How woolly residents have shaped a timeless landscape

True long before Ord's time, that remains true today. Whether foraging in deep heather, grazing by a moorland stream or sheltering by a dry stone wall, the moor sheep are as much part of the moors as the heather itself.

Without the sheep, the moors wouldn't exist. For it is their extensive grazing, especially since the monasteries created their great sheep runs, that has stopped scrub invading the moors. Helping to keep the heather in good heart, the constant nibbling by sheep also maintains the moorland turf and checks bracken. The late Mr Dick Bell, a forester and gamekeeper who became the first full-time warden of the Moors national park, aptly dubbed the sheep the "park keepers."

Introduced by the New Stone Age nomads who were the region's first settlers in about 3000 BC, sheep have played a part in creating the landscape for as long as man. But their crucial contribution came with that monastic age in the 12th century. With the double aim of taming the wildernesses that made up their estates, and developing a sustainable economy, the monks turned to sheep. Grazing cleared land, these fed and clothed the monks, and earned income through the sale of their wool. The sheepskin was used as parchment.

The largest monastic flock was Rievaulx's, whose 14,000 sheep were of two breeds. The larger, which supplied milk as well as meat and wool, is believed to have been an ancestor of today's Wensleydale, a breed not now kept on the moors.

The smaller, a blackfaced sheep, was almost certainly a forerunner of both the Scottish Blackface, the "traditional"sheep of the moors, and its now-more-numerous companion, the Swaledale.

First recognised as a separate breed in its native dale in 1920, the latter was introduced to the moors the following year when Mr Jack Calvert, of Keld, moved to Langdale End, Hackness, bringing some Swaledales with him.

In 1922, Mr Estill Peacock, of New Gill Farm, Farndale, also began breeding with a Swaledale ram and two ewes bought from Mr Jack Hodgson of Askrigg, Wensleydale.

To the layman, the only difference between a Swaledale and a Blackface is the white patch, or "badge," across the Swaledale's snout. But the Blackface is stockier and heavier, providing more meat on a carcase better suited for butchering. Its fleece is also thicker.

Accounting for about a quarter of the moor sheep in the North York moors, the Blackface is found chiefly in Eskdale, particularly Commondale, and at Hutton-le-Hole.

The greater popularity of the Swaledale rests on key practical and economic advantages. Prepared to range further for natural food, the Swaledale is less dependent on costly supplementary feed. This means less labour.

Retired Eskdale farmer Mr Jim Muir, former long-serving secretary and chairman of the Blackfaced sheepbreeders' association of North East Yorkshire, says: "To get the best out of Blackface you need to shepherd them more."

The Swaledale has also proved ideal for the complex crossbreeding at the heart of sheep farming. When its moor days are over, a Swaledale ewe is crossed with a Blue-faced Leicester. Termed a Mule, the offspring of this union is crossed with a Suffolk or Texel to create top quality fat lambs.

Formed in 1820 by farmers around Goathland and Levisham to prosecute sheep stealers, the Blackfaced breeders' association now represents moor sheep farmers generally.

Alas, they are a diminishing band. Since 1976 membership of the BSA has declined from 130 to about 95. Over a longer period, the reduction in moorland flocks has been more dramatic - from 406 in 1954 to about 140 today.

And though the average flock size has increased from about 100 breeding ewes to about 300, the overall number of sheep, now estimated at between 50,000 and 60,000, is thought to have declined by half.

The diminishing economic returns for hill farmers have been worsened by road deaths among flocks. These reached crisis level in 1979 when about 600 sheep alongside the Whitby-Guisborough and Whitby-Pickering roads - about 10pc of the total - were killed. Thirty years of wrangling preceded the fencing of these highways - a scheme crowned by a visit from the minister of agriculture, who unveiled a plaque at Sleights.

