Читать книгу A Book of Britain: The Lore, Landscape and Heritage of a Treasured Countryside - Johnny Scott - Страница 19

In the early part of the century, the Duke of Hamilton imported six black Flemish stallions from Flanders which were crossed with local horses on his estates at Clydesdale, near Glasgow, to produce the eponymous Clydesdale horse. Clydesdales were the perfect multi-purpose work horse, which were eventually exported all over the world. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were over 140,000 Clydesdales in Scotland alone, and in 1911, 1,600 stallions were exported from Britain to various countries. By 1949, there were just eighty horses registered in Britain, and in 1975 the Rare Breeds Survival Trust listed the breed as ‘vulnerable’. Clydesdales have since seen a resurgence in popularity and population, resulting in the breed’s status being reclassified favourably as ‘at risk’, with an estimated global population of just 5,000 specimens.

At the same time, other landlords, such as the Earls of Chesterfield and Huntington, were developing regional draught horses by importing continental stallions from Zeeland. Later in the century, Robert Bakewell of Derbyshire, the famous improver of cattle and sheep, developed the Improved Black Horse, which was to become world famous as the Shire horse.