Baaa from the madding crowd... the Dorset f lock roaming the downs since Hardy’s time
IT is a classic scene that could have come straight from the pages of a Thomas Hardy novel.
A shepherd wanders across a green field with rolling hills in the background, gently tending his sheep.
But this is no ordinary flock – it is believed to be the oldest of its kind in the world, with a pure bloodline stretching back more than 111 years.
These Dorset Horn breeding ewes and rams have been nurtured by the same family since the mid- to latenineteenth century.
The 200-strong flock was formally established in 1906 but had been looked after for decades before by Frederick Fooks.
Born in 1853, he slowly built up his business on farms near Bridport, Dorset. He was a lifelong shepherd and would have been well established in the county by the time Hardy published Far From the Madding Crowd, inspired by the local people and places, in 1874.
Frederick’s great-grandson Francis Fooks, 60, who has inherited the flock, provided the sheep for the 2015 film version of the novel, starring Carey Mulligan.
Mr Fooks is immensely proud of the flock’s lineage, which has been unsullied through nearly five generations, making it one of the best and most well-documented pedigrees in the world. It produces such high-quality lamb that Waitrose buys the lot.
The family’s 800-acre Manor Farm has been in the Fooks family for 98 years. It sits above Dorset’s picturesque Loscombe Valley with views across to Toller Down – fictionalised by Hardy as Norcombe Hill.
Looking after the flock is a demanding job, which ends in January with the sale of the first of the lambs to Waitrose. These are animals that will have been born from September.
By spring, around shearing time, thoughts will be turning to the ancient May Fair where Mr Fooks exhibits the best of his rams.
In the middle of April, when it is time to put the rams into the flock Mr Fooks, a pedigree expert, will have spent months studying bloodlines carefully to prevent any in-breeding.
‘It is hard work but I still love it and it’s all I know,’ he said. ‘Somewhere in the calendar we will manage to steal a few days away, a weekend here and there.’
His brothers, Michael, David and Jeffrey, are all on hand to help share the workload, and the next generation of Dorset Horn farmers is assured, as Mr Fooks’s son, Adam, is learning the ropes.