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botanical, Broadway Market, Chelsea Fringe, city farm, design, desire line, Drovers' road, environment, food, growing food, Hackney City Farm, landscape, Landscape Institute, London, nature, seed bombing, Wales, walking
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Retracing London’s Drovers’ Roads
by Howard Miller and Rowena Hay
I have a book called Drovers’ Roads of Wales by Fay Godwin and Shirley Toulson published in 1977, which has always fascinated me. “Through the heart of Wales run innumerable centuries-old tracks — many still traceable and open. They are the Drovers’ Roads. For hundreds of years — from the Middle Ages to the victory of the railways around 1900 — they were trodden by tens of thousands of cattle, sheep and even geese being driven — at an average of 2 mph — to the markets of London. The drovers — many of them now Welsh folk legends — avoiding the main roads, walked their flocks through villages, lively market towns, sometimes following Roman and even earlier highways, passing ancient sites and megaliths and through some of the most dramatic landscapes of Wales” as it says on the back cover.
English: Drovers’ Road, and Forestry on Bryn Mawr, Ceredigion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Having come across references to them in various places I have visited in Wales I was intrigued when I saw a drovers’ walk in London advertised as part of the Chelsea Fringe festival taking place accompanying the Chelsea Flower Show. It turned out to be based on one of the shortlisted entries for the Highline for London competition held recently. This was organised by the Landscape Institute and the Garden Museum as a call for ideas in response to the New York Highline walkway re invented on an old overhead railway line (coincidentally used for transportation into the meatpacking district). The London competition was asking for ‘green infrastructure‘ for any specific site in London and all the entries can now be seen on a web site called http://www.newlondonlandscapes.org.
Hackney was the starting point, and we were to follow a route ending at Bishopsgate, symbolising the entrance to the City of London. Misty Hay and Howard Miller, who designed the route, were our drovers. They had been intrigued by how a desire line existed along Broadway Market and Columbia Road in East London, which cut across the main road pattern and seemed to link up a back route through the city, which could be a ‘green’ route. It could be seen to have a food connection too as written about by Carolyn Steel in her Hungry City book:
“Look at the plan of any city built before the railways , and there you will be able to trace the influence of food. It is etched into the anatomy of every pre-industrial urban plan: all have markets at their heart, with roads leading to them like so many arteries carrying in the city’s lifeblood. London is no exception.”
“A closer reading of the map reveals how food once reached the city. London’s sheep and cattle, many of them from Scotland, wales and Ireland approached from the North, streaming down country lanes to Newgate, where the ancient city’s livestock market was held. During the 9th century, the market expanded to a ‘smooth field’ (Smithfield) just out side the city gate where a meat market remains to this day.”
This ties in coincidentally with my recent post on the Smithfield area.
So armed with our beautifully designed map (packet of seed bombs attached) we leave the palm trees of Hackney Town Hall Square and go through Grove Passage (no trees) along the side of London Fields (no documentary evidence for grazing by drovers but could be possible) heading for Broadway Market. Howard tells us about the design strategy for the route – low key, piecemeal, grass roots and interactive rather than imposed in a bombastic fashion. We help by throwing a few seed bombs as we go to bolster biodiversity. These include plants used as fodder, with animal names, folklore associations, and or seeds transferred by animals – Shepherd’s Purse, Lamb’s Ears, Cow Parsley, Cowslip, Teasel, Cock’s Foot etc. Permeable paving, replacing broken paving stones as necessary, with flags with hoof shaped holes to allow soak-away drainage; trample tolerant species of plant such as Pineapple Weed; occasional markers, natural and planted; lighting in trees. This suits the spirit of the drove, slow, as green as possible, avoiding the hard busy paved roads.
We find old markers: Lamb Lane, Sheep Lane, the Cat and Mutton pub which used to be the Shoulder of Mutton. Broadway Market used to be called Mutton Lane until it was broadened in 1811. Rowan trees were apparently good luck in drover folklore.
