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OO/HO Gauge Model Railway Wagon Load - Limestone
OO/HO Gauge Model Railway Wagon Load - Limestone
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Specialist Aggregates Ltd Marine Arts
Geese Walking to Market
Friday 23 December, 2011
News Brief

Surface dressed roads evolved from droving geese

Full Story:

This festive season reminded me of the practice in the 18th and 19th century of coating the feet of geese with hot tar and then sand before droving them to market. Geese were walked to markets in London fom East Anglia and even from as far away as Wales and Devon.

The common belief is that this tar and sand "surface dressing" was to protect the feet, but why just geese? Tens of thousands of cattle, pigs and even turkeys were also transported "on the hoof" but contemporary records seem to indicate that with these animals the feet were protected by leather boots.

Whilst we are no expert on geese, our take on this is that the tar was applied to prevent their web feet from drying out on the dusty roads of the time and would have the added benefit of being anticeptic shoud abrasions occur.

With the coming of the railways in the mid 19th century, the practice of droving declined.

Our images show conventional "tar spray and chip" a process used to improve and maintain roads. A practice first developed in the late 19th century has remained little changed except that tar, a by-product of coke manufacture has been replaced with oil based bitumen.

We are not sure if something similar is still being practiced in Devon with this shot taken at the superb holiday accommodation at Sampsons Farm near Newton Abbot

We would love to hear your comments on this story


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Geese Walking to Market
Geese Walking to Market
Geese Walking to Market
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