A field in which sheep are placed will be their territory, and where sheep needs prevail. And the field will have boundaries - wall or fencing or hedge - that are clear and pronounced. And too, essentially the space is private space; at any one time being in individual responsibility - that of the owner/tenant/lessee/licence-holder.
Other outdoor areas in which sheep are put may not have just single use and purpose. In spaces which bear more than one ‘interest’, uses wanted from the spaces may differ and conflict. The more extensive the area, the greater the likelihood of the presence of various ‘stakeholders’, and maybe including that there are several landowners to the area. In regards interests, those to an area may be very complex. If existence in harmony is impossible, a decision will need to be made about which among the interests is to be the one to prevail.
Other than in fields, the types of outdoors area which sheep are likely to be are land which is open, quasi-open, or semi-open. Such territories are uplands, moors, marginal lands, rural locations that are sparsely populated. There will be few, or no, physical boundaries or delineations over these. While on maps and documents apportionments of ownership and use will show, on the ground there will likely be much less evidence of them. Essentially, such areas will seem ‘open country’.
In the UK, areas such as those described are mainly in the north of England, and in parts of Scotland and Wales. Really the only type of farming to which this type of land lends itself is sheep farming: sheep grazing is what such areas provide. Many of the lands are scenic and are beautiful. They attract tourism. Often the lands are within National Parks. Too, designations of special interest for nature, science etc can pertain.
There being myriad different interests in a place is of course the usual, more or less anywhere on earth. Consideration and reaching a decision on a right path and course of action between different, and sometimes conflicting, interests is one of life’s constants.
At the far north of England, in the country of Northumberland which sits alongside Scotland, is one such area. Sheep graze the pasture of its hills. The area is within the Northumberland National Park. Tourism is present. As the particular dimension is that as quite a large spread in the location is the Otterburn Army Training Estate - Otterburn Ranges - which is a firing range. The general area is quite remote and wild. (Interestingly, a particular portion of land to the west of the area, between part of Cumbria and Scotland, was in the sixteenth century contested and known as ‘The Debatable Lands’.) In the Northumberland area under discussion, there are interests present that are customary to other such areas where sheep farming is occurring, but with an additional dimension. The sheep are grazing in open country and are able to go on to the narrow roads. Military and general public drive vehicles along those roads. The sheep are therefore at risk. Farming of sheep and ‘defending the realm’ are not interests to be very compatible. Which of the interests has sway and ‘more purchase’?
Open land is an area which offers to sheep a freedom and choice of place to be. But it also represents a hazard, in two ways: it allows others to enter and use the space for their purposes and which may conflict with what is in the sheep’s best interests, and endanger them; it provides the scope and opportunity for sheep to stray to a place of whose way of behaviour the sheep may have no awareness or experience.
An open hillside is probably a territory of which, due to sure-footedness and familiarity with the place, ‘ownership’ and upper-hand rests with the sheep. A road through an open area is a dangerous space for sheep. Humans driving vehicles on such a road, as well as probably seeing that road as entirely a domain for them and their vehicles, know that, compared to sheep, they with their vehicles are a stronger force. Overall, a sheep farming area might be seen and regarded locally - for economic and cultural reasons - as being a territory of sheep farming, first and foremost. But, as in the area of the Otterburn Ranges, other users of a space might see the territory as theirs, for their requirements, and these as more important than sheep farming.
A road is a particular contested space in any area where sheep are able to roam freely, and so they can, and may wish to, walk across roads and along them. If a resident community is conversant with sheep and their ways, and largely derives its livelihood from sheep, then the vehicle drivers of that community will have good reason to drive carefully in a way to ensure that sheep are unharmed. Outsiders, tourists and visitors, may not have such a strong impulse to drive so well as to see that sheep are safe and protected.
It can be concluded that in an area ‘known for sheep’, where the way of life and activity relates to sheep, the dominating factor to that territory will be sheep. But, throughout the world, few areas are so mono-activity and so mono-cultural. Most areas have various and conflicting demands on them. The places represent debatable territories. The requirement is, therefore, for discussion and evaluation, with the objective to reach common agreement on ‘what rules’ and so how an area should operate. If a field of sheep, by contrast to that depicted at the start of this article, was not purely for sheep use but also had a public right of way through it, it would not just be sheep territory. In possessing that public right of way, and if moreover a walker used it, and maybe with a dog (an animal with natural instinct to worry a sheep), and so the field being an arena of various interests, it would represent - to a degree - debatable territory.
4th December 2021