'Portland
Sheep- a breed with a history' written by Norman Jones, with
financial support from the RBST is available from the PSBG via
the Secretary now click here.
The following is a summary of some of the content. 
It is very difficult to identify the origin of the Portland
breed with any certainty.
The Portland has probably been less influenced by commercial
pressures for improvements to the quality or quantity of milk,
wool, or the number of lambs a ewe could produce than other
British breeds, and so more closely resembles its primitive
origin.
However, there are fundamental differences between Portlands
and other primitive British breeds.
• The Soay and Shetland are smaller and short-tailed
• the Portland is long-tailed and can lamb out of season.
• out of season breeding and long tails are common to
Mediterranean breeds.
• tan-faced horned primitive sheep were found throughout
the south west of England before the Roman Conquest.
 At
the time of the Roman invasion there already was a significant
local wool trade, often a measure of the prosperity of a community.
The advent of dyeing increased the value of white fleeces resulting
in selection and cross breeding of sheep. The appearance of
the primitive breeds changed, although the colour of face and
legs and the presence of coloured kemp remained. A characteristic
of more primitive sheep is that their lambs are born with their
original colouring. These features of the Portland suggest that
it is closer to its primitive origins than most breeds.
Regardless of their origin, Portland sheep were kept on an island
and preserved from many of the influences affecting sheep on
the mainland.
•
Portlanders have always chosen to live in a closed community
which influenced contact with the outside world’s agricultural
practice.
• The island is barren with a thin soil incapable of
providing rich grazing for animals ensuring that the breed
remained small, hardy, agile, and not usually producing more
than one lamb.
The Mediterranean influence may have been introduced during
the Roman occupation through crossbreeding of indigenous stock
with imported animals.
The Saxon system of apportioning land in strips and identifying
Common land with strict rules laid down for its use has survived
right into the 20th century on Portland. The sheep were folded
at night to provide manure for the cornfields. Meat production
was less important and tithes were paid with wool and cheese
from sheep's milk, for which there was a trade with the mainland.
Only when communication with the outside world improved did
Portland mutton gain its reputation for excellent flavour.
William the Conqueror retained the strategically important manor
of Portland for himself and with it the governing laws of the
Manor Court and administration of local affairs as established
by the Saxons. These practices and customs have survived to
the present day, and were jealously guarded by the local people
whose insularity ensured that farming methods did not change
and the sheep flocks continued to be run on a feral basis.
The Doomsday Book records that in1299 there were nine hundred
sheep on Portland.
As early as the 13th century there was a Portland Fair held
on 5th November where sheep and cattle were sold and stock exchanged.
Despite the lack of a bridge stock was sold to people from the
mainland and conveyed across Smallmouth in a ferry.
The number of sheep grew until there were four flocks of 1000
sheep each in 1840. Sir George Crew Bart in 1835 recorded the
conditions under which they were raised, and the nature of the
sheep during a visit to Portland to purchase some additions
to his flock at Calke Abbey in Derbyshire.
The sheep population on Portland peaked at about this time,
but after 1847 the building of a breakwater around Portland
harbour by penal labour meant the purchase of vast areas of
farming and common land. Sheep numbers declined throughout the
next century, aggravated by commercial pressure for larger carcasses,
until the last Portlands left the Island in 1920 to be sold
in Dorchester where the auctioneer had difficulty in getting
a bid.
The breed had almost become extinct, and it was only due to
the efforts of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust that the remaining
animals were traced and recorded in 1974 as a total of 86 breeding
ewes, and three major bloodlines:
•
Field/ Marsden,
• Stubbs/Clutton and
• Harpur Crewe.
A policy of a combination of line breeding and cyclic crossing
was adopted, and by 1988, fifteen years after the programme
was established, almost half of the foundation ewes and about
two thirds of the foundation rams were represented in the current
crop of lambs.
The 1996 survey indicated that the breed was no longer threatened.
• Portlands were reintroduced on the Island in 1977
at the instigation of the Portland Field Research Group, and
this flock was subsequently taken over by the Portland Prison.
• The Portland Sheep Breeders Group was established
in 1993 with over 100 members.
• There are 250 registered breeders throughout the whole
of the country.
The Portland breed should now survive and with it certain qualities
that may have commercial importance in the future.
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