Shropshire Routes to Roots

4. Medieval movement

Introduction

For hundreds of years livestock had been taken to market, along well marked routes known as drove roads. This lasted until the railways introduced a more profitable alternative to moving livestock.These routes are still visible in the Shropshire landscape. The image below shows sheep being driven to market along just such a route.

Sheep being driven to market [Shropshire Archive reference: PH/S/14/2]

Kerry Ridgeway

Kerry Ridgeway and Bromlow Callow Larger image, in a new window [20kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of Secret Shropshire]

The Kerry Ridgeway is one of Shropshire's best known drove roads. The route generally keeps to the crest of the hill as seen above. This gave the drovers a good clear view of where they were headed and also kept them out of the more crowded and busy valleys. Drove roads had wide grass verges, bordered by hedges, where the cattle or sheep could graze when they spent the night on route.

The Ridgeway ran through Bishops Castle, once a drovers' town and a stopping-off point en route. This image, although taken much later, gives a glimpse of how the town must have appeared when the drovers past through. From Bishops Castle it continued on to Shrewsbury and the Midlands.

Cattle in Bishops Castle Larger image, in a new window [21kb] [Shropshire Archive reference: PH/B/16/9]

The All Stretton Drove Larger image, in a new window [26kb] [Shropshire Archive reference: PH/A/13]

This image shows horses being driven down from the Long Mynd at the end of the nineteenth century.

Finding Drove Roads

Many of the routes were marked by frequent plantings of clumps of pine trees, such as these at Bromlow Callow. These could be seen for miles and made navigation easier for the drovers.

Bromlow Callow Larger image, in a new window [26kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of Secret Shropshire]

Droving was very hard on the poor animals feet, especially where the road was stone. Geese had their feet dipped in tar to harden them for the journey and cattle might be shod like a horse, except, that the shoes would be in two parts because of the cloven hooves.

Broughton Bank, on the Shrewsbury to Wem road, had a house known as the Bull shop. This was formerly a smithy where the shoeing of cattle was practiced.

Place names often show the importance of drove roads, for example Welshmans Ford at Ford. Other reminders include a large stone walled enclosure at Cowbatch Cross, between Caradoc and Hope Bowdler, which was once a drover pound where runaway animals were placed until claimed.

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