There is a reason why the South Country Cheviot has stood the test of time on the hills above Upper Coquetdale, where weather, distance and ground decide what kind of sheep will pay their way being able to produce ewes that will look after themselves, milk and rear a lamb.
At Shillmoor Farm, near Rothbury in Northumberland, that faith in the Cheviot is not sentimental. It is practical. The farm which is rented by Jimmy Walton from the Ministry of Defence, lies in the Cheviot Hills, surrounded by the open, beautiful and often unforgiving country that has shaped both the sheep and the men who work with them.
Running the flock on a day to day basis are shepherds John Cowens and Daniel Wood. Between them is a depth of knowledge and experience that few could take in - unless they were born into the system. John has lived and worked at Shillmoor all his life, while Daniel returned in 2004, following a family connection with the same farming outfit. Neither makes much of titles. They are shepherds, and the job, as John puts it simply, is “a way of life”.
The scale is considerable. Shillmoor carries about 1655 South Country Cheviot ewes, with around 400 ewe lambs retained each year as replacements. All ewes lamb outside in mid-April working largely from grass. It is a system which asks a lot of the ewe, but it is also one the breed is built to handle.
“They’re suited to the ground,” says John.
Hardy, good mothers and strong milkers, Cheviots can keep going when conditions are less than ideal. A ewe can be lean and still have milk for her lambs. That, for Daniel and John, is one of the defining strengths of the breed. On a farm where the sheep are not pampered, that kind of natural thrift is essential.
Single-bearing ewes generally receive little or no concentrates unless snow is lying. Twin-bearing ewes may get a little feed for a short spell before lambing, but the aim is not to prop up sheep which cannot do the job.
Lambing begins around April 15 in in-bye fields, and runs for two cycles plus a week. There are no batches as such, just a steady flow of ewes lambing across the period.
One of the main issues is stopping ewes pinching lambs from one another when they are lambing so thicker than they would out on the open hill.
The work is constant: checking, watching, knowing when to help and when to leave alone. “Anyone who says they don’t get problems is kidding,” says John.
“A bad lambing spell, a ewe cast on her back, staggers, rain, sleet or a lamb in the wrong place can all change a day.”
Yet the impression from both men is not of complaint. It is more matter-of-fact acceptance. The job is to work with the breed and the hill, not against them. A good Cheviot ewe, correctly managed, is expected to do her part. The shepherd’s role is to give her the best chance and to be there when things go wrong.
The same practical eye runs through the breeding policy. Shillmoor buys one new stock tup every year, occasionally two, to bring in fresh blood. That bought-in tup is often used on some of the best ewes, with the aim of breeding sons that can then be used elsewhere across the flock. Daughters stay on the ground where the tup has worked, but his sons are used away from those female lines.
John and Daniel look for stock rams with size, character, a good breedy head, good on their legs, nice white hair, a sharp eye, a good black nose, and true breed type. They want presence and strength. The difficulty, they admit, is that everyone else is looking for much the same thing. A ram they might hope to buy for £2000-£4000 can quickly make far more if several breeders settle on the same sheep.
One of Shillmoor’s standout achievements was selling the Mountbenger Extra-sired tup, Shillmoor Defender for £6500 at the breed sale at Lockerbie to the Mountbenger and Stirkfield flocks. Defender later left a son that made £14,000.
Another tup John and Daniel remember for the right reasons is Coquet Ammo, which bred lambs that sold well and left the type of sheep they were looking at.
“It is not just how a tup looks on sale day, it’s whether his lambs stand up, grow on and leave their mark in a flock that points to whether a stock tup is a good buy or not,” said John.
Around 40 or 50 tup lambs are kept entire for possible use with the remainder cut.
The flock needs a steady supply of home-bred ram lambs for its own use, with 10-12 shearlings often required each year.
Management of the ewes and tups is shaped by the ground. On the hill, a tup may run with about 60 ewes, while in easier fields he can cover more. In some places, several tups may be needed across a large area simply because there is so much country to cover. At tupping time, the work involves gathering sheep regularly, so the tups get their chance, and ewes are not missed because they are at the far end of the hill.
That type of shepherding still depends heavily on dogs. John and Daniel each have three. The quad bike is a fantastic revelation, and not something either man would want to work without, however it cannot replace a dog on country that is steep, awkward and spread out.
Practical improvements have made the job easier. Portable handling pens, capable of taking around 200 sheep, have been one of the best investments. They can be moved, set up and taken down without the same labour as fixed handling systems, allowing sheep to be worked where they are rather than dragged too far off their ground.
Lambs are marketed according to what the land can do. At Shillmoor itself, many would be stores if sold straight off the hill. Those that can be finished are moved to better grass, with some going away in early September and finished into winter.
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Draft ewes are sold at Hexham, while a small number of ewe lambs may be sold privately for breeding. The best are kept at home first.
Shillmoor has enjoyed success at Alwinton and Harbottle shows, and the two men have judged the Cheviots at Pennymuir. But the real measure of the flock is not a rosette but whether the sheep go back to Shillmoor and do the job year after year.
Shillmoor sits in country that looks idyllic, but there is nothing soft about making a living from it. The hills that give the farm its character also set the terms. Sheep must be right for the land, and shepherds must know both.
John is uneasy about incentives that take sheep away from productive land, whether through tree planting or other uses. His view is shaped by a lifetime of seeing what grazed hill country can produce when matched with the right stock. It is not a political speech; it is the instinct of someone who believes the land should still be worked.
For Daniel, too, the connection is more than employment. His father, although retired, still helps on local farms, and Daniel’s own son, William, lends a hand when he can. Farming and shepherding here are not neatly separated from home life. They run through it, as they have for the Walton family since Jimmy’s father bought the farming business in the 1940s and as they continue under Jimmy, who is also chairperson of Hexham Mart.
There are easier jobs. But for John and Daniel the satisfaction is in the sheep, the dogs, the hill and the knowledge that a flock has been brought through another season. It is in spotting the lamb worth keeping, seeing a ewe walk away with twins, or finding that a tup has bred the sort of stock that makes the flock better.
That quiet pride is what gives Shillmoor its strength as a South Country Cheviot story. The breed has endured not because it belongs in a history book, but because on farms like this it still earns its place.
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