Rare northerly sighting of hardy Howgills fell ponies

THEY WERE black and dark brown dots in groups of threes, fours and fives and spread out over a high tract of fellside. They were much too large to be Herdwick sheep and, given the location, extremely unlikely to be red deer.

Travelling north on the M6 from the Kirkby Lonsdale turnoff, I could see 20 or more of the dots more than 1,000 feet above the Lune Valley and regretted there was nowhere we could park to watch them through binoculars.

I’d never seen the famous fell ponies of the Howgills in this place before.

Over several decades I’ve often encountered them further to the east on the south- facing slopes of The Calf between the dramatic waterfall of Cautley Spout and England’s only temperance hotel, the Cross Keys.

These ones were grazing the steep contours of Uldale Head and Blease Fell, which are much less frequented by walkers than other parts of the Howgill Fells, and since August 2016 have been part of the enlarged Yorkshire Dales National Park.

The fell ponies are semi- feral and roam the Howgills more or less without physical restrictions since there are few drystone walls and fences.

Mostly blacks, browns or bays they are a famously hardy breed, capable of enduring the toughest winter conditions as they surefootedly forage over the fells’ more tightly- packed contours in search of grasses and mosses, managing to scrape away the snow with their hooves in order to graze.

There are thought to be at least 250 of them grouped into around a dozen herds.

Indigenous to the North of England, they are now mainly confined to the south eastern side of Cumbria.

There is evidence of their presence in the Iron Age, and the Romans are thought to have deployed them during the construction of Hadrian’s Wall.

When the Vikings later settled in these hills they used fell ponies to plough and haul sledges, and to carry loads of copper, iron and lead ores from mines in northern hills. They were particularly associated with pack horse routes and once a common sight in the Pennines.

These days they are known as “galloways” in the Howgills, being related to the now- extinct Galloway pony as well as another native mountain and moorland breed, the Dales pony.

While they have freedom to wander on the fells they are occasionally tended by their owners. Once a year the individual herds are rounded up after breeding, brought down to lower ground and the yearling colts sold on.

The breed’s interests are looked after by the Fell Pony Society, set up in 1922 to “keep pure the old breed of pony in the face of cross breeding”.

According to the society’s formal description of what constitutes a fell pony it should not exceed 14 hands ( 142.2cm) and “be constitutionally as hard as iron and show good pony characteristics with the unmistakable appearance of hardiness peculiar to mountain ponies, and at the same time, have a lively and alert appearance and great bone”.