croft Coppice, and Haggs Wood.

The second ‘Inn, Hall, or Castle’ noted on the map is Hall Waberthwaite.  Bob Orrell says in Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, “The name Waberthwaite is believed to have originated from Wyberg, a Viking invader who settled there and cleared the land to form Wyberg’s thwaite (a clearing).  A Norse cross in Hall Waberthwaite churchyard is thought to mark his grave.” (73) 

Bob then relates an amusing story merging history and the modern day.  “A short distance from Waberthwaite is Hall Waberthwaite, which sometimes confuses visitors, like the couple from San Francisco I once met who, when they eventually reached this undisturbed tiny collection of farms, cottages and a very old church hidden away at the edge of a marsh, felt cheated that there was no ivy-covered seventeenth century ancestral mansion with peacocks in the garden.  In its day Hall Waberthwaite was reputed to have had an Inn…  The Inn was sited advantageously on an important drove road at a point where it crossed the river Esk by a ford, that at low tide was passable and at high tide impossible.  The landlord used to trick unwary travelers into believing that they had arrived when the tide was rising and it was dangerous to cross; they would then have to pay for a meal at the Inn or, even more profitably, stay for dinner, bed and breakfast.” (74)  The Detailed Old Map labels the ford as ‘Roman ford.’ 

Bob continues in his book Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, “In the 1970s I crossed [the ford] at low water on a Fell Pony, and what once was hard sand had been churned into a very dodgy layer of thick mud by centuries of swift flowing tides.  Since then it can only have got worse.” (75)  Fords were generally not the preferred method of crossing water by pack trains;  bridges were preferred in order to keep the loads dry.  However, the proximity of these features to Ravenglass, the fact that the ford and inn were used by drovers which often shared routes with packmen, and that there are nearby well-established coastal routes suggest that perhaps these features were indeed utilized by packhorses in their era.  Maggie says, “I would say fords were favoured by pack trains when the water was low because some of the pack bridges were such a narrow challenge, though vital when rivers had risen.  In this case there would be no doubt that both packmen and drovers used this route.”

Ravenglass Harbor courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson and copyright Luke James Godden

The one last feature on our map before the village of Ravenglass is a Roman one.  While the Romans aren’t usually associated with packhorses, their early movements in the area and construction of roads influenced transport in the valley of the River Esk from their time onward.  Bob Orrell says in his book The Best Guide to Ravenglass about the Roman fort at Ravenglass: “The Romans called the fort Clanoventa or Glannibanta, and by the end of the first century (AD 100) another fort had been built at the head of the Eskdale valley on Hardknott Pass.  Both these forts were of strategic importance, for Ravenglass was the finest harbour on the north west coast and Hardknott commanded the mountain pass into the interior.  Judging by the number of Roman roads radiating from Ravenglass there must have been a lot of movement of troops and supplies in and out of the garrison.” (76)

Bob Orrell lived in Ravenglass for fifteen years.  In addition to his appreciation of Fell Ponies, he is also a sailor and developed an appreciation for the role Ravenglass played in the area’s history during the packhorse era.  From his book Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast:  “There have been a lot of changes over the years but even in twenty-first century Ravenglass, with its yellow lines, its ‘Residents Only’ parking signs, its ‘Private Property’ notices and its glut of cars, it is not easy to walk past the very old cottages on the seaward side of the village main street and not imagine the shady figures of smugglers landing from boats with muffled oars and carrying kegs of rum, whisky and brandy into the eager arms of the cottagers.” (77)

Bob continues:  “We know that booze and baccy came into the country, and that salt and wadd [pencil lead] went out, but where along the coast did this booming activity take place?  Attention naturally focuses on Ravenglass with its quiet harbour and sleepy little houses sprawled higgledy-piggledy across the shingle….  In the early days of the ‘Running Trade’ it is very possible that the village was a smuggling haven, particularly when boats arrived regularly from the Isle of Man with cattle.  It would have been easy to hid a few kets [casks of liquor] in the hold and unload them when all was quiet.  Yet as the ‘Trade’ became busier and the excisemen were more vigilant, it was unlikely that anyone would have risked using Ravenglass…  For miles north and south of the estuary there are long expanses of lonely beach and sand dunes, often topped by an isolated farm house.  It is here that the smugglers would land and store their loot.” (78)

