DROVING DAYS

In the decades before a rapid growth of the railway system changed the face of Britain forever, and for some decades afterwards, long-distance cattle droving was an everyday occurrence. One of the main channels of supply to the English market - though by no means the only one - led from Scotland, where hardy black Galloway cattle flourished, all the way south to Norfolk and the St Faith's selling fair, and then to London's Smithfield market, quite often following rest and fattening on the Norfolk/Suffolk marshes. 
In the late 1990s, while researching a novel (Hudson's Drove - see publications list), I travelled to Scotland by car and then turned south and followed one of these droving routes back to Norfolk.
Traces of this once vast trade are hard to find nowadays, but bits and pieces do still survive: folklore stories; banknotes, devised so that drovers did not need to carry coins; pubs called The Black Bull, or something similar; small items, such as iron shoes, at various local museums; and so on. And the occasional word. Stance, for example, which meant an overnight stopping place (and in Dumfries, at least, now means a bus stop).
As for these lingering stories, I particularly like the one of the Norfolk drover who, having reached Smithfield and being in receipt of his money, regularly ordered his dog to return to Norwich, alone and using its own devices. The owner, of course, had previously made monetary arrangements for it to be fed and rested at various hostelries along the way.
I went by car to Dumfries and then drove north through Thornhill towards the Lowther Hills, once one of the great trysting or meeting places of the herds. Here, the deals were done, contracts signed, and droves assembled. Then the vast herds would set off for Norfolk accompanied by four or five drovers using several possible routes, most usually Bowness (though this involved a dangerous crossing of the Solway Firth at low water), or more often, one suspects, Gretna and Carlisle. My own route took me through Lazonby and Bowes, Catterick, Wetherby and Retford, and on to Bourne, where the drovers must have faced yet another choice.
To get to Wisbech for the crossing of the river Nene they could either follow the inland route across the marshy fenlands, or turn east towards Spalding and Long Sutton. However, unless they turned south at Long Sutton towards Wisbech this would also have entailed another dangerous estuary crossing, this time at the old Cross Keys terminal close by what is now Sutton Bridge.
I'm sure this Cross Keys route into Norfolk was tried by some of the drovers, but other than the names of a couple of pubs - The Bull, for example - or Dockings Holt, which may or may not have been a cattle holding area, I have never come across any reference to my home town, Long Sutton, having any regular role in the long-distance trade. My guess, for what it is worth, is that the herds stuck largely to the inland fen route and crossed the Nene at Wisbech.
Once over the Nene the drovers would then move into Norfolk at Setch (or Setchy) before beginning the final lap of their journey to St Faith's Fair, held not far from Norwich. Here the cattle would be sorted and sold and later rested before making their last journey, to London's Smithfield market.
The spread of the rail network killed off the long-distance trade, though droving on a smaller scale continued at local levels until many of the old livestock markets faded away and the cattle were carted by lorry. Nevertheless, the Scotland-Norfolk droves must have been a memorable sight, while the head drovers, despite their sometimes colourful reputations, were very largely men of honour. Indeed, they had to be as they were trusted, for weeks on end, with stock worth a very great deal of money.