We’ve had some great suggestions for what might have been going on in this picture since we published it on Field Day.
Some were distinctly tongue-in-cheek but we think, finally, we’ve got to the bottom of the mystery photo which I unearthed in an old cupboard in Farmers Weekly’s head office.
On the FWi forums, Darling came up with two ideas – the first sheep ever to try bungee jumping or one of the entrants preparing for the annual “Miss Wet and Woolly Competition”.
The Beast reckoned it shows some sort of sheep-based life-saving device – pre-Baywatch, of course! And Taff thought it looked like a scene involving Shaun the Sheep from Wallace and Gromit.
Hackedofffarmer suggested it showed some sort of sheep waterskiing competition, while others feared the poor animal was either being used as shark bait or suffering a case of mistaken identity and had convinced itself it was a lemming.
A more likely answer came from Mopsa who reckoned the sheep were being washed before shearing and pointed us here for more information on this practice here.
This theory was supported by farmer Philip Trafford. He also suggested the venue was Grange Bridge in Borrowdale in Cumbria, but was sure the picture was taken before 1974, which was the date I’d seen written on the back it. Droverjess agreed the photo looked as if it was taken long before 1974.
BillR also recalled sheep being washed by sending them across a deep part (known as a ''dub'') of a beck or a river – although it usually needed the first sheep to be thrown in to encourage the rest. But he’d never, he said, seen the decoy sheep on a rope - or such a crowd of tourists.
Katiecawthorpe said her grandpa, Peter Pitcher, believes that the picture was taken at Ashford-in-the-Water in Derbyshire on the river Wye. Biofuelsimon agreed that was the spot, as did Jacobus – who said it was a good match for a photo he’d seen of the bridge on the internet.
The blurb Jacobus discovered noted: It was originally a medieval packhorse bridge and it is only until recently, that sheep were washed here prior to shearing. The lambs would be penned within the stone-walled pen on one side of the river, whilst the mothers would be thrown in at the other side. They would naturally swim across to their offspring, thus ensuring a good soaking.
The definitive answer seems to have come from Sarah Brocklehurst who lives at Highfield Farm near to this spot. The two men, she says, are Alan Atkin and Chris Furness giving a demonstration of sheep washing at the annual Wells Dressing Week.
The sheep used to be washed prior to shearing as a bonus price was given to washed wool, Sarah points out, but the practice stopped in the early 1960s when there was no price difference for washed wool.
Sarah’s asked if she could have the full set of photos as her father-in-law appears in one of them. They’re in the post to you, Sarah...
Good to know that sheepwashing didn't only happen in Sheepwash or the land would be peppered with villages of the same name which would make travelling and navigating very confusing.