Straight on down Goldsmiths Row to the entrance to Haggerston Park and a route via a stile (alternative gate available!) through the wonderful Hackney City Farm for some live animals (and an award winning cafe).
In Columbia Road I find some traces of Wales and animals but alas the route is now less green. We look in vain for way finding devices such as trees which the drovers used, often manipulating and contorting them to make them more obvious. A case for some tree planting, included in the scheme.
Along Virginia Street we reach Shoreditch High Street and come to Bishopsgate. As Scots Pine were used to mark a pass by the drovers the proposition is to plant Scots Pines in the canyons of Bishopsgate interspersed with wooden butchers’ block markers, symbolising the end point for the animals. At the city limits the drovers would have handed over the drove to another set of drovers licensed by the City of London Corporation, so we end our drove here. The introduction of the railways and transportation of fresh meat by rail put an end to the drovers.
Thanks to Howard and Misty for the walk and for giving me their notes!
Further Information:
http://www.newlondonlandscape.org/project/197/Retracing-London-drovers-roads
dianajhale 
Pingback: Edible London | dianajhale
Reblogged this on Blogging Woolf and commented:
Here’s a new angle on walking in London, the city Virginia Woolf loved.
Great post, Diana. So interesting to look at drove roads from the business (ie:city market) end for a change.
I thought it was an interesting approach for a change too. Thanks Laurence.
What a fascinating read! I loved the details throughout…and lovely idea to bring seeds along. Well done!
Thanks for the kind words!
I enjoyed your post from the beginning to the end, Diana.
Have a great week!
L♥ve
Dina
Thanks Dina, you too!
As I’ve said many times, these travelogue posts are among my favorites. Your delightful combination of photography and prose make me feel as if I travel with you. Yours is quite a talent, Diana. Thanks for these.
KM
I’m intrigued by the seed bombs. Is this “guerilla gardening” or Masanobu Fukuoka’s “seed ball” (or both)?
Thank you for the vicarious experience of the walk – fascinating! I knew that Broadway Market had originally been a drovers’ road but didn’t know about the rest of the route. How wonderful if the (currently) less green areas were to become verdant again…
Great work! The link between the heart of the city and the wider landscape is a rich vein to tap!
Great post – I had previously written a post about Broadway Market – my research showed one possible reason for the ‘Cat’ was a reference to the coal barges that went under the bridge (supposedly what they were colloquially known as) – thus mutton over and cat under the bridge.
Great post Diana. Fascinating to think of these ancient paths etched across the city.
It has given me some other ideas to follow up on! I especially like the Welsh (and Scottish of course) connection.
A fascinating read Diana. Lots of discoveries and intriguing images. A new slant. Reminds me of a Melbourne housing development on the site of the former cattle sale yards. Lots of huge wooden posts and gates with old steel fixtures. Strange echoes.
That Australian example sounds fascinating – there are more echoes than I would have imagined.
Great post. Lovely to see some of the tendrils of countryside coming right into the city, and in ways other than pigeons roosting, or grass between the cracks. Can’t help but think of On A Black Hill, and from there, Birmingham’s Bullring.
I am in a greening the city mood at the moment and yes it would be good to follow up some other routes. Hadn’t thought of origins of the Bullring!
Brilliant post Diana, really enjoyed the notion of trying to rediscover these old footways forged by food.
Thanks Daniel – it is a whole new way of looking at the map!
Fascinating stuff! You ought to listen to John Gray’s most recent Point of View (BBC Radio 4 podcast or iPlayer) ‘The Doors of Perception’ in which he argues the case for Arthur Machen (no, I’d never heard of him either) being the forerunner of today’s psychogeographers.
Hi Gerry – thanks for the info on the programme. In fact I had a fantasy book by Arthur Machen back in the 70s when I liked such things more. However I did go to a talk on him recently at Housman’s Bookshop and discovered more on his Welsh origins as well as his psychogeographic wanderings in London.