The wild Fell ponies - Fells on the fells

The Wild Fell Ponies.

There are no Fells that are truly "wild" in the sense of "belonging to no-one". Every pony is owned by someone, though they may be running semi wild on hundreds of acres of common land. The local farms that have "fell rights" give their owners commoners' rights to turn-out ponies on the fell.

However, some fells are being cleared of ponies. Agreements with the Ministry of Agriculture (now DEFRA) compensate farmers for every pony removed and not replaced on the common land. This was intended to reduce the stocking rates on the fell and to allow natural regeneration of damaged herbage.

Foot and Mouth devastated much of Cumbria's sheep stock in 2001 and the change in the grassland was accelerated. The fell land looked startlingly different in 2002 - not bowling-green lawns, but waving stands of flowering grasses and thistles. Visitors in that year could not believe how lush everything was, and that Fell ponies are adapted to a normally much sparser diet!