Profile - Andrew & Pauline Lyle
Dedicated to the survival of our Exmoor Horn Sheep
By Chris Binding
Gaze out from the terraced garden of Oare House on Exmoor and take in the spectacularview. What you are seeing is, quite literally, a legend. In front of you, across two small oak-fringed paddocks, is 800-year-old Oare church, where, in the classic love story by R.D. Blackmore, tragic heroine Lorna Doone was shot on the altar steps. The panorama widens to take in what has become known as the Doone Valley, wild, remote, timeless. And Oare House, with a history of its own stretching back to 1646, stands sentry-like to guard the treasures that lie before it.
Among those treasures are a very special group of animals which are as much a part of the landscape as the vibrant yellow gorse and diamond clean streams: the Exmoor Horn sheep. Oare House is now the home of Pauline Lyle and her husband Andrew, who have dedicated themselves - Pauline cheerfully admits to it being an obsession - to help ensure the survival of this ancient and distinctive breed, whose numbers have been threatened by more intensive farming and the introduction of 'alien' breeds.
The Exmoor, with its cheery white face and distinctive curled horns, regularly finds itself caricatured on countless 'Greetings From Exmoor' postcards and shows its disregard for modern life by wandering
at will across unfenced roads, peering quizzically at frustrated drivers. In fact, it has wandered the moor for centuries, strong and hardy enough to withstand the freezing, cruel winters which blast across the high hills each year - and yet easy to manage and handle when the time comes for lambing or shearing.
A century ago, when inter-breeding threatened the purity of the stock, farmers formed the Exmoor Horn Breeder's Society to help protect the animals for posterity. In 2006, Pauline, as then chairman of the Society, led a successful campaign to secure £40,000 of Defra funding to help promote the breed. Now, following the success of that campaign, the Society is in the process of seeking funding for a marketing push to promote Exmoor Horn lamb and mutton to restaurants, retail butchers and consumers across
Exmoor and the surrounding area. The Society has launched the Exmoor Horn meat brand and now consumers can enjoy delicious joints or have half a lamb delivered directly to their door through an internet box scheme.
Present Society chairman, Edward Harding, said: "The ability to sell pure Exmoor Horn branded meat is a defining moment in the long history of our society. For the first time, consumers anywhere in the country, through our next-day delivery scheme, will be able to purchase delicious, pure Exmoor Horn lamb directly from Exmoor farms."
Their passion for Exmoor Horns has seen the Lyles pick up star prizes at shows all over the country and Pauline has become a respected show judge in her own right, with a trained eye for a perfect specimen of the breed - a broad forehead, nicely downward-curved horns that end in a waxy colour, a straight and level back with a big tail, docked short. The high-quality wool produced at shearing time is sought after by the makers of the finest British tweed. And, as with the top dogs at Crufts, the animals chosen for showing receive some special treatment. "We bath them in coconut oil shampoo, train them on halters to get used to being handled and led and then their fleece is trimmed to perfection. They look sensational - and they love it," says Pauline.
The Lyles have 215 acres of Exmoor, and while some is rented out and other areas are woodland or unusable, they still have room for 65 lambing ewes, 60 other young ewes and 12 rams. Pauline manages the flock with some help from retired shepherd Gerald Down, an Exmoor veteran with a wealth of experience.
So how did it all begin? Pauline bought her first two pens of stock from a local market, but they were north-country Cheviots, an alien breed as far as the locals were concerned and the couple were ribbed mercilessly for this 'betrayal'. To put matters right, she brought in 20 Exmoor Horn ewes from a neighbour - and a ram, later to be named Victor (after Meldrew, the miserable TV star.)
What started as an interest, very quickly became a passion as Pauline's love for the traditional breed grew. She is bottle-feeding two new-born lambs as she tells me: "Every sheep I have ever had has had its own character. You get to know them and they grow to trust you. It becomes a wonderful relationship."
The couple also take seriously the well-being of their beloved Exmoor. Andrew is churchwarden at Oare church, where thousands of tourists visit every year, many on the trail of the Lorna legend, though the age of the internet and other hi-tech entertainment has recently affected numbers. "This is a wonderful area for people to visit," says Andrew. "There will always be a welcome in the valley here for them."
Yes, a legendary welcome. And, if the Lyles and others in the Society have their way, there will always, always be Exmoor Horns grazing the moor as they have done since time immemorial. And their future will be made even more secure if the marketing campaign currently under way makes their marvellous meat the most sought-after in the country.
