The Shepherds Hut Company

Pokohiwi Road, Homebush
Masterton, Wairarapa
Phone: +64 6 377 2577
Mobile: 021 027 23828
Email:info@shepherdshut.co.nz

English shepherd with his flock in the fold (Jane Sinclair Watercolour)

A bit of history ...

Shepherds Huts originated on the English downlands in the 19th Century, serving as the shepherd’s home during lambing time. As in biblical times, the shepherd “watched his flock by night”, regularly checking on the enfolded flock throughout the night. He was dressed in his characteristic smock and leggings and carrying his ecclesiastical crook. It was a solitary 24 hour a day job, with the hut often two miles or more from the farmhouse.

Shepherd’s huts invariably had a curved corrugated iron roof and wooden walls with steps leading up to a door at one end. A small stove provided heating and revived poorly lambs, whilst at the far end a bunk allowed the shepherd to take a snooze between rounds. A storm lantern, a veterinary cabinet, bags of feedstuff and basic kitchenware completed the contents. The sheepdog slept in the dry under the hut.

In Thomas Hardy’s novel, “Far from the Madding Crowd”, Gabriel Oak had his shepherd hut located on “Norcombe Hill”, now identified as Toller Down in Dorset.

Enfolding the sheep with woven hurdles had a secondary important purpose. Concentrating the sheep increased the fertility of the land and got it ready for a spring sown fodder crop,

In New Zealand, wheeled shepherds huts were not used at lambing.  Shepherds huts were permanent structures on high country runs, serving as a base for the shepherds whose job was to confine the sheep within the unfenced boundaries.

However, wheeled huts with their characteristic curved roofs and chimneys played an important role in our country’s development.

Before the invention of combine harvesters, grain was stored in haystacks awaiting the arrival of the traction engine and threshing mill some months later. The traction engine would haul a long “road train” of equipment from farm to farm. A typical “road train” would comprise the traction engine, a trailer with sacks of coal and wood to fire the boiler, the large threshing mill, possibly a chaff cutter, a cookhouse, and the “stink” - the men’s sleeping quarters. These latter two huts had many of the characteristics of a shepherds hut. The “Water Joey”, a separate horse and water cart completed the set up, ferrying water to the thirsty engine.

In the early development of farmland in Canterbury and North Otago , contract horse ploughmen worked from large camps, their accommodation being portable wooden huts on wheels with a curved roof, a small stove and a door at one end and a window at the other. On the large Longbeach Estate near Ashburton, the larger camps had fourteen of these huts.

The railways used a similar design for single working men's accommodation. Once again a curved corrugated iron roof and small stove and chimney were a feature, in typical railways cream and red colours. In this case each hut was mounted on a small rail wagon.  Several of these huts have been “rescued” and faithfully restored at the Ormondville Railway Station Precinct in Hawkes Bay . You can spend the night in one and awake to the sound of passing trains!

In a number of places In New Zealand, the characteristic form of the Shepherds Hut was seen in roadmen’s huts. A good example is at Waipawa museum in Hawkes Bay .

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