Daily Mail - 28.08.2019

Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 28, 2019 Page 27

1945

Happy days are shear again:

Sheep on Hampstead Heath

yesterday. Inset: Tending a

flock on the heath

in the forties

Back in a graze

of glory, the

roaming sheep

of Hampstead

A CENTURY ago, the sight of sheep Daily Mail Reporter

like these grazing on Hampstead

Heath would have been, er, baa for

the course.

But yesterday this flock became the first

for nearly 70 years to be let loose on the

historic London landmark.

Five sheep have been introduced as an

experiment to keep vegetation in check in an

environmentally friendly way. They have been

set to work in a fenced-off area known as the

Tumulus – which some claim is the last rest-

ing place of Queen Boadicea.

Signs have been put up to advise dog owners

to keep their pets under control. At night the

sheep – supplied by a city farm in east London

• will be kept in an enclosure at Kenwood
  House, the former stately home on the edge of
  the heath. The project is being run by the

Rare Breeds Survival Trust and the City of

London Corporation, which owns the heath.

Bob Warnock, the superintendent for Hamp-

stead Heath, said sheep can play a major role

in boosting wildlife habitats.

John Beyer, of the Heath and Hampstead

Society, said that 200 years ago John Consta-

ble painted scenes of cattle on the heath. ‘This

romantic vision happily coincided with the

aim.. to experiment with grazing rather than

tractors to manage the landscape,’ he said.