But the fences came too late for many farmers. By the Whitby-Guisborough road, where 3,256 sheep grazed in 1977, it is now quite an event to spot a sheep. The scenic loss is considerable, with thistles and rough grass replacing the cropped roadside turf, and a kind of heathland - at best a mixture of birch, pine and leggy old heather, at worst a wilderness of gorse and coarse grass - ousting the broader panorama of heather.

The carnage on some secondary roads is now reaching the scale that compelled action on the main roads. Almost 300 sheep died on the Lockwood Beck to Hutton-le-Hole road in 1994. Among ideas seriously considered by the national park authority as alternatives to fences has been clothing lambs in luminous jackets!

But better anticipation by drivers would cut out most sheep deaths. And to any motorist who complains that sheep shouldn't be allowed to wander on the road, the answer is that the sheep were there long before the cars - or the roads.

Whatever causes the withdrawal of a moorland flock, its removal imperils others. For moor flocks are "heeafed" - meaning they remain instinctively on their own stretch of moor. But without a neighbouring flock similarly "heeafed" they lose this territorial sense. As Mr Muir neatly puts it: "The best boundary for one flock is another." Following the retirement of a Hutton-le-Hole shepherd in 1996, and the sale of his 300-strong flock, it has required three new cattle grids to prevent the sheep that graze the village greens wandering far away. A similar problem at Danby has not been resolved.

Shepherding involves much more movement of flocks than many people suppose. The shepherding cycle begins in October-November when the ewes are fetched down from the moor to join the tups (rams) in enclosed fields. After three weeks, the pregnant ewes are returned to the open moor, where they spend the winter. The shepherd regularly checks them and puts out feed.

In April they are brought down again for lambing. Until fairly recently this took place on the open moor, as farmers believed that instant acclimatisation to the sometimes-harsh environment made a better sheep. But since a shortage of labour forced shepherds to carry out lambing in the fields, this traditional wisdom has been turned on its head. "Inby" lambing, as it is called, has raised the survival rate of lambs from about 85pc to 95pc.

After lambing, at the end of April, the flock is returned to the moor. But it is brought down yet again for the ewes to be clipped in late June or July. And a further round-up takes place in August when the "draught ewes," adults too old to face another moorland winter, are brought off to be sold for the breeding programme. This usually occurs when the ewe is six years old and has lambed four times, generally producing a single lamb each time. She will spend a further two years on a lowland farm.

Together with the draught ewes, "wether lambs," castrated males, are also sold in late summer. Still great moorland occasions, sheep sales take place at Goathland, Glaisdale, Castleton, and the Lion, Blakey. Four more - at Kildale, Swainby, and two at Ingleby Greenhow - have disappeared.

The bulk of the farmer's income comes from the sale of the draught ewes and wether lambs. The fleeces rarely bring more than the cost of clipping - and sometimes not even that.

Tough and wiry, the wool of both Blackface and Swaledale is used chiefly in carpets. Some Blackface wool goes to Italy as stuffing for mattresses. Amazingly, this trade is a direct link with Rievaulx Abbey's sheep days, for much Rievaulx wool was bought by Italian merchants. They lodged at the abbey's great woolhouse, foundations of which survive at Bilsdale's Laskill Farm.

Bilsdale's many sheep-inspired farm names - Ewe Cote, Woolhouse Cote, Wether Cote, High Ewe Cote and more - testify to the former dominance of Rievaulx's sheep farming.

Other names mirroring the strong link between sheep and the moors are Sheepwash, near Osmotherley, the Sheep's Pool, another former dipping place, in Harwood Dale, and the Rudstone, identifying a bed of iron-rich clay on Urra Moor, which shepherds used to make reddle for marking their sheep.

Best of all is the continuing presence of the sheep themselves. They give life and character to any moorland scene, none of which is truly complete without them. Long may they treat the uplands of the North York moors as their "peculiar domain."

l This is one of 49 cameos of the moors, on topics ranging from villages and personalities, to pubs, moorland stones, vanished industries and contemporary issues, in Harry Mead's A Prospect of the North York Moors, (Hutton Press, £9.95).