Kingsway, London, UK
(Unknown / Fox Photos / Getty)
Purely picturesque as this scene might seem, sheep were actually brought into central London for motives of efficiency. The cost of keeping the grass of the capital’s many pastoral parks under control could be significantly reduced by outsourcing the task to flocks of sheep.
Competition existed within the shepherding community for the right to graze sheep on the pastures of London’s parks. While sheep were barred, as it were, from the parks at the end of the 1950s, they have more recently been returning to their labors in the capital city, with flocks to be found on London’s Hampstead Heath.
In this photograph, a flock is being driven down Kingsway from Aldwych towards Holborn.
‘What else can show the eye a canvas such as this? A browsing flock, man’s diligent friend, the sheepdog. Little wonder that passersby look on with contentment at such beauty.’
London shepherd, 1948
