How the Norfolk Horn Sheep was Brought Back from the Brink

The illustration shown above features the Old Norfolk horn sheep breed – a breed that touched on extinction in 1973 when the last surviving ram died. This iconic native sheep breed was resurrected and saved from total extinction with the help of key breeders as led by founders of the RBST: Joe Henson of the Cotswold Farm Park, Lawrence Alderson and Eric Freeman.

Norfolk Horn: A Breed Resurrected from Extinction

Ancestors of the famous Norfolk Horn sheep breed were once found everywhere across East Anglia from the Anglo-Saxon period through to the 18th century. The Norfolk Horn was a tough hardy breed. Small, feral and deer-like animals that were well suited to life ranging on the relatively poor heathlands found in the Norfolk and Suffolk Brecks. It was tough enough to not only survive but thrive on the poor sandy soils in the Brecklands and North-West Norfolk. The breed was an excellent converter of low-grade heath pastures into milk, wool, manure and meat under the four-course agricultural system unique to East Anglia.

Later, the Norfolk Horn found itself at the heart of the modernisation of farm livestock breeding during the 18th century. Ironically, the Norfolk acted as the agent of its own demise in the sense that it was the crossing of The Norfolk Horn with the Southdown during the 18th Century that produced the hugely successful Suffolk sheep breed.

By the mid-19th century, the Norfolk Horn was deeply unfashionable, considered a poor and troublesome breed by the agricultural reformers. Their feisty, wild nature and inability to remain where they were put – leaping fences to keep roaming – made them ‘difficult’ to manage. The breed was despised by agricultural modernisers, including Lord Coke at Holkham, who experimented with improved breeding to increase yields and profits. The pure breed was soon replaced by the new heavier, docile Norfolk/Southdown crosses which were held as superior in every way. The number of purebred Norfolk Horns declined dramatically and by1917 there were no Norfolks left in the county of that name with just one flock remaining elsewhere.

The survival of the breed is down to one man, Mr J.D. Sayer. Mr Sayer kept the only flock known in existence from 1895 until 1947. At this time the flock of 13 surviving Norfolks was moved to the Cambridge Animal Research station, later the remnants of this flock became the nucleus of what would become the Gene Bank at Whipsnade Zoo. Over the next 20 years, The Norfolks’ situation went from bad to disastrous. By the late 1960s, all that remained of the breed were 14 badly interbred individuals. The breed was on the brink of extinction.

Worse was to come when the last Norfolk ram died in November 1971. It was the desperate situation of the Norfolk Horn breed that led to the awareness of the need for genetic conservation of traditional farm animals. The Norfolk was the catalyst leading to the formation of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust in 1973 by Joe Henson of the Cotswold Farm Park, Lawrence Alderson and Eric Freeman.

In 1973, DNA sampling and testing was not available as a scientific aid but carefully planned back-crossing using a Suffolk ram (a related breed) ensured a recreation of the Old Norfolk breed that was as genetically close as possible to the original Norfolk breed.

As a result of dedicated and careful stewardship by a number of people, the breed survived and by 1994, the Norfolk Horn Breeders Group was established. At this time, there were fewer than 300 registered breeding ewes in existence. By the time of 2021, more than 2500 Norfolk Horn sheep were reportedly dispersed between 79 flocks found predominantly in the breed’s ancestral county of Norfolk.

Conclusion

Saving the Norfolk Horn sheep breed from the fate of extinction was a tremendous achievement on the part of the original founders of the RBST as well as all breeders who played roles in the rescue of the breed. The BBRT applauds this native breed rescue from the time of 1973 and the popularity of the Norfolk Horn breed throughout eastern England today provides full justification for this resurrection of a breed that was critically threatened by extinction.

Although still, a rare breed the Norfolk Horn as of 2022 is a long way from extinction with several large flocks throughout the country and a growing number of breed enthusiasts.

The Norfolk Horn is a medium-sized sheep, mature ewes weigh about 70kg. They are long in leg and body with narrow fore-quarters. Alert and active in character, it has a relatively fine head with a long straight profile. Both sexes are strongly horned, ideally with an open spiral, and the horns should not grow into the face or head. The fleece should be short stapled, close white wool.

It is a hardy sheep, equally well adapted to the cold dry winters and hot summers of East Anglia. They are hardy animals with good maternal instincts and excellent foraging abilities and are suitable for lamb, mutton and a good choice for conservation grazing as not requiring more than poor pasture that may be rich in wildflowers.

The British Breeds Revival Trust points to this breed rescue as being an example of outstanding success in retrieving a native breed that was poised on the very brink of extinction but was resurrected for future generations by the efforts of true conservationists who refused to see the end of one of Britains oldest native breeds of sheep that is believed to have had its origins in early Saxon sheep of the UK.

For anyone wanting to know more about the Norfolk Horn story, one of the best references is likely to be Peter Wade-Martins’ book. “Black Faces:” A History of East Anglian Sheep Breeds.

Ryder, M. L. (1983). Sheep and man. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. .. Wade-Martins, P., & Martins, S. W. (1993). Black Faces: A History of East Anglian