Southdown Sheep

The South Downs, an area of about 68 miles long of chalk hills along the English Channel that encompasses the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex, that has been home to short woolled, dark-faced, speckle-legged sheep since Medieval times named after the area in which they lived but their breed name is one word, not two.  In the late 1700's several breeders improved these sheep for better mutton production and by 1800 the improved Southdown sheep was the most important breed in England.  Originally they were quite small but became larger after they were improved and breeders then used the improved Southdown to cross breed with other native breeds in the downland counties and the improved Southdown bloodlines runs through all other Downs breeds, making the Southdown the grand ancestor of all of the Downs breeds: Dorset Down, Hampshire Down, Oxford, Shropshire and Suffolk.

The Southdown sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Category  6:"Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  

Southdowns are usually found in the South East of England, where they originate, but there are specialist flocks across the UK and in other parts of the world too and they have developed into three different sized types within the breed: the standard sized that is still used in commercial agriculture to produced lamb and mutton and two smaller varieties that are often raised as pets and for fleece, the Baby Doll Southdown and the Miniature or Toy Southdown, the later being less than 24 inches tall at the withers.

The Southdown is a medium build sheep with a mouse-brown face and legs covered in wool, small ears that are also covered in wool, but are wool free around the eyes and across the bridge of the nose and they have black nostrils.  Both sexes are polled.  They are docile and easy to handle with affectionate dispositions.

They produce a medium size white fleece of 1.5kg-2kg with a staple length of 2-3 inches (5-7.5cm).  The fleece is dense, relatively short with blocky staples that my be hard to distinguish from each other.  The wool is really fine and is one of the finest in Britain.  The fleece should be white and free from dark fibres but some may occur.  Some breeders have cultivated the dark-fibre genes and produced sheep with full coats of coloured wool so you may find coloured Southdown fleece but its not the norm.

Shorter fleeces can be carded, longer ones will want to be flicked or combed.  Keep the draft light and open and the twist moderate to maintain the loft and springy character of the wool.  The wool is "chalky" but does take dye nicely but the colours won't be lustrous but neither will they be flat.  Has enough crimp to be nicely elastic and it doesn't felt very well.  

Yarns spun from Southdown fleece are great for socks, mittens, hats, sweaters and the finer fleeces will be great for next-to-skin items.

I have bought this breed in as pre-prepared fibre in a box containing 50g each of four British Breeds and because of this you can see a few dark fibres that have transferred from the other breeds in the box and I picked them off before I spun the yarn.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and has a nice amount of bounce but not too much and is 50g/107m.  My knitted piece for the project only took 23g/46m so I have a small amount left to do whatever with.  It certainly gives good stitch definition.