Leicester Longwool sheep - lovely to look at and laid back!

Helen Babbs finds out about one of the rarest British longwool breeds

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When Chris Sander acquired a small field behind his house in 2007, he decided it would be better to keep the grass short with sheep than a tractor. “We wanted something nice to look at, so we got a mix of rare breed sheep.” This included his first Leicester Longwool ewe, ‘Beatrice’. “She was lovely,” he recalls fondly. “Then we found out how rare the Leicester Longwools were and wanted to help, so we got two more, and then another ewe, and a ram...

Almost twenty years later, Chris’s fifty-strong Astcote flock, based in Northamptonshire, is part of the fewer than 500 breeding ewes which make up the total British Leicester Longwool population. “Leicester Longwools have just been classified as a “Priority” breed by the RBST, which is their highest category of concern,” he explains. “Partly this is from the impact of the Schmallenberg virus in 2024 on lamb registrations, but Leicesters are still one of the UK’s rarest sheep breeds.”

LOTS OF CURLS

With their grey noses and dark eyes peeping demurely out from under their long curling fringes, Leicester Longwool sheep have a certain heart-winning charm. Their curling, typical longwool fleeces cover their whole body from “topknot” to tail, including the belly, but with legs, ears and faces wool-free. The breed exists as both a white strain and a coloured strain, which are registered in different flock books. “I currently run 20 white ewes and 25 black,” says Chris, “along with eight rams from three different bloodlines.”