The Horses of Britain

The Horses of Britain - Are they wild ?

As a young man, I lived near to both Dartmoor and Exmoor. These are two National Parks that sit nicely in the SW peninsula of England. At weekends, I would often head out to one of the moors with friends, to go and try to find the ‘wild’ horses...    It was never a difficult task. Because they have no natural predators they roam freely and are found in ever increasing numbers, all over the moors.

Growing up in the British Isles, I was fully aware of the fact that there were other horses, roaming freely all over our islands. In the Shetlands, you will find short stocky horses, wandering amidst the heather. In North Wales, you’ll find the gorgeous Carneddau horses, and only about 240 of them left in existence. In the South of England, you’ll find horses grazing in moorland areas, contentedly.

It really is a wonderful thing to see. Imagine driving through the gorgeous moorland areas of Britain, and as you turn a bend in the road, there’s a small herd of ‘wild’ horses waiting to greet you. I questioned the word ‘wild’, at the beginning of this article, because technically, it’s the wrong word to use. They are grazing on ‘common land’....unowned land in many cases....but carefully managed land. This common land has been looked after by farmers for centuries, as areas for grazing. Nowadays the land is used for grazing sheep and cattle, however, if we go back far enough in time, it will also have been used to herd, rear and graze horses. In fact, The British Isles, before the arrival of the Romans, was occupied by a people who valued the horse immensely, and who gained great prestige from horse ownership.

If we go back further into the prehistory of our shores, archaeology tell us that horses were nomadically grazing under the shadow of a great receding ice sheet, 11-14,000 years ago....at the same time as mankind were hunting and gathering.

So, these people and these horses, at some point came together. Men will have needed horses as beasts of burden, or as a useful means of transportation, and as this ‘relationship’ and ‘need’ for the horse grew, my British ancestors, developed a whole cultural identity around them. We’ve all heard of the Mongol hordes and the Steppe peoples who roared out of Asia, and how they’re recognised as ‘horse people’....   I now want you to imagine the British in the same way. The only real difference is that the British would not ride horses into battle, at least not until the Iron Age ( 800 BC), when warriors would fight from chariots pulled by horses only.

Whenever archaeologists discover remains of our ancestors from the Iron Age or Bronze Age (3200 BC), they find beautifully made bridle bits, and accoutrements of horse riding, more evident than human decoration , such as brooches and pins. Horses were that important to those people.

There is other evidence of their importance to humans and their personal prestige. If you were a tribal elder 5000 years ago and you wanted to be remembered, perhaps you’d want to be remembered as a great man...   who owned horses. ?

I, as a small group tour guide, lOve to take people to see some of the wonders of Britain. If you’d like anymore information on me or the tours that I create and lead, please get in touch via email, or visit my Facebook Pages to see much more.