Sheep drovers faced a long and winding road
JAMES Tait did his droving entirely with cattle, and could not have done many droves to Carlisle in a season, maybe only one in early summer and one in autumn, but, before we get too far south, what of the sheep that were so much a part of the Highland Clearances? They too had to get to market and that was in the south.
The most remote of sheep runs in the entire country was Balnakeil in the far north-west of Sutherland beyond Durness, still farmed today by the Elliots who came north long since, I think from Roxburghshire.
In 1880 John Scott was in Balnakeil, rented at £1385, Drumswordlan was rented by John Scobie at £1000, the next largest, Achumore, was occupied by John Elliott at a rent of £893. I think the same Elliots are still there as well as near Kelso with the noted Rawburn herd of Aberdeen Angus. Clarke was in Eriboll where the farm buildings sit still in full use beside the main road. The Eriboll wethers in 1879 brought 40s that year, and the cast ewes at four years old 30s 6d. These family names are still to the fore.
Not till after 1874 could rail transport begin to be made use of from Lairg, and slightly before that from Bonar Bridge. The sheep still had to take the long road south from Balnakeil via Laxford and on down beside Loch Shin to Lairg. Worth taking a look at a good road map to follow their long drove track. Strathnaver sheep runs would also head south for Lairg but by a different track. Halladale of course went by Kildonan and Glen Loth, as did Caithness sheep.
It was the custom to keep the wethers sometimes to four years old, not producing lambs but often living on the poorer hirsels, or sheep runs, becoming with time pretty large sheep and producing mainly good clips of wool. The yield ranged from three-and-a-half pounds from dipped hoggs to six pounds from smeared wethers, smeared being the practice of smearing a mixture of rancid butter and tar on the fleeces of the sheep as weatherproofing for winter. It must have been a messy business and the wool must have needed a great amount of cleansing by the wool mills before being usable.

Some of the largest sheep farms had possibly five ewe hirsels producing lambs, each with its own shepherd, and one wether hirsel also with its wether shepherd. A wether for the uninitiated of today is a male castrated sheep.
Caithness farmers such as incomers Purvis, later of Thurdistoft, Lochend, Barrock Mains Barrogill, Hoy, etc, had large sheep runs in Sutherlandshire and many Sutherland flockmasters also often took Caithness farms on rent to grow turnips for wintering their wethers and sometimes their ewe hoggs before returning them to summer on the hills of the west. There was one dreadful winter when many sheep were saved by getting them to Kinbrace and entraining them to Caithness. Not all made it and losses of Sutherland sheep that year were astronomic.
Inverness wool fair was the target for many and there are tales of southern sheepmen coming to Inverness buying sight unseen from these northern flockmasters, buying from past purchases and long knowledge and reputation of the flocks. It still goes on today at the Lairg sheep sales, though the sheep will be before them in the sale ring.
The markets for sheep were more Scottish as the emerging industries of the central belt grew. Many Highlanders emigrated to work in the south, if not going abroad to foreign lands, and there are more Macs in Edinburgh and Glasgow than in the entire Highlands. New Lanark Mills of Robert Owen fame has a Caithness Street, still in good order and still lived in with modernised apartments. The explosion of population of the 1800s needed much farm production, and Sutherland sheep made their proper contribution.
I have little knowledge of sheep droving, the tracks had to be easier than for cattle, but sheep could swim if need be and at the Kyle of Durness, Sharon and I saw two mobs being pushed out onto a spur of gravel, increasing the pressure from behind until it forced first one and then another to jump in and swim across, though it was but a short enough distance.
A second mob following the first just went straight out on the spit and with no hesitation at all jumped in and swam across, following the first trail.
So sheep droving, though not so well documented as cattle, was big business with its own history.