South Country Cheviot Sheep

There are three distinct Cheviot sheep breeds here in the UK.  The South Country Cheviot, The North Country Cheviot and the Brecknock Hill Cheviot.  All three varieties share distinctive looks: they have wool-free white faces, upright and perky ears, Roman noses, dark nostrils, and their eyes are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner. All three then have their own distinguishing features and characteristics and they are different in size and whether they have horns or not.  Each have their own blog post so be sure to click on links within the posts to navigate between the three.

The South Country Cheviot Sheep, also known as the Border Cheviot and in the US it is known as the American Classic Cheviot, is the oldest and the original of the three Cheviot breed of sheep to be found in the UK.

These are the dominant sheep in the southern portion of the Cheviot Hills, which run along the border of England and Scotland and were formed by a volcanic flow of lava 400 million years ago. The hills tallest point stands at 2,673 feet above sea level. 

The Cheviot Hills have been home to grazing sheep since at least the 14th century and there is a story that the sheep were to bought to land following the grounding of a Spanish ship and they escaped and ran off and quickly established a large population in the southern hill country.  At this time the Spaniards were developing the forebears of the Merino and so these sheep already possessed high quality fine fleece.

Around 1480 local Monks who kept a large number of these sheep were keen to improve them and tried crossing them with some imported Merino sheep but this was not a success and the offspring were prone to foot rot.  Also around this time the towns in the borders region were becoming reliant on wool to keep the increasing Tweed mills working. James Robson of Belford, Northumberland is credited with the development and improvement of the South Country Cheviot when he obtained three Lincolnshire Longwool rams and crossed them with some ewes and this proved successful in producing a good strong sheep with more more wool.

In 1791, Sir John Sinclair was tasked with improving the national stock and he selected the native long woolled hill sheep found in the Border's Cheviot Hills from all other breeds he had seen and he gave them the name of Cheviot, the first time they had been named as a breed.  He believed they were the perfect mountain sheep in both form and fleece and so he took 500 of these Cheviots more than 300 miles north to his Langwell Estate in Ulbester, Caithness which is almost the most northern part of mainland Scotland.  It was a success and they flourished as they suited the terrain and so many more thousands were transported north over the following years.  They were crossed with Leicester and other rams and the breed developed into the bigger and slightly different North Country Cheviot and that is a different blog post.

The South Country Cheviot can be found in the Cheviot Hills, Southern Scotland, Northern England and South Wales.  At the time of writing they are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: Other UK Native Breeds (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.

The South Country Cheviot is a small, hardy sheep that is very alert and active and weighing in at 55-70kg for a ewe and 70-80kg for a ram they are much smaller than the North Country Cheviot.  They have wool-free white faces, upright and perky ears, Roman noses, dark nostrils, and their eyes are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner. The rams can have horns.  The fleece is white with a distinctive ruff behind the ears with crisp, white lustrous wool.  The fleece weigh 2-3kg with a staple length of 4-5 inches.  The locks have rectangular staples with slightly pointed tips and a three dimensional crimp.  Breed associations specify no hair, kemp or coloured fibres should be in the ideal fleece.

The South Country Cheviot fleece is described as "chalky" and whilst the wool dyes wells it does not have the brilliance of the longwools like the North Country Cheviot does.  If you have a short fleece it can be carded but usually it is long enough to be flicked or combed.  It is good for socks, sweaters and the like.

 

I couldn't find fleece or fibre from this one for sale anywhere as most people just clump all three of the Cheviot breeds under the umbrella of "Cheviot".  I found a Facebook group for the breed and sent them a message on 22nd April 2021 and I got a reply back the next day and I gave them my details and then it all went silent, despite me sending another message on 30th May to ask if the shearing had been done.  I never did hear back from this contact.  Maybe it was a Covid thing.

I finally managed to get hold of a South Country Cheviot fleece in mid-August 2021 from a young farmer who is working and raising his own flock under his fathers supervision in Dumfries, Scotland.  It is a Hogg fleece, which means last years lamb and weighed 1.5kg on arrival.  I was put in contact with this young farmer by someone who had written a blog post about the breed that I came across when searching for this fleece.  I made contact with her and the rest is history, as they say.

After sorting out a few bits of rubbish and washing what remained I was left with 1107g of nice clean fleece ready to be prepared for spinning.

I took 145g of this nice clean bright white fleece and I combed it and I got 84g of lovely hand combed top ready to spin.  I have 962g of washed fleece that can be combed at a later date.

My finished yarn is of really nice soft quality to the touch of the hand and just look at how white it is.  My knitted piece for the project took 24g/181m so I have a small amount left to do whatever with, plus the rest of the fleece of course.