richardbenson.com

WE WERE DRIVING across Dartmoor, passing the sheep, cattle, horses and ponies that graze there. “Who owns those animals?” asked Kevin. I had to admit I had no idea. As we parked up so that Kevin could photograph this mother and her foal, it struck me that although the roaming animals in wild upland areas of Britain are effectively tourist attractions, few of us ever think about how they got there. The next day we asked around at a local livestock market and found a farmer who explained that the ponies and other four-legged Dartmoor residents belonged to farms up there. The sheep flocks were “hefted” – hefting being a complex process by which a farmer trains a flock to stay in their own area. The ponies, unless they were the pure Dartmoor breed, did not generate income,  but we mostly kept as a hobby. In some ways their presence is like that of hedgerows – a sign of agriculture we tend to see without thinking about farming•