Long before sheep arrived in the Highlands it was the native cattle that grazed the rough herbage of the hills and glens.
Many a fortune was won and lost with cattle, and many a clash resulted from the lifting of cattle from secluded valleys by a neighbouring clan.
The native cattle of these areas were small and hardy and were forebears of the modern Highland breed.
Back then the colours varied from dark browns, duns, whites, brindles and blacks, contrasting starkly with today’s mainly ‘ginger’ colour seen on postcards.
These hardy cattle could be driven long distances, and once on the lush pasture of the south they fattened well.
The cattle came not only from the Highlands and Islands but also the far north, north east, Angus glens and the south west. Some were forebears of breeds such as Aberdeen-Angus and Galloway cattle.
One of the great names in the origins of the Aberdeen-Angus breed, William McCombie, started as a drover and literally followed in his father’s footsteps.
In early summer dealers and drovers would arrive from the lowlands and visit areas of the Highlands, and perhaps church bells would be rung to announce their presence.
Deals were done and droves of 100 to 300 or more cattle were gathered before heading for Falkirk.
In 1795 Sir John Sinclair estimated the value of cattle sold from the Highlands was between £200,000 and £300,000.
Many of these great droves in the north west started on the Outer Hebrides, where cattle were gathered from the small crofts and the larger clan chiefs, and in most cases they trusted the drover to get the best trade for them at the point of sale and return with the money.
These great droves were gathered up and, in the case of the islands, open boats were used to ferry the cattle.
For shorter distances, such as Kyle Rhea on Skye, cattle were swum across. These bodies of water were known in the local Gaelic tongue as kyles, and this led to the cattle being called kyloe.
Once on the mainland the drovers would follow certain routes on their road south. Originally, the routes were picked by individual drovers.
Over time, proper drove roads came into existence. Some of these old routes can still be found today.
As the routes became used on a regular basis, drovers’ inns sprang up to service the hungry and thirsty men.
These drovers were hardy, brave and fit.
They would be dressed in plaid or tweed, with the early men being bare legged. The plaid was used as a blanket for cold nights under the stars. Often a blue bonnet was worn.
A pouch containing oatmeal for sustenance on remote parts of the journey was carried.
They also carried swords and pistols which were very necessary as the droves had to pass through badlands where men like Rob Roy, a drover turned cattle thief, operated.
The routes eventually led to centres for the further gathering, organising and trading of cattle.
One of these places in the north was Muir of Ord.
Further south the routes came together at Crieff, where large trysts took place.
By 1723 between 25,000 and 30,000 cattle were traded annually.
As more English buyers came north, new tryst sites evolved firstly at Polmont, then Roughcastle and finally at Stenhousemuir, all near Falkirk.
As the Falkirk trysts grew in popularity by the end of the 18th century an aggregate of 50,000 to 60,000 cattle may have been present at these trysts.
Walking was hard on the cattle’s feet, and in some cases they were shod like horses. The smiddy at Trinafour in north Perthshire was famous for its shoes made for cattle, as was a smiddy at Crossgates in Fife whose shoes were in demand by drovers as far afield as Aberdeenshire.
Once traded at these trysts the cattle would then have to travel to England.
Crossing the border lands was probably riskier than journeying through the Highlands until the Union of Parliaments in 1707. Settled times led to more prosperity and security, although tolls and grazing charges were higher south of the border.
The drover often a Scot hired to carry on from the tryst would find routes over shallow parts of rivers and often on to higher ground to avoid road tolls after the Turnpike acts were introduced.
One of the destinations of these droves was the fair at Norwich, where local farmers would buy cattle for fattening on the grasslands of the area.
Fattened in around six months, the cattle would go to Smithfield where the trade was rising due to the navy’s demand for salt beef.
By 1835 the droving trade was at its peak.
However, several factors would lead to its decline. The arrival of modern industrialised technology, namely the steam engine, was to have a huge impact. The drovers arriving at the Falkirk trysts would no doubt see the chimneys of the Carron Ironworks belching out smoke as iron was produced for a whole host of uses.
Steam-powered shipping brought down the cost of transportation and, coupled with the improvements of the agricultural revolution, cattle could now be finished on the lowland farms of Scotland.
The new turnip crop helped produce fat cattle that had too much condition to walk to market, so many left the north east of Scotland by sea.
The agricultural revolution also saw the enclosing of more land, which led to difficulties in finding routes in lowland areas.
Eventually the arrival of railways put further pressure on the drovers, with large numbers of cattle being transported either by hoof or hook to the centres of population.
A much more secure way of trading arrived with the coming of the auction mart, with the auction company taking on the risk of non-payment.
Short droving routes were still used as late as the 1920s, but in the main it had all died out with perhaps only the odd farmer driving some sheep to a market in a town next to the farm.
The hardy drovers are not forgotten, though, as a statue by Lucy Poett of Perth honouring them was unveiled this year at Dingwall Auction Mart not far from the old tryst stance at Muir of Ord.
Inside the mart is a superb exhibition on droving which mirrors the activities of the Highland Livestock Heritage Society.
The authoritative book on the subject, ARB Haldane’s The Drove Roads of Scotland, is also now back in print.