A correspondent has just given me this story: "In South Wales many people there were drovers, and life was tough all round. Many started the long trek to sell their animals where money was a little better or were employed to drive their "master's" livestock to the English towns. Poole is in Dorset a big county for sheep as was Hampshire and Sussex, and finding that many people were "ag. labs." suggests they were possibly drovers initially. They drove cattle as well as sheep from South Wales into England a hard and often dangerous life, the Wild West had nothing on these people actually walking with the animals. " My source does not give a time frame. I suspect it would have had to have been in the 1500s or earlier. Can anyone tell me: When, ie in which centuries, were the Welsh droving sheep and cattle into Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset? Where were there principal destinations? Any other facts which could turn this story into an interesting piece of history . Alan P Sydney Australia

Hi, According to the book "The Drovers' Roads of Wales" By Fay Goodwin and Shirley Toulson the Welsh were driving their cattle hundreds of miles over the mountains and into eastern parts of England. From the time of the Norman Conquest to the middle of the 1800s any traveller in Wales at certain times of the year would find the roads blocked with cattle, sheep pigs and geese. Corgis were used to keep the herds together and many tales were told of these dogs finding their own way home from Kent to North Wales. One of the Drovers' roads went to Hereford and there is no reason why the final destination of the herds and flocks wouldn't be Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex. In fact Sussex has a border with Kent. Last year we drove (in a car!!)along two of the Drovers' Roads in Mid Wales. We travelled from Rhayader to Devil's Bridge through some wonderful remote countryside we returned through Tregaron and on to Beulah in Breconshire. It would have been a very difficult for any traveller on foot and the life herding those animals must have been extremely dangerous. I have no evidence that any of my ancestors were drovers but they all lived off the land in Mid Wales and something would have had to be done to supplement the family income with many mouths to feed. Regards, Margaret Harvey ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan Powell" <alpowell@bigpond.com> To: <WALES-GEN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 1:22 AM Subject: [WALES-GEN] Welsh drovers into Sussex and hampshire > A correspondent has just given me this story: > > "In South Wales many people there were drovers, and life was tough all round. Many started the long trek to sell their animals where money was a little better or were employed to drive their "master's" livestock to the English towns. Poole is in Dorset a big county for sheep as was Hampshire and Sussex, and finding that many people were "ag. labs." suggests they were possibly drovers initially. They drove cattle as well as sheep from South Wales into England a hard and often dangerous life, the Wild West had nothing on these people actually walking with the animals. " > > My source does not give a time frame. I suspect it would have had to have been in the 1500s or earlier. > > Can anyone tell me: > When, ie in which centuries, were the Welsh droving sheep and cattle into Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset? > > Where were there principal destinations? > > Any other facts which could turn this story into an interesting piece of history . > > > Alan P > Sydney > Australia > > > ==== WALES-GEN Mailing List ==== > Have you used Tree Tops? > The Free FAMILY TREE & WE'LL MEET AGAIN SERVICE > http://freespace.virgin.net/tree.tops > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >