Travels with a Pony by Walter Lloyd

Description

TRAVELS WITH A PONY – A Beginner’s guide to travelling horsedrawn. 

Walter Lloyd began his rambling at the age of 11, when he regularly roamed the hills of West Penwith in Cornwall with donkeys, and he has never been far away from horses and ponies ever since.  In 1957 he established the Hades Hill herd of Fell Ponies in Rossendale and after moving (horsedrawn) to the Lake District in 1986 he  lived in a bow-top living wagon among his ponies for the next 30 years.

In 1977 he made his first trip ‘by road’ (i.e. horsedrawn) to Appleby Fair, and built his first bow top wagon in 1986. Since then he has made that same trip over 30 times, and knows the back roads and stopping places, the bad hills, good watering places, and the summer campfires all the way from Rossendale to Appleby and back again.

This book is a guide for beginners who would like to follow that path and travel the country by horsepower alone. It is a manual on how to choose your pony, how to catch it, break it to driving, and how to choose a cart and harness. It covers what you need to know about different types of wheel, how to tether a horse, shoeing, feeding, and about smallholdings, implements and some of the lore and language of the people of the road.

Walter Lloyd’s experience was hard won – as he acknowledges, it arose mostly from his mistakes – and although this book may not stop anyone repeating those mistakes, it provides a series of signposts along the road: what to look out for, what to avoid, and most important – why it is worth bothering.

Written in an informal, conversational style, Walter’s shared experiences provide a rare insight into another world.

“The road is long, but the way is sweet….”

 

[whohit]Wilwood – TWAP[/whohit]