Shropshire

The Shropshire is a Downs sheep and one of the few black-faced breeds on the Conservation Priority List.

Black-faced sheep were being described in that part of England as far back as 1341. In 1792 the Royal Agricultural Society counted around 10,000 native Morse Common sheep there, small horned animals with black, brown or spotted faces and unusually good wool, which the report called the pride and boast of Shropshire.

The modern breed was built on those natives. Southdown blood is credited with taking the horns off, and Cotswold and Leicester with lengthening and thickening the fleece. The name Shropshire was adopted in 1848, and the Royal Agricultural Society recognized it as a distinct breed in 1859.

The first American import landed in Virginia in 1855, and the quality was good enough that imports came frequently, sometimes in large numbers, for the next thirty years. The American Record Association, now the American Shropshire Registry, was founded in 1884.

Up to the 1930s this was one of the most popular and influential sheep breeds in the country, particularly across the northern states.