Tyneham - The Village Time Forgot
I first started lambing at Lulworth around about ten years ago, a friend took me to meet Sarah at Shoemakers, where there is a rickety sheep race by the woods where the ruins of Tyneham House and gardens stand. “I’ll pick you up later” David said as he rushed off to do something entirely different. Seven hours of pushing up stubborn Suffolk cross, North Country Mule and Cheviot ewes, someone else dropped me back home, filthy dirty, very hungry and with a huge grin on my face.
So I had met Sarah, and I obviously met with her approval as on the 18th April I found myself on the Lulworth side of the army ranges she grazes ready for lambing. Lambing at Lulworth is very different to lambing elsewhere, army firing decrees when you are allowed on the ground and with a little barn just for emergencies life moves at a rapid pace before 9am and after 4pm as you whizz round the fields in an old Mule atv catching new borns, dipping their navels and marking them a best you can whilst looking for any ewes that might need assistance.
There is a knack, you have to get round as fast as you can because I know from experience that the ewe that needs help will always be in the last field you check just as the deadline for being offf the ground approaches. I learnt this lesson the first year as I went into the last field, quite happy about how things had gone, and there she was. The most enormous Suffolk ewe struggling to lamb. Of course as soon as she saw me she took off at speed, I ran as fast as I could with my crook and caught her, at least 100 meters from the mule and trailer. She promptly led down. With just ten minutes left before I had to be back in the yard I took a deep breath, knowing that I didn’t have time to sort this out in the field, and I hauled and pushed and persuaded the ewe back to the trailer, and with an almighty heave to get her up the ramp I took off back to the barn to sort the problem out just in time before the red flags were raised. All was well you’ll be pleased to hear!
In subsequent years I stayed in a caravan in the yard, arriving just as our ewes at home slow down to the final few left to lamb, peace and solitude making up for the lack of electricity, hot water and toilet! Armed with porridge oats and sachets of vegetable curry I learnt to keep my energy levels up on the little gas stove. Then this year I arrived to find a family of rats had made it their home, no way was I sharing with them! Sarah kindly offered me shelter in her front room at Stoborough. A beautiful old house with a door in the middle and windows either side just as a house should be, accessed through tall metal gates which lead alongside the coach house to a cobbled courtyard beyond.
With an average of 500 ewes to lamb there each year we usually finish around the beginning of June as Sarah doesn’t have a strict date to take the rams out for the ewes, but it really goes on much longer than that as we then have to walk the ewes and lambs over the hill to Tyneham. We also end up with a barn full of ‘orphans’, usually triplet lambs taken from their mums as the grazing at Tyneham is better suited to singles or twin. This noisy rabble have to be taught how to feed on th automatic feeder, a system of buckets and tubes with teats attatched to a board in each pen. Some are faster learners than others!
The drive over to. Tyneham is my most favourite time of the year. We walk the sheep over in batches, they come into the pens for a health check and then we set off up the track. The most hair raising part of the journey is walking through the fields where cousinTom’s cattle graze and across the road which can get super busy a weekends when the public are allowed access to Tyneham village and Worbarrow Bay. It’s the only opportunity we get to do the drive however, went the ranges go silent for the weekend. After we cross the road the pace slows a we drive them up the super steep hill and along the path at the top. Walkers step to one side as we pass, not a sight they see everyday! Then we round the corner. We’re on top of the world with a view down to the bay and Worbarrow Tout.
It’s hard to imagine the thriving community that was Tyneham before the army requisitioned it in1943, Tyneham House, not accessible to the general public, was the home of the Bond family from 1683. It stood at the heart of the estate, with the farms and cottages and fields spreading through the valley. The farms including Tyneham, Povington and Egliston were part of this working landscape before the army began acquiring it for military training. In 1943 the villagers and farmers were given just 28 days notice to leave as the valley was needed for preparations for D-Day, they never returned. Lilian Bond, one of the last family members to live at Tyneham House wrote lovingly about the village and it’s people, helping to preserve the memory of the village time forgot. Today the empty cottages, the church and old school remain, while the land Sarah grazes is still part of the firing ranges making our yearly sheep drives feel like a glimpse back to a landscape where past and present sit close together.
I will never get bored of the view from the top of the hill as we round the corner. We meander down towards the church and usher the ewes and lambs into their fields, either church side, or shoemakers across the road then stop for a snack and a drink before making our way back. This year we paused to explore the church at Tyneham , truly beautiful
I feel incredibly grateful for this opportunity each year, away from technology and home comforts. It is a workout for body, mind and soul on every level.
Kate x
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