Bob points out in his book The Best Guide to Ravenglass that the town’s fair was an important event on the calendar.  First authorized in 1209, “The fair attracted people from miles around, and buyers came long distances to bid for cattle, sheep, and horses….  In 1675 it was described as ‘a grand fair of three days long for all sorts of cattle especially and other commodities from Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland.’”  (79)  It may well have been a destination for farmers driving their Fell Ponies in traps.  Bob had his own Fell Pony connection to the fair: “In the 1980s I had the honour of riding into the village on my Fell pony, and opening the fair…” (80)

The history of the valley of the River Esk is obviously rich, both within and around the era when packhorses were the primary modes of transportation for trade goods.  Robert Gambles, in his Story of the Lakeland Dales summarizes the era well:  “The concerns of sheep farming have been the primary pre-occupation of the inhabitants of Eskdale for many hundreds of years but from the mid-17th to the mid-20th centuries,… 1,500 years after the Romans had departed, their road along the riverside became a busy trading route.  Strings of pack horses wended their way towards the then flourishing port of Ravenglass, laden with panniers of slate, iron, wool, Borrowdale wad, charcoal, tanned leather, turned tools and implements of oak, ash and holly, and even hazel nuts, all local products, and on their return they brought cargoes of rum, brandy, sugar, molasses, tea, lace, salt and tobacco – all dutiable but not all known to the excisemen….  And this was only one of the many trails which converged on Eskdale.  The rounded hillock at Randle How, by Eskdale Green, appears to have been a veritable Piccadilly in these days, for this was the meeting point of six routes.” (81)  In time hopefully more stories will be told about how the ancestors of today’s Fell Ponies enriched the lives of their human partners in the Woods, the quarries, and on the tracks of Eskdale and its environs.

1. Hartwell, Michael.  An Illustrated Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of the Lake District.  Earnest Press, 1994, p. 110

2. Wordsworth, William.  Guide Through the District of the Lakes in the North of England, With a Description of the Scenery, etc. For the use of Tourists and Residents.  Fifth Edition, 1835, p. 3.

3. Millard, Sue.  A Century of Fells.  Dawbank, Greenholme, Cumbria, England:  Jackdaw Ebooks, 2022, p. 15.

4. Walking in the Footsteps of Mary Fair (Footsteps).  Eskdale and District Local History Society, 2008, p. 5

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_horse_in_Britain

6. Lake District National Park Partnership, “Description of the English Lake District, Section 2.a,” Nomination of the English Lake District for Inscription on the World Heritage List, p. 104

7. Austin, Albyn.  “The Mines of Eskdale,” The CIHS Newsletter, May 1990 at https://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/a-z-of-industries/iron-mining/the-mines-of-eskdale/

8. Winchester, Angus.  “Peat Storage Huts in Eskdale,” CWAAS Transactions, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1984, p. 109.

9. http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/cumbria/M740.htm

10. Orrell, Robert.  Saddle Tramp in the Lake District.  London, Granada Publishing Limited, 1982, p. 164-165.

11. Same as #10.

12. Gambles, Robert.  The Story of the Lakeland Dales. Phillimore & Co. Ltd, Chichester, 1997.p. 63

13. Footsteps, p. 19.

14. Gambles, p. 64.

15. Dickinson, Maggie B.  “Rebel with a cause,” Cumbria, February 2017, p. 28.

16. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/eskdale

17. Gambles, p. 67.

18. Greenbank, Tony.  “King of the crags,” The Guardian, 10/21/12 at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/21/eskdale-cumbrian-king-crags

19. Parker, Dr. Charles A., and Miss Mary C. Fair.  “Bloomery Sites in Eskdale and Wasdale – Part 1,”  CWAAS Transactions, 7/7/21, p. 96-7.

20. Hinchliffe, Ernest. A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England. Milnthorpe, Cumbria: Cicerone Press, 1994, p. 51.

21. Hartwell, p. 106.

22. Winchester, p. 107.

23. Winchester, p. 105.

24. The Detailed Old Map is available at this link:  https://www.archiuk.com/cgi-bin/build_nls_historic_map_archi_sub.pl?map_location=%20Fisherground%20XXXXFRMXXXX%20Cumbria&search_location=Fisherground%20XXXXFRMXXXX,%20Cumbria,%20NY1500,%20NY%2015%2000&os_series=1&is_sub=&pwd=&latitude=54.388360&longitude=-3.310447&postcode=

25. Orrell, p. 167.

26. Gambles, Robert, and Dr. Sam Forrester.  “Doctor Bridge, Eskdale,” Conserving Lakeland, edition 30 - Winter 1997, p. 16.

27. Winchester, p. 111.

28. “Ancient Monuments in this township 1923 List Birker and Austhwaite” at https://www.cumbriacountyhistory.org.uk/sites/default/files/am_birker_austhwaite.pdf

29. Parker and Fair, p. 96.

30. Fair, Miss Mary C.  “Some notes on the Eskdale Twentyfour Book,” CWAAS Transactions, 4/7/21, p. 77.

31. https://www.lakesguides.co.uk/html/topics/innf.htm

32. http://www.visitoruk.com/Ambleside/eskdale-C592-V27120.html

33. Eskdale Show history page as accessed January 2016 and no longer on-line

34. https://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/woollen-mills/

35. http://www.pastpresented.ukart.com/eskdale/gillbank.htm

36. Hartwell, p. 113.

37. https://eskdale.info/history.html as accessed 4/24/22

38. Gambles, p. 67.

39. Orrell, Bob.  Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast.  Seascale, Cumbria, England:  Bob Orrell Publications, 2012, p. 59.

40. https://www.eskdalemill.co.uk/history/the-mill-building/ as accessed 4/24/22

41. https://www.eskdalemill.co.uk/history/mills-in-the-lake-district/ as accessed 4/24/22

42. https://www.eskdalemill.co.uk/history/eskdale-mill-the-community/ as accessed 4/24/22

43. Dickinson, Maggie.  “Grist to the Mill,” Cumbria, December 2016, p. 53.

44. Hinchliffe, p. 37-8.

45. Winchester, p. 103.

46. Orrell, Saddle Tramp, p. 35.

47. Parker and Fair, p. 96.

48. Fair, Miss Mary C.  “Austhwaite and Dalegarth,” CWAAS Transactions, 9/18/1928, p. 265.

49. Parker and Fair, p. 95.

50. Parker and Fair, p. 97.

51. Winchester, p. 105.

52. Parker and Fair, p. 95.

53. https://www.stanleyghyll-eskdale.co.uk/history/

54. Parker and Fair, p. 95.

55. Winchester, p. 107.

56. Gambles, p 72.

57. Bangarth And Blea Tarn Iron Mines, Eskdale, Cumbria Archaeological Survey Report, Oxford Archaeology North, November 2012, p. 23.

58. Parker and Fair, p. 92.

59. Fair, Miss Mary C. “A Relic of Pack-Horse Days in Eskdale,” CWAAS Transactions, 7/7/1921, p. 100.

60. Fair, “Pack-Horse Days,” p. 99.

61. Footsteps, p. 30.

62. The Forest Howe reference is in Parker and Fair, p. 92.  The Rabbit How reference is in Footsteps, p. 30.

63. Tylecote, R.F. and J. Cherry. “The 17th-century bloomery at Muncaster Head,” CWAAS Transactions, 7/3/1970, p. 104.

64. Footsteps, p. 28.

65. Tylecote and Cherry, p. 87-88.

66. Tylecote and Cherry, p. 97.

67. Footsteps, p. 38.

68. Parker and Fair, p. 94-95.

69. Gambles, p. 66.

70. Orrell, Robert.  The Best Guide to Ravenglass.  Gillerthwaite, Ennerdale, Cumbria:  Best Publishing Company, 1976, p. 53.

71. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 40.

72. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 43.

73. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 39.

74. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 39.

75. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 40.

76. Orrell, The Best Guide to Ravenglass, p. 20-1.

77. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 51.

78. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 28-29.

79. Orrell, The Best Guide to Ravenglass, p. 3.

80. Orrell, Cumberland’s Rum Butter Coast, p. 46.

81. Gambles, p. 68.

The author is grateful to Christine Robinson for facilitating our packhorse day hike over Burnmoor in 2015, and I am grateful to my late husband who humored my desire for this journey; he is pictured in the first photo. I am grateful to my friend Eddie McDonough for inspiring the packhorse trip over Burnmoor. I am also grateful to Maggie B. Dickinson for sharing of her treasure trove of materials about packhorses in Eskdale. And the author is grateful to Vyv Wood-Gee for sharing her photographs of her 2021 ride in the valley of the River Esk.

Two Chain Wind

I am told that the windy weather we’ve been having this month is unprecedented for our location. Being told that by someone who’s lived here for nearly 50 years, I’m inclined to believe it, even though wind is usually synonymous with South Dakota.

Today began with the discovery that a gate that has been chained shut for more than two years was blown open. An advantage of the fresh snow on the ground was that it was easy to see where my Fell Pony mare herd had gone. An advantage of it being April and it being warmer today is that there were wind-blown gaps in the snow, so the ponies hadn’t gone far because of the distraction of fresh green grass.

Stallion at left; mares in cattle feed bunk, center; young dog thinking he has work to do, right.

One of the things on my day’s to-do list was to tease mares. They checked that off my list by stopping at the stallion pen, showing me who was in heat and who was not. Handy! And I was very thankful for the stout fence that surrounds the stallion pen since ponies on both sides of it were testing it with their excitement.

I had been wanting to put cattle hay left in a feed bunk to use in some way, and that too proved a distraction for the herd from traveling too far. It also meant that when I took pony hay into the corrals, nobody followed me like they often do. I did manage to get two ponies, uninterested in their hormones, into the corral, but when I went to get the mares in heat, they took off back toward the gate they had come through, somewhat motivated by my young dog who couldn’t help but try to push them where they wanted to go which wasn’t where I wanted them to go. He was quickly leashed and then kenneled. And I was immediately sorry I had shut the pasture gate, since it’s likely the herd would have put themselves back in their pasture had I left it open.

The mares may have been trying to go back through the red gates that they had come through, but I had shut them. Green grass under the snow, though, kept them close by.

Another gate open that wasn’t supposed to be, so these three were missing from my roll call but quickly returned to the herd.

Eventually I got the rest of the herd behind the fence where they belonged and we headed to the corrals to get everyone back together. Once reunited and gates shut, I went to get hay, as is my habit, only to discover upon returning to the corral that what I had previously put out had not been eaten. I also was missing three ponies. Investigation found another gate open that shouldn’t have been, so I straightened that out before heading back to deal with the gate that had been open to start this rodeo.

About a week earlier, a double gate at a cattle pasture had blown open, so I had begun double-chaining it, and we hadn’t had loose cattle for that reason since. Before that, the stallion pen double gates had blown open when only shut with a single chain; they are now double-chained. The double gate on the pony pasture fence had only ever had a single chain since the gates were put in two years ago. That in itself suggests that the wind we’ve had recently has been more significant than the past two years.

Top image: only one chain; the second chain is still welded to a pipe as when the gate was purchased. Bottom: gate is double-chained. Young dog is being truly helpful (keeping me company) now.

When I checked the double gate at the cattle pasture this morning, the tails of both chains were flipped up and over a pipe and close to coming unlatched. I immediately thought of the story about monkeys and typewriters and eventually the works of Shakespeare being written. Given enough time, I could easily see how the wind would batter those gates back and forth and the chains would work loose. I’m counting on it taking twice as much random activity and wind for two chains to be worked loose compared to one.

I got my tools and put a second chain on the pony pasture double gates. I hope I never have to experience a two-chain wind. One chain winds are more than enough.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

The Wisdom of Homesteaders and Ponies

When I woke up this morning, I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw when I barely raised my head from the pillow was my ponies grazing. That small hillside visible through my bedroom window was an odd location for them to be first thing in the morning. But my ears told me why they were there: wind.

Later, after I had gotten vertical, the herd was standing around the foaling sheds in front of my house. It seemed another odd choice given they have acres of green grass appearing for the first time in months. But it was a wise choice because of the wind.

This part of the ranch is the most sheltered of all during weather like this. It’s really not surprising, then, that the original homestead house is not far from where my house is. I have found, living rurally for the past three decades, that often you can learn a lot about the climate of a place by where the homesteaders placed their house. Here, it was in the shadow of a big hill in a narrow valley that runs roughly northeast-southwest. This location provided protection from the predominant winds from the northwest, like those we’re experiencing today.

The ponies seem to have the same good sense as the homesteaders about where there’s protection from weather. I learn a lot about the climate of this place by watching them on days like today!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Choosing a Stallion for a Mare

It’s getting to be that time of year when people are pondering breeding their mares. I was asked how I choose a stallion for my mares. It’s a decent question since I have three foals due, by three different stallions!

From my perspective, there are three fundamental questions to consider when choosing to breed a mare:

1. Do you need to breed? This is the title of a chapter in my first Fell Pony Observations book, and while it may seem annoying, it is based in the fact that there are many, many unwanted equines. I have even seen unwanted Fell Ponies, and it’s not something I want to see again. So if we’re wanting to bring another Fell Pony into the world, we’d best have a pretty good reason to do it. Click here if you’d like to read the chapter from my book. Spoiler alert: breeding a mare isn’t a way to make a profit…! If you decide to breed to produce something to sell, be prepared to keep the foal for as long as four years, which is the longest I’ve had to keep one before it sold, thanks to the Great Recession. So, ask yourself honestly: do I really need to find a stallion for my mare after all?

2. What are you breeding for? The Conservation Breeding Handbook states: “A basic and guiding philosophy is the single most critical component of any breeding program. A breeder’s first task is the development of a specific purpose in breeding animals. This may seem obvious, but it is very often overlooked, with the result that breeding is done with little progress toward any goal.” (1) Putting another rare breed foal on the ground isn’t a good enough reason (see #1 above). Rare breeds, including the Fell, don’t need randomly bred animals that may cause people to choose what they know instead of something unusual like a Fell. You will want to choose a stallion that will produce with your mare a foal that is consistent with your breeding philosophy. If you are interested in reading the chapter ‘Breeding with Intent’ from my first Observations book, click here.

3. Where does your mare need improvement? There is no such thing as a perfect pony, so it’s important to choose a stallion that will improve on her. In Sue Millard’s very important book Hoofprints in Eden, she quotes Ivan Alexander of the Lune Valley Fell Ponies as saying, “It’s more of a ‘trying to knit ‘em together,’ than ‘picking two good ‘uns.’ You’ve to try and find summat that’ll suit what you‘ve got. Mind, having said that, you want summat that you like, cause if you don’t like it to start with you’ll never like it, will you?” (2) There is an entire chapter on creating the next generation of Fell Ponies in Hoofprints, collecting the wisdom of the long-time breeders Sue interviewed for the book, so I highly recommend reading it. Click here for reviews and more information.

It's one thing to ask these questions, and another to answer them, so here’s my current answers. 1) I have chosen to continue to breed Fell Ponies despite the unwanted-equine problem because I have a clear view of what is special about the breed and of how to produce ponies that will be good partners for their humans so are unlikely to become unwanted. If I don’t feel I can produce ponies like that, I don’t breed. 2) My breeding philosophy is to produce ponies that have important breed characteristics that I feel are in danger, specifically proper movement (very different than action) and a ‘package’ suited to the breed’s historic versatility: ride/drive/draft/pack. 3) I am my mares’ own worst critic. None of them so far fit the picture in my mind’s eye of an ideal Fell Pony. If you don’t know where your mare’s faults are, find them, because there is no such thing as a perfect pony. I used three stallions last year to see how they could improve the three mares.

I chose to use three stallions for three reasons: First, I’ve used all three of these stallions before, so I have seen what they throw, and I know there’s always more to learn. Second, all three mares have been bred before, so I have seen what they throw, and again I know there’s always more to learn. Finally, each pair had unique circumstances. In one case, I felt an outside stallion was a better fit for my mare than the stallion that I have. In another case, I very much liked what my stallion and the mare produced, and I’m looking forward to another just like it. And in the last case, I bred a very good mare to the father of a filly I own to learn more about the filly.

I was asked whether I prefer stallions that have a history of working. While I have used that criteria in the past, there’s so much more to what a stallion brings to breeding. I was reminded of the late Walter Lloyd’s advice. Walter was the long-time breeder of the Hades Hill ponies and someone who put Fell Ponies to work in numerous ways. Walter’s son Tom is now stewarding the Hades Hill herd and shared Walter’s selection criteria for either gender in a Fell Pony Podcast: 1) will it survive on the fell? 2) will it breed (recognizing that not all ponies will), and 3) can you work with the temperament? (3) Notice that only one of these has to do with working, and it isn’t even about working in the strictest sense of the word. It also occurs to me that a temperament that one person can work with isn’t necessarily one that another person would choose. So again, we as mare owners must answer the three questions above and develop our own unique selection criteria.

Several of the breeders interviewed in Hoofprints said something similar to this advice from Barry Mallinson of the Hardendale Fell Ponies: “People want to look at what to improve. I look at the actual quality of the ponies. You’re just trying to breed better each time as you go along. And it can go wrong. It can throw back to its grandparents and you’re nearly back to step one again.” (4) Breeding is obviously not for the faint of heart!

1. Sponenberg, D. Phillip and Carolyn J. Christman. A Conservation Breeding Handbook. Pittsboro, North Carolina: The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, 1995, p. 11.

2. Millard, Sue. Hoofprints in Eden, Hayloft Publishing, Kirkby-Stephen, Cumbria, England, 2003, p. 97.

3. Lloyd, Tom. “Episode 10: Ruth Chamberlain,” Fell Pony Podcast at https://fellpony.co.uk/podcast/2022/1/10/episode-10-ruth-chamberlain

4. Millard, p. 97.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

The Wayward Band

My three Fell Ponies that were missing the previous morning were at the barn when I got there. Thank goodness for small favors! After I knew they weren’t at the barn with the rest of the herd the day before, I had walked many more steps than usual to get them back home. When I found them missing, I talked to my neighbor, and he said the ranch hand had told him I had ponies out of their pasture. Unfortunately, I then got some incorrect information about where they were, one reason I walked more steps than usual while finding them. The picture has a red arrow pointing to the ponies, and a green arrow pointing approximately to where the fence is. Their pasture is back of the green arrow.

The wayward band on high

It was almost exactly a year to the day from when I had to retrieve one member of this band from the same place. Elk had once again removed a portion of fence, and apparently the grass was greener on the other side. She took two friends with her this time. Pony #1’s mother was recently sold by her breeder because she had a similar habit. I’m hoping fence repair will keep this from becoming that severe an annoyance.

The wayward band on the wrong side of the fence.

When I finally got to them on my second try, I haltered the band leader, found the spot in the fence that was breeched, and led her to it. With a little coaxing, she stepped over the remaining wire that was about 10” off the ground. I led her several yards away, removed the halter, and went back for the next pony.

Pony #2 took matters into her own hands … or hoofs! She ran up the fence to the breeched portion and beautifully jumped the remaining wire to join Pony #1. Before long they were out of sight, which of course worried Pony #3. I haltered her and tried to coax her over the wire where the other two had gone, but she refused to lift her feet high enough to clear the wire. I then tried holding the wire down to the ground with my foot, and she still refused. She touched the wire an inch off the ground and backed away. Darn! I found it quite awkward to hold the wire down and try to direct her over it, so I mentally went in search of a different solution.

Next I took the halter off and walked over the downed fence section in the direction that the other two ponies had gone, thinking that might encourage another jumping display. It ended up being a poor choice. Pony #3 seemed to be upset at being ‘abandoned’ and ran the other direction along the fence out of sight. The fence went down a very steep and rocky hillside, so I slowly picked my way to Pony #3 when I could finally see her. Fortunately she waited for me to arrive, and I apologized for my poor choice. I haltered her and led her down to a gate at the pasture corner and led her through. When I released her, she took off toward the barn at a run. When I got back to the barn a little while later, all three of my wayward band were there as if nothing unusual had happened.

One of several benefits of retrieving the wayward band was finding this first wildflower of the spring!

While the search process was a bit laborious, it was still an enjoyable outing. I got to see some beautiful country and got to spend time with the wayward band out on the hill. I also got to see my first wildflower blossom of the spring, a pasqueflower! Well worth the effort!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

There are more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Natural Herd Size

I returned in the middle of the night from a twelve-hour trip off the ranch for a family birthday party. Under the nearly full moon upon my return, I let my dogs out of the kennel and fed them. Then we walked to the stallion pen to feed my boy there. When I got back to my house, thanks to the moon, I could see that there were a few ponies in the pasture nearby. I went through the gate and greeted each of them. It turned out there were six there to acknowledge my return home. It’s always a source of happiness when they choose to greet me in this way.

There are nine ponies on that pasture now, but they are often split into two herds, one of six and the other of three. It is always of interest to me when all nine are together and then when the bands are smaller. When I moved here, after the foals of that year were all gone to their new homes, the six remaining ponies stayed together nearly all the time. A year ago, there were seven on the pasture, and usually they all ran together, but sometimes a pair peeled off and ran separately.

My observations of these group dynamics caused me to take special note of a brief part of a conversation between Tom Lloyd and Bert Morland on the Fell Pony Podcast. Tom is the host of the show and is the steward of the Hades Hill herd which is a fell-running herd. Bert was the guest on that episode and is the steward of the Lunesdale herd, another fell-running herd. I think it was Tom who said that he has observed that his ponies tend to divide into groups of six or seven, and Bert agreed. I was left with the impression that this size is what could be considered natural for our ponies.

When I heard the conversation between Tom and Bert about natural herd size, I had already been pondering reducing my herd back down to that six or seven size for a number of other reasons. Now I have this new perspective of natural herd size to contemplate as I make decisions. While I could increase my numbers to have two herds of six or seven, I am more likely to cut back to a single herd from my current nine. Stewarding these ponies is a source of endless fascination